Helping From Home

Helping From Home

16x12 oil on panel

As the stay at home orders were issued across the country it was stated that our rare trips out would require a mask. The shortage of personal protective equipment immediately became so severe that those whose lives depended on it, health care workers and first responders, were going without. Workers in essential services from grocery store employees to postal workers also needed to wear masks every day and they were in scarce supply. 

Brigades of women pulled out their long forgotten sewing machines, dusted them off and got to work. Patterns were shared and how-to videos sprung to life. Heroines like Stephanie Oddo, who organized the Healthcare Mask Collaborative, delivered donated fabric and elastic to a wide circle of people who produced thousands of masks at home and delivered them to medical facilities and military groups. 

The juxtaposition of sitting at a sunny table in a quiet house and making masks in the hopes of saving the lives of people on the front lines of a pandemic was startling.  I thought of World War II volunteers who helped hospitals suffering from severe shortages, collected scrap metal for reuse and planted Victory Gardens to supplement food rationing. But the United States had built the most stunning consumer society the world had ever seen since that time. We now face overwhelming choices and companies promising to goods faster and cheaper. 

How could this have happened? 

Cactus Shadows IV

Cactus Shadows IV
12x16 oil on panel
The fourth in a series, this painting examines the other worldly color combinations and shapes that cactus offer up.  Caught in the early morning desert sun, the arresting shapes of the cactus were accentuated by the shadows they cast on the broad, extraordinarily colored surfaces of neighboring leaves. 

The first step is the under painting where I work out placement and values

Laying in the first color. I look to capture the basic color of broad shapes, while adhering to the values I  established in my underpainting.

Now I slow down and begin to look for more subtle color and value changes. I build depth of color with glazes, dry brush and constant looking to see more and more detail. I continue to check for accuracy while trying to ultimately express what I found compelling about this specific sight.

The finished painting is at the top of the post.

Scepters

This 12x16 oil records a beautiful plant I found blossoming profusely under the harsh desert sun.
These bursts of color were small in scale, but reached up from the glossy leaves throughout the plant.
The reflection of the brilliant desert sky and the beautifully articulated shadows on the curving leaves
caught and held my attention. I hope you enjoy it as well.

This is the underpainting, where I worked out the composition and the overall pattern
of light and dark before I dove into finding all those greens.

My pallet consists of 2 yellows, 2 reds, 2 greens, 2 blues, 4 browns, black and white.
This series has tested my ability to mix the necessary 1000 shades of green.
Someday I'll move to another subject and perhaps I won't feel
green around the gills after a day in the studio!