February: a look in the studio

Andrew and I recently returned from a wonderful visit to the desert of Yuma, AZ to visit my maternal grandparents, Dorothy and Jack. We enjoyed 4 days of catching up, sorting through old photos, grandma's home-cooking, walks and pool time in sunny 75 degree weather. Here's a photo we came across of Grammy in a veggie hat she designed:

It says: "Eat Veggies". She is so crafty!

One of the perks of being a teacher is the time off! I'm thankful for the time with family and time to paint--I spent the rest of the week after our trip in the studio.

On Thursday one of the painters at Artist Muse brought her teenage son to model for us. Most of my paintings this time of year are landscapes done from photos so I really enjoyed the chance to break away from that to paint from life. Thanks, Pam and Stefan! Here's what became of that session.

Here's a peek into what's new (and not so new) in my corner at Artist's Muse (more landscapes...)

The Art of Maine in Winter

This winter I'm embracing the cold by painting it.

Warm vs. cool colors, tight vs. loose:

I have fun mixing the different colors and shades of the snow, which is not truly white from a colorist's perspective. I certainly start with white but mix in blues, grays and purples for shadows, and sometimes yellows, oranges and pinks for the lights. The warm lights against the cool shadows create the contrasts of snow...I think I have a long way to go to achieve this however, and my phone also did not capture the colors very well.

Each winter I enjoy flipping through this book I got several years ago at Port in a Storm, a book store in Somesville, ME that closed a few years ago. It is compiled and written by Carl Little, a Mount Desert resident. It features paintings of a wide range of styles...

...including "Fox Hunt" by Winslow Homer, which my parents and I saw at the Homer exhibit in the Portland Museum of Art last month. I recommend going to the PMA just to see their collection of Homer paintings...

...also in this book is "Afternoon on the Sea, Monhegan 1907" by Rockwell Kent which I saw in 2008 at the de Young Museum in San Francisco.

Bold contrasts are what always draw me to his paintings, and Monhegan's dramatic landscapes must have been the ideal muse for him. An American Modernist painter, he was also a writer and printmaker, and a transcendentalist and mystic who read Emerson and Thoreau.

"I don't want petty self-expression," he wrote, "I want the elemental, infinite thing; I want to paint the rhythm of eternity."

Kent lived and painted on Monhegan Island for five years in the 1900s.

Lois Dodd, an American abstract impressionist, is a contemporary painter I admire. In fact, I admit I would like to paint more like her. She lives in NYC and visits Maine and her paintings are also featured in Little's art books. Lucky us, the PMA is currently showing a special exhibit of Dodd's paintings, up until April 7. I cannot wait to see it. Below is "Snow in Cove" (1982).

The Great Marsh in Snow

It's January at last and I'm back at school after a wonderful 2 week break, glad to leave last month behind. December is difficult. I find there's too little sunlight, too little time to get outside (let alone paint!), and too little courage to face the darkening days. This December brought a particular heaviness with the tragedies in Newtown. Each day over the past 4 weeks has haunted me with at least one thought of that awful day....but with the sadness also comes a renewed love and appreciation for life and loved ones, for my young students in particular and their great joy of life! A tragedy sometimes helps one find even more reason to teach, make music, make art: create hope.

Though January is the beginning of a cold, grey season, I celebrate the slow return of of the light this month. I'm thankful for a classroom with many windows and a workplace where I can step outside during the day and see children play. I'm thankful for the beauty of a fresh snowfall and the chance to play in it. I'm thankful for old friends who invite me out for a walk in it!

On a recent visit to the island over the holiday, my childhood friend, Emily happened to be home and called the house one morning after a storm that brought a couple inches of snow. She wanted to know if we would take a walk with her to the marsh via the Sputnick Trail, known by islanders as "Bo-bo Road" because there is a "broken-down truck" in the middle of it and that is the way it was pronounced at one time by a very young Fernald boy.

The marsh is possibly the most beautiful place on the island. The woods we walked through open out to a plane of yellow grass and heather which meets a saltwater pond separated from the ocean by a cluster of trees named "Dead Man's Island" (unsure where the name came from), which confronts the sea beneath a dramatic view of Cadillac and surrounding mountains. I painted this scene of it last weekend, hopefully the first of many of this motif.

I don't love winter, but I do love it's colors.

Copying Art of Maine

....a study of an N.C. Wyeth Painting, "Black Spruce Ledge" (1941). You can probably tell mine from the original. My grandmother gave me a book called Paintings of Maine by Carl Little for my birthday last year and I've been gleaning inspiration from it. N.C. Wyeth was an illustrator and painter and father to the painter Andrew Wyeth. He lived in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania but spent summers in Port Clyde, Maine from where his painting inspiration came toward the end of his life. Wyeth's dilemma was that his success as an illustrator left little time to pursue his desire to paint landscapes and seascapes which captured the emotion and richness of nature he deeply admired. I chose to copy this painting because I was drawn to the composition and the strong contrasts of the shadows in the rocks and trees against the bright summer sky, also reflected on the water. The clouds looked like fun too. Even though the painting is not my own, it was a good exercise in color matching. See all the colors in those rocks? As you can see, my proportions and colors aren't accurate to the painting, but as it developed I became less concerned with making it look like the original and more enamored with the colors and contrasts, while maintaining a looseness which is not characteristic of N.C. Wyeth and more my own style. I'm trying to avoid realism. A lazy excuse or a reach towards more painterly art? Not sure yet, hopefully the latter. Now to get outside and find my own composition...

Amesbury Open Studio

April and I had a fun weekend at the studio, meeting art lovers, talking about art...and selling a few paintings! We were so pleased and thankful for our success, 10% of sales from the weekend were donated to the Red Cross for Hurricane Sandy disaster relief (the rest towards rent for this space...).

...in the process of hanging the exhibit in my studio space at Artist's Muse.

April sold 2 large paintings from her "Engine Room" series to the headmistress and founder of Sparhawk School (where we both teach). Louise was so thrilled by April's work and invited us over to her very colorful house. I captured her with my phone in a moment of pure excitement, with April's newly purchased painting hanging on her living room wall. Congratulations, April! See more of her work at her website.

Pickled Beets: a photo journal

At our school garden we had more beets than we knew what to do with...

....until we discovered pickled beets! We've already processed two large batches and consumed two jars of them over the past few weeks, with the help of housemates and my in-laws who joined us for dinner this week and loved them so much they took home a jar. So sweet. They are a nice topping on a salad or as a side dish to aid with digestion.

Can't get enough of them...Doug and Andrew planting more at the homestead.

Lobster Cars

Above is a sneak peek at a series of paintings of "lobster cars", the wooden floats that live at the edge of the harbor and store lobsters under the surface until the price goes up.

Lately the price of lobsters in Maine has been lower than it has been since 1980. The reason is because there are so many of them, and there are so many because the lobstering conservation laws in Maine are such that the population of lobsters is higher than ever. Recently a lobsterman friend of ours, David Thomas was interviewed on NPR about the dilemma. A good, quick listen.

These two photos are actually of floats used simply for storing traps and other gear.

When I took the photos from the kayak, I was interested in the juxtaposition of the pleasure yacht and these industrial floats, which both represent historic sources of livelihood for the island communities. ............................................................................................................... Support the local/Maine economy--eat lobster!

Yummmmmm...picking soft shells on the porch.