Irises

Stats: 10x8x.75" oil on canvas
Playlist: Appalachian Spring, Aaron Copland
Beverage: Dark and stormy

It's funny. I had this open studio, and then I kept my own art up for my parents to see when they visited two weekends later, and a lot of people had the same comment. My floral still lifes are abstract. They're technically not - they're just painted quickly with liberal interpretation of shape. I like getting into the zone and painting what I see, but sometimes I'm not looking at the same image I started off with. I shift to the left or right. For example, in the tulips I painted in +/- I completely forgot to paint a blossom that would have been located in the upper left corner.

Those who know me will understand this as a common theme in my personal life. Oh yeah, the most basic life thing - usually washing the dishes - totally slipped my mind. I focus so much on other things I am passionate about that I sometimes miss the basic step of "which bag did I put my sunglasses in." (Three weeks later I remembered.) I blame it on the right-brainedness. In my defense, when I'm on top of a subject, I'm really, truly on top of it. That subject just does not happen to be location of sunglasses.

Painting is an outlet, after all, and when I tried to make it something else I got so frustrated that I stopped for three years. I know my limitations and I know my strengths. I try to play to my strengths by painting quickly, with energy, so that I feel as though I am expressing my soul in creativity. One of my favorite songs to listen to while painting is a French song by Mylene Farmer called "Dessines-moi un mouton" (Draw me a sheep). In the chorus it says "le monde est vide sans imagination" (the world is empty without imagination), and I feel like I am being true to my contribution to the world when I paint.

All that said, as I've grown in my appreciation for using art as a personal creative outlet, and listening to my inner creativity, I have found space to expand and develop my own technique. But let me tell you - that did not happen in a college course. It was only when I returned to the love of expressing creativity that I could apply formulas.

So, as an artist who knows her academic theory, I posit to you that no, these floral still lifes such as "Lillies" are not in fact abstract. They are rather an expression of my inner creativity - at its peak since I was painting for my mother and I tend to express personal feelings about "clients" in paintings. A true expression of how I view the flowers in actuality. I will partially cede to you and call them "abstracted." But for me these frenetic flowers are real.

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Orchids Positive



Orchids Negative



Stats: 2 10x8x3/4 oil on canvas
Playlist: See previous post
Beverage: Dark and stormy

These two follow the previous two positive and negative tulip paintings from my previous post. The same theory applies - the negative images uses all complementary colors. Again, let me know where to go from here! I got some great feedback from the Open Studio, which I will post next time, but I always look for more.

On a side note, I like this composition better than the tulips, and the flowers lasted a lot longer. I am going to have to raise my prices to be able to comfortably afford to paint orchids from now on. They are lovely.

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Tulips Positive



Tulilps Negative



Stats: 10x8x3/4 oil on canvas
Playlist: Newly downloaded - Vorspiel, The Planets - Jupiter, Lever du Jour, Lux Aeterna (from Requiem for a Dream), I Believe, Lake Michigan (da lake), Love in Vain, October, Feeling Good (Nina Simone), Heart Skipped a Beat, Intro, Heart of Hearts, Electric Feel
Beverage: Water

In preparation for my Open Studio I did some crash painting. I love these two sets of pieces. This and my next post focus on something I am going to delve more into over the next few months. Rather than think so much about making my paintings interesting from an academic standpoint, I decided to stick to my preferred technique but make my theme academically interesting.

If you can guess what that theme is you get bonus points. Comment and let me know if you did - I'll work out some sort of prize mechanism. Honor system applies.

I love color. Why deny it? So I took one painting of the positive image of some tulips I picked up across the street, then flipped it and did the second piece in negative. It's like the positive and negative image of a photograph. In the positive image I stayed true to the original colors. In the negative image I used the same palette but literally flipped each color to its exact complementary color. Blue became orange, red became green, yellow highlights of "light" turned into light purple highlights.

Painting it felt like doing sudoku for a color-obsessed person. What do you think? Any suggestions on how I can take this type of theme deeper?

Flying Buttresses

Stats: "Roark" 30x15x.75 oil on canvas
Playlist: French and Brazilian music
Beverage: Dark and Stormy with curiously old ginger beer. Mental note: It is a new year. Buy new ginger beer.

Yes, I named a painting after the main character in The Fountainhead. Although this painting is really taken from a photo I took of the flying buttresses at the National Cathedral, when I finished it it reminded me of the cover of the book The Fountainhead, by Ayn Rand. I always liked the main character, rogue architect Roark, so I thought the name was appropriate.

This painting was designed to allow me to play with my interpretation of composition, light and color of a classic architectural element. I have always loved flying buttresses. What kind of a term is that, anyway? Aside from whatever the word's etymology does to attract my attention, though, I like the fact that they create unique lines from behind which light pokes out in an interesting fashion.

I wanted to show that the sky at the top of the cathedral's hill can get stunningly blue, and that the building itself turns pink in certain lighting. I used my palette to accentuate these features, which led to a green-less palette. I also insisted on painting this entire thing in one fell swoop. I started the blue background only 30 minutes after painting an orange wash over the entire canvas, so none of the layers of color are unique to what I had mixed on my palette. Each color took something from underneath. I suppose that also lends a post-industrial, anti-communist, freedom of expression sheen to the piece that Ayn Rand would be proud of. Every layer is built off of a foundation of rusted iron ore (transparent iron oxide orange), to give it a new, expressive life. It also makes for a pleasant evening and quick work.

I will be doing more quick work this weekend. In preparation for my upcoming Open Studio, I want to return to my roots and do five 8x10 floral still life sketches. Two pairs will be positive-negative images, and one is a commission for my mom to go with Pink Tulips. I intend to spend 45 minutes on each. Stay tuned!

Seasons

Seasons I: Winter



Stats: 18x24x.5 in. oil on canvas
Playlist: Shostakovich
Beverage: Water

Seasons II: Spring



Stats: 18x24x.5 in. oil on canvas
Playlist: Khachatourian, French music, Jack Johnson's September Sessions
Beverage: Water

After purchasing a digital camera last November I have been steadily compiling images from life over the past few months, with the intention of putting them onto canvas. These two paintings of a series entitled "Seasons" capture Winter and Spring. I painted both of them on identically sized canvases with a transparent iron oxide red wash to make the blue of the sky pop. I wanted to finish one yesterday, and the Winter piece only took about an hour total. So I thought, alright, time to move on to the tree blossoms! That took longer. But it was still worth it. They're relatively simple, almost like sketches, but they depict what I wanted to show.

Speaking of which, here are my original photos from which I painted these two pieces.



Winter was taken outside of the National Cathedral during one of the blizzards we had this February. I snowshoed over to the Cathedral in the middle of the blizzard, climbed onto a snowbank outside of the Cathedral grounds, and took this photo of an icicled lamppost. Yes, I snowshoe.



Spring was taken on one of our nice sunny days in April while walking to a friend's house for lunch. I stood under this blossoming tree in the Rosedale Conservancy, an estate/dog park. As you can imagine, allergy season is upon us in DC. This piece, and the simplicity of the composition, was also inspired by some watercolors of cherry blossoms I had recently seen at the Japanese Festival. I wanted to show contrast between the blue and pink colors, and simplicity of composition rather than depth.

My next two projects are going to be the Cathedral, which turns pink just before sunset every day, and an abstracted version of the Cathedral's flying buttresses (my all time favorite architectural term). After using a brush for the two Seasons paintings I am going to try to depart from that texture and use exclusively palette knives.

I've been painting for my own inventory lately but that doesn't mean I am not taking orders. Please feel free to request pieces. In the meantime I am hoping to have an Open Studio with the ones I'm currently working on some time in May. I'm taking donations of finger foods and bartenders for that event, as well.

Vrksa

Painting: Vrksa
Beverage: H2O
Playlist: "Painting" (see below)

It has been a little while. I have been working on commissions and will be posting them shortly as well. Over the last month I focused a lot on the technicality of painting, and this resulted in some interesting color mixes. I have fallen in and out of love with both brown and gray. One thing that Georgia O'Keeffe did when she was re-starting to paint was do everything in gray. I tried that. It's done. I moved on.

I wanted to go back to something more fast and fluid, like the "Snow Shadows" painting. It keeps growing on me. So I was in yoga the other day (my body still hurts) and we were focusing on twists. Our opening moving meditation was very tree-like. We were standing moving our arms up like branches, twisting to the right, returning to center, then twisting to the left. It reminded me of looking up at giant redwoods in California, when you can see the sun shining through the branches and they are so high up.

And the outline of the tree against the sun is a deep dark purple against a bright yellow. So I painted it. I did this whole painting this afternoon and opted to keep it simple with the palette knife. It doesn't look as fluid and blended as "Snow Shadows," but rather it looks like some sort of African batik print. I don't know if that's because of the palette knife or the difference in consistency between the yellow and purple (self-mixed) paint. I will keep experimenting.

Concerning music, the inspiration for painting this today came from karaoke last night. Some friends and I went out to Clarendon for karaoke and there was oh so much 80s and 90s music. Absolutely "frat-tastic" as one friend would say. As someone who lives on the other side of the Potomac I felt very out of place. I also desperately missed my own music. Which, on this playlist, is (on shuffle):

Smile - Lily Allen
Daylight - Matt & Kim
Boom - Anjulie
Je veux te voir - Yelle
Sexy M.F. - Prince
Time to Pretend - MGMT
Play - Kate Nash
Bourgeois Shangri-La - Miss Li
F-cking Boyfriend - The Bird and The Bee
Lisztomania - Phoenix
Work it Out - Jurassic 5 and Dave Matthews
Dreams - The Cranberries (sang this at karaoke!!!)
Fever - can't remember artist
Say Aah - Trey Songz
1901 - Phoenix
Kids - MGMT
Where do you go to my lovely - Peter Sarstedt
I Get it In - Omarion
Money Honey - Lady Gaga (also sang poker face at karaoke... brought house down)
Sealion Woman - Feist
7 - Prince (amazing)
Chillin - Wale & Lady Gaga
She Wants to Move - N.E.R.D.

Carmenere

Piece: Carmenere Series 1-4. Four 12x12x1.5 in oil on canvas.
Playlist: variable
Beverage: Carmenere

I have finished, and finally photographed, the first four pieces of my Barcelona antique tile series. To be honest I can't remember what music I listened to while painting, or whether the wine was a Cabernet Sauvignon or a Merlot. Even so, it was a fun little project.

I took the designs from four single tiles, out of four different motifs, and reincarnated them on canvas with shading and brushstrokes and such. The designs come from late 19th/early 20th century Barcelona. Reworking them in brushstrokes was an interesting challenge. I started by prepping the surfaces, making sure to mix the background layer with the first thin layer of paint so that it has more dimension and age. I drew the designs first on paper in colored pencil to get the design and the proportions correct. Then I drew the basic proportions with charcoal on canvas. Finally, I mixed the colors and put paintbrush to canvas. I added in shading to give them some more dimension, and to make them look like something other than just tiles.

The two most valuable parts of this exercise were color mixing and design-drawing. I have definitely come to believe that using less charcoal is better, since it's annoying to clean up after! And as for color mixing, this was the most important part of this series for me. The colors used in the antique tiles are very unique, and the play between them is rather unusual. That is why I put these four very different tiles together, and chose them in the first place. I am looking forward to taking some of these colors to some new abstract and abstracted architecture pieces I'm working on.

TBD whether I will do more of these. I seem to have other, more appealing ideas lately, and much less time.