Hydrangeas & Clematis

I brought flowers in from my garden to paint -- most of my blue hydrangeas died back to the ground over the winter, but my oakleaf hydrangeas and "lady in red" are both in full bloom.  This is a small painting -- 12 x 16 and I'm thinking of using it as a study for a much larger painting.

Flower Painting, one more time!

I've been working on a flower painting, another angle on the arrangement I've now painted in a few different ways from the studies I'd done last summer and the photos I took of the set up. In this painting, I decided to include the meadow-like view out the window, which shows how the color and feel of Maine flows from outside to inside.  This is a smaller painting, 16 x 20.

It was fun last night to be at an event held at a gorgeous apartment owned by people who have three of my paintings and a print of mine.  I was nervous -- I hadn't seen the work up on the walls (as much as I do move things in and out of my house, it's nothing like seeing the work in a someone else's home) and I wondered how they'd hung them, especially the 5 foot wide painting of Roses, Paris, Spring.   Wow, I hope it doesn't sound self-involved to say this, but I was incredibly moved to see how my work (and the other art and photographs they've hung) took its place in their home.  A very gratifying experience, and I spoke to many people who were interested in the paintings and talking about the places and ideas in them.

Looking at a Phone on the Metro Escalator

This captures what's maybe a rare thing -- only ONE person looking at a phone while riding up the metro escalator.  Usually everyone is!

Start & Finish of the next metro painting

I started working on this today and I am so into the movement in it... another aspect of this experience to explore.  I have a lot more paint to put on, but I will be working on keeping that sense of motion alive.

Today I went back into the painting to work out some of the angles -- the perspective in this painting is fun, and the intense light from the top of the escalator really pulls you up there.  The black paint is going to benefit from the evening effect of varnish once it's dry.

A Metro Trip

After experimenting with metro paintings and bringing up the color that's so deeply hidden in the dark escalator tunnel, I decided to let loose with the interpretation.  The arcs are there -- that's the way the round tunnels are constructed -- and much of the color is what you see if you are really looking.  But when your mind is wandering on the Bethesda escalator, maybe this is what you see in the 2 1/2 minute trip.

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