Shiny & Bright

This 8x10 oil on panel is a shiny bit of joy. Last Christmas I bought our son a surfboard and it was too large to wrap, so when I saw a big bright bow in a store I snapped it up. When we were cleaning up after Christmas I just couldn't throw it out, so, like many things do, it came to live in my studio. In the following months I found that it cheered me whenever I focused on it, and one day when at a loss as to what to paint, it caught my eye.

I love this painting and may not give it up. It describes the complex shapes of the shiny ribon without becoming too careful. I have photos of my easel next to the set up with the bow under studio lights that I 'd share if I hadn't just returned from a holiday party… Instead, I will wish my beloved family and friends, who have been so receptive to my work, a big wide merry, happy and all the best. I love you and hope that the new year brings you the joy that you so richly deserve.

Fern Glen

Perhaps in celebration of getting a little rain (oh thank you, thank you!) I painted this crowd of ferns, an 8x10 oil on panel. The dream of moist soil and cool shadows with spots of brilliant sun pulled at me. Usually the areas of a painting that are lightest have the most detail, but in this instance the sun hit the frond so sharply that all the detail was washed out. The brightest area simply radiated warmth.

Unlike my last post, this painting did NOT leap off my brush. I knew it would be a challenge because it is a sequence of flat shapes. I am usually drawn to rounded forms that I can bring to life with direct light, core shadow and reflected light. These patterned flat forms vexed me. Why did I choose to paint it? Well, as I mentioned, I blame it on the rain!

Catching The Sun

This 8x10 oil on panel just really wanted to painted. It jumped off my brush so eagerly that I felt like an innocent bystander! I stopped the action long enough to snap a few photos along the way.

After toning the panel with a little Burnt Sienna, I made a quick line drawing placing the elements.

Can you see how eager the values were to get put down? They already leapt into the upper left corner!

I then brushed in the rest of the darks and lifted the lights by rubbing the panel 

with paper towels and Qtips dipped in solvent. 

 Next I moved to developing the color. I try to remain true to the tonal pattern I've established in my value study. I began by putting in the vivid colors that made this composition particularly interesting.

Then I moved to the more subtle colors in the greenery.

And I continued to make the decisions of warm and cool, light and dark 

that give the painting form, depth and temperature.

After letting the painting dry for several days I came back to it and refined the details, pushed the darks where I wanted more depth, and brought up the high lights.

Hope you like it, I had a ball painting it!

Seltzer Bottles

I am getting back to my art life after taking some time to focus on family matters, and boy does it feel good!

Here is a 12x16 in my Vintage Visions series. I stumbled on this box of beautiful old seltzer bottles in a big old barn of a building. They caught the light pouring through the door and glowed like jewels. Their beautiful green glass varied slightly from bottle to bottle as did the mechanisms at their top. Minor differences pointing to the fact that they were manufactured in a less industrial era. I envisioned local workshops essentially hand making small batch products. I smiled when I thought of what the workshops must have looked and felt like. Being a maker, I am always drawn to environments where something is being produced. My smile broadened when I thought of the elegant settings the bottles spent most of their career, sitting on polished bars putting the sparkel into countless festive evenings.
How could you not love these gems?

Gretchen Wood Williams

Stepping away from my oil paintings and into real life

I'm sharing a charcoal portrait I drew of my mother

Gretchen Wood Williams

as she sat on my couch one afternoon a couple of years back.

She passed away 2 weeks ago

after announcing that she was ready to go.

She was surrounded by family

and lifted by the love that she had generated her entire life.

She began painting at 10, and no doubt drew well before that.

She was a Commercial Artist since she was 17,

though she would say she started much earlier in that she claimed to get through classes

 at Scarborough School and Swarthmore

solely on her ability to make a dashing poster.

She painted in watercolor for 80 years, recording the landscapes of her life.

The stacks of her work testify to her positive view 

of even the most banal of scenes. 

She could always make something interesting out of what she had to work with.

My brother and I have been lucky recipients of her positive perspective, 

artistic encouragement, wit, wisdom, and light touch all our lives.

We are going to miss you something fierce Gretty.

Whenever we come across a scene full of life, color and movement

we will feel your positive spirit.

Whenever there is a particularly funny story, or witty aside

we will remember your artful turn of phrase.

Whenever we gather for cocktails and conversation

we will know you are with us, Tom is by your side, and we are forever a circle.

Spools

And now for something quite different… a painting from my series "Vintage Visions" which celebrates the artifacts that remind me of the huge cultural and industrial changes we've experienced within my lifetime.

 I found this bucket of old wooden spools on the concrete floor of an antique store. Sunlight poured  over the worn wooden forms from an open barn door... remember those? Although these were "standardized" parts, they had been made individually, and were subtly different from one another in size, patina and painted details. I loved the sculptural quality of the composition, the vision of the past it offered, and the echoes I heard of all the hands involved in crafting layers and layers of the necessary parts needed to produce the items we now take for granted.

Pink Berries

Like tiny bubbles, this is a painting of some delightfully delicate pink berries I found lighting up 
 a bush in the Living Desert. The tiny berries were translucent, appearing to be lit from within 
and glowed against the bright blue desert sky. 

The 12x16 panel's first step - a fairly detailed underpainting in Burnt Sienna 

In the next session on this painting I first laid in the sky and then began bringing the berries to life.

The next step was to develop the branches and blossoms while continuing to round berries

And finally bringing up the lights and pushing the darks, finding cast shadows and highlights 
helped to capture the glow of these sweet little globes of light.