self portrait

I've been playing around with an old canvas, unfortunately a rectangular one, in which I've doodled this self portrait.  I have no idea what I'm going to do with it.  I played with putting biographical elements around the portrait, wiped them out, but maybe something I'll do again.

Cleveland Park House Sketch

I intended to paint the lily pond at Tregaron today, but there was construction adjacent to the garden and it was far from the peaceful spot I loved painting at last year.  The neighborhood nearby, Cleveland Park, is filled with huge historic Queen Anne style houses with big porches and charming gardens.  I took a lot of pictures of the houses and finally found one in sunlight that I could paint from a shady spot.  I had about an hour to play around with it. The round turret and porch were really fun to paint; not so much fun to paint the rest of the house.  Oddly, the windows are spaced differently in the two rear parts of the house and it looked strange to paint them that way.  After painting it outside looking at the house, I worked a bit more on this in the studio.

Portrait of Claudia

NYC Garden

During the torrential downpour outside, I worked in the studio on a peaceful garden painting.  The NYC garden off Washington Square park is blooming with tulips and there's two trees that twist like a double helix or maybe the arms of a dancer.  The twist in the trees has led me to paint the setting with some motion.

this is what it looked like as I was working on it

Remembering Orcas Island

Loosening up the still life

After painting the tight and detailed view of this set up, in which the interplay of patterns of the cloth and flowers was my focus,  I decided to reexamine the still life.

This painting is looser and takes a wider view of the set up.  I decided the dark winey-purple leaves in the arrangement were too strong for my new idea and I replaced them with roses.

This is where it is now, not sure if I'm going to play around with it more.

Warm & Cool in the Still Life

I think this is the finished still life.  I made the choice to emphasize the contrast between the cool, intricately patterned foreground with a warm and simple background.  The inclusion of the mango in the painting really led me there -- the red side of the fruit called for a warm background.

Of course, painting is about making choices like this and my show at the Foundry is all about the way I rethought and repainted those choices.  So ... I wonder if I should give this a go again with a cooler background ?  The bouquet seems to be holding its own, so I might just try that next.

Still Life Challenge

I was reminded yesterday of a very purple painting I'd done years ago (which is now on the top of this page) and I was thinking that I'd work on a painting in blues and purples today.  I set up a still life with two printed cotton cloths, a green and crimson/purple bouquet, a green water bottle and a mango.

It's a lot of work just getting into the patterns, but here's where it is as of now.  More work to be done tomorrow.  I have a feeling a few of the elements of the bouquet will be shriveled and gone before I finish.

this is the set up for the still life

this is how it looks in progress

Dupont Circle Metro and South Entrance

I fully expected I'd be painting outside by now... but it's been cold, windy, rainy and it just hasn't happened yet.  These are two views at Dupont Circle metro -- one is looking down the escalator and the other is the streetscape where you come out of Dupont Circle South.  The street on the right side of the streetscape painting is 19th Street.

Riding Down the Metro Escalator

I painted people riding up the escalator a couple of weeks ago... now I've painted the ride down.  The perspective is really a mind-bender since if you compare riding up vs down.  I love the way the metal escalators reflect color and light and the riders!

Next is a somewhat more abstract look at metro riders.  Still working on that.