Tag Archives: painting

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Happy Harvest-time

It’s starting to look more like autumn up here. The colors are turning later than usual because it rained so much earlier this autumn–lots of refreshment to keep the plants green longer.

In the spirit of autumn, here is an illustrative piece I painted this week and within a week (started last Sunday, finished Saturday/yesterday).

 I’m not sure what I will title it just yet. The tree “slice” on which it is painted has been hanging around the art supplies for a couple years. No idea where it came from since I didn’t purchase it. But I’m glad to have come up with an idea that works with it as a painting surface. Actually, the squirrel picture had been tucked away longer than the tree piece. Maybe five years ago? More? I’m not sure. I had drawn this on the back of some scrap paper while visiting a friend. (This is actually a modified scan of the original drawing; the original had some scribbles to indicate a pumpkin vine curling around the bottom, rather like in the painting.)

As you can see, I made a few changes, including making the pumpkin on which the squirrel squats taller to better fit the vertical picture plane the tree slice provided. It’s fun to bring out old subjects and work with them again.

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Put on Your Sunday Clothes

Happy Sunday. After working months on the last painting I shared (À la côte sud d’ Île Sainte-Marguerite) & another one I haven’t posted yet, I desired to paint something quicker and less detailed. Sometimes doing a “quickie” after or during a longer painting gives new life or energy to the creative process. Granted, it took some hours, but it was done, to my satisfaction, over 2-3 evenings. I primarily painted with a palette knife. 

With a dress like that, if you don’t think of Hello, Dolly!, you must not have seen this musical. Note the added business card in her left hand.

In other news, I recently added some new little paintings to the Nature & Animal Art galleries; see whether you can spot them.

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À la Côte d’Azur

À la Côte d’Azur = At the Azure Coast, more commonly known as the French Riviera. No, I am not enjoying the beach in a foreign land, but I did paint one such beach I did enjoy. This spot is on the southern coast of Île Sainte-Marguerite, which is essentially the title: À la côte sud d’ Île Sainte-Marguerite. The island about half a mile and a short boat ride across from Cannes of film festival fame. I visited both places in the summer of 2009 when I traveled to France on a short abroad program in college.

An intriguing tidbit: Île Sainte-Marguerite houses a fort and museum, Fort Royal; the historically elusive man in the iron mask made famous by literature and film was transferred from the Bastille in Paris to one of the cells here.

I worked on this painting in 2 stages; I started it in January (but had to pause–end stage 1),

 

Resumed it mid-April (and tried a different configuration for my studio space),

kept working on it in May,

finished it a few days before June,

and am posting about it in July. Go figure.

C’est fini!

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Presidential Cabinets: Part V

Welcome to the final installment of the Presidential Cabinets series.

The last thing to work on was the 2 large refrigerator panels, which I did solo. At this point, I think you have the basic process down–basic shapes, basic values (light & dark), development, details–so just enjoy the evolution without excessive explanation.

And a close-up of the robin.

Here are snapshots of the final panels all around the kitchen.

Plums, Genevieve Bergeson; apples, Marissa Bunting.

Peaches & figs, Marissa.

Persimmons & pears, Genevieve; strawberries (top right), Marissa; lavender & fridge (grapes, roses), Genevieve.

If you have any questions about any part of this endeavor, please leave a comment below. I hope you’ve enjoyed seeing this project progress.

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Presidential Cabinets: Part IV

What’s more exciting than another post about the cabinet project? Using my new WiFi router & speedier internet to post the post!

Last time, I wrote about starting to paint the fruit by blocking in the basic shapes. This time, you see more development and details.

After starting my persimmons & plums, I worked on a pair of pear panels. (One of the pear panels portrays a pair of pairs, and the other a pared pear.

I promise that not all my panels began with the letter p–but it came close. One panel has a sprig of lavender, but it used to be a pussy willow. I also painted the 2 fridge panels, which has roses and grapes. It might be argued that they are purple grapes and pink roses, but at least the plants themselves don’t start with p. (But “plant” does — alors!)

The president’s wife specially requested that we paint some “surprises”–little animals and such, which I did. First two little birds among the plum branches.

 

Then I painted three paper kite butterflies on the persimmon panel. As you will see in the next & final post in this series, I incorporated the same species of butterfly and another bird into the refrigerator panels to help unify the kitchen.