Wild Roses, 14″ x 11″, UART 320

Rose Hips, 14″ x 11″, UART 320

On Tuesday I spent a day at the studio and it was lovely!  I hadn’t picked up a pastel in some time. I’ve been teaching a workshop on drawing the landscape as preparation for painting and my focus has been on that–and my mother’s service, which was last week.  The workshops are over and were quite successful. So I decided it was time to paint.  First I finished off a painting I had begun in early July, then I did  a new painting. Both are from the same location from pictures taken in June and August.  In June the weather was beautiful and we had just been at my mother’s 99th birthday party.  Things seemed good.  In August, of course, I was there for her service and it was a sadder time.  In June the roses were in bloom and filled the air. What we saw in August was the beautiful rose hips.  So I focused on these two things.  Both paintings are from the Slocum River Preserve in North Dartmouth, Mass. A beautiful place to walk and paint.

Both were done with underpaintings, which for some reason my cell phone is refusing to send to my email account!  I particularly liked the one for Rose Hips. The sky was done with yellow green and the background trees were all violet.  It gave a real mood to the picture.

In the Wild Roses painting, the photo showed the house at the top of the hill. When I went to paint it, I decided that it needed more, so I lowered it a bit and added an extra filed and another layer of foliage.  All of the foliage in the back is done with the same blue green over the underpainting. I purposely kept it flat, a little stylized.  For the foreground, I decided to not get too detailed and put it in fairly quickly.  I did the same thing with the second picture.  I wanted the effect of leaves without too much detail.

I decided to use green in the sky in Rose Hips, influenced by my underpainting and the desire to make this a nostalgic, more moody picture.  I really liked it and used a little darker green in the field. I used mainly Giraults.  I simplified the farm house and liked the effect of the reddish roof, over which I added some green to keep it down.  I worked quickly with the bush in the foreground, adding the orange rose hips last.

I had no printed photo for these. I just propped up my ipad on an easel near my working easel, but didn’t look at it a whole lot as I was diverging so much from the photo!  I find that not having the photo right next to the painting makes it easier for me to focus on the painting and am not as likely to copy the photo.

This fall’s classes will focus on composition and mood, so I’ve been thinking about both lately.  I do think that these two paintings have very different moods, primarily due to the color of the skies.  I’ll start teaching Sept. 22 (Sat.), 24 (Mon.) and 26 (Wed.).  Looking forward to seeing old friends and working with newcomers as well.

Happy Labor Day weekend!  With this heat, I’m not too sad to see summer ending.  A long, cool fall would be most welcome!

Jean

Hello Friends

It’s been awhile since I’ve put on a new blog post. I haven’t disappeared!  But I’m in a quiet mood and not painting. My mother passed away last week after 99 years of a wonderful life.  The last weeks were tough on my sisters. I was in Europe, feeling very guilty, needless to say.  But it’s over and we will have a lovely celebration of her life two weeks from today at the Mattapoisett Congregational Church, the church I grew up in.

I’m not completely apart from art however. I decided in the spring to give two 2-day sessions of a landscape drawing class. We had the first session  last Monday and the others will be on succeeding Mondays this month. It’s something a little different and kind of fun. And I have a very wide range of people coming to the workshops, in addition to my regular students.  The first session focused on trees, clouds and perspective of buildings. Our second session will focus on compositional sketches, values and value studies, and how to transfer drawings to the painting surface.  I decided to do these workshops because I realized that standard drawing classes don’t regularly include landscape elements.  It’s been a great learning experience for me as well!

And–this past week I purchased a grand piano!  I’ve played piano most of my life and have a lovely upright that I bought about eight years ago. But I had the opportunity to play an Estonia 6’3″ grand on Tuesday and fell in love with it.  Went back Friday morning and signed on the dotted line!  It’s coming on Wednesday.  I guess I’m looking at my life, after my mother’s passing, and realizing that I probably have 20-25 years left to play. I might as well have a good piano to play on.

In September, I’ll be resuming my regular classes with a focus on composition and mood. I’ll also be teaching 6 Saturday sessions.  And on Monday afternoons, I’ve invited a group of women pastelists to join me in the studio to paint together.  I”m very much looking forward to that in the hopes that we can critique and inspire one another.

I hope that you are having a good summer.  August is a time to rest, I think. Take it easy. Enjoy the fresh fruits and vegetables that are in abundance.  Read. Don’t feel guilty about anything. Do what you want to do!

I’ll be back in September, I’m sure.