Packing Memories

We just took one of those trips where we dipped into the past and dipped into the future. A foot in both places. We traveled to Key West, Florida.  Walt has memories of traveling through the Keys as a teenager, fishing in the waters, and a boyhood friend.  This childhood friend, who he most associates with Key West, died unexpectedly just before we left for the trip; we thought and spoke of him as we drove along the highway into Key West and often during our stay. 

"Once A Refuge"  Oil Pastel Sketch

It was my first journey to this area of Florida and it was chosen as an outdoor oil painting vacation.  As the time approached for the trip, I had misgivings about the oil painting.  I had just finished a 30/30 challenge (30 paintings in 30 days) in September, had recently participated in some plein air events, and worked hard on several exhibits.  I wanted a break from my usual oil painting routine.  I packed a traveling set of watercolors.  Then I looked through my art cabinet and pulled out an old box of art materials that had belonged to my art teacher mother.  Many, many years had passed since her death. These supplies were a tangible connection between us and our love of art, and I hadn’t wanted to consume them.  But I was now ready to use the beautiful colored conte′ crayons and oil pastels, and honor the enjoyment she had with them.  So I packed them in my suitcase with some suitable paper.  Here was a gift of new possibilities from my mother just waiting to be opened.

Key West Lighthouse watercolor sketch

We packed another memory for this trip—the memory of a painting my grandfather, an accomplished architect and watercolorist, had done of the Key West lighthouse.  It was a delight for us to find the spot from which he viewed the lighthouse and sketch it ourselves.

At this time of Thanksgiving and thoughts of family, I am especially aware how grateful I am for my artistic heritage. The memories we recalled reinforced our feelings about just how enhanced are lives are even as we are saddened by losses long past and near past.  We’re indebted and appreciative in the most enthusiastic way.

"Waiting for Baby" oil

The NOW is bringing a NEW gift with unlimited possibility —a grandchild and grand-parenthood!  

(I'll tell you in the next issue if I'm a grandmother and also about what we saw in Key West, artists we met, and about six-toed cats and sandwich-eating chickens!)

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Focus

"Then and Now", maybe I should re-title"Focus"Available here

Sometimes the Journey As Artists is about internal journeys; sometimes about actual travels. Sometimes they are the same. The month of September involved some travel to the coast of North Carolina to Southport and Wilmington for outdoor painting events. Most of the journey was stationary in my art studio where I was focused on painting 30 paintings in 30 days when I took Leslie Saeta’s daily painting challenge. 

 

30 oil painting.  Most available here

What did I learn or relearn from this almost single focus in my life?

• that my family is incredibly supportive of my painting when little else is accomplished (I already knew this, but it was tested again),
• that many scenes around us are wonderful subjects to be appreciated—keep your eyes open,
• that I should keep drawing . . . fill in the blank for yourself here (You’re neither as good as you need to be nor as bad as you think you are!),
• that practice (in whatever you choose) builds confidence,
•   that discipline counts—(don’t kid yourself that painting is not work—even though it may also be fun and gratifying),
•    repetition develops better, more efficient work habits (thank you Henry Ford)
•   that painting requires problem-solving skills and stamina (yes, stamina-stay in shape physically!-walk or something), and,
•  you’ll surprise yourself with tangible progress in the short 30 days.

 

Plein air paintings at Wilmington's 275th Birthday Celebration on last sunny day

The repetitive practice I had established in the studio really helped me in the outdoor painting events.  I found I was seeing, deciding and laying out the designs much quicker, an important skill in painting outdoors. 

The plein air events were uniquely different, one quite sunny and hot (Southport), and the other hazy, overcast and cool (Wilmington).  While the coolness of Wilmington was so much more comfortable, it was a much more challenging painting situation.  Overcast lighting does not change (good), but it also means low contrast and close values (tricky). It’s difficult to get “pop” into your painting under these conditions.

Now that the thirty day challenge is completed, I am trying to maintain the discipline, but also taking time to reflect on where to go from here.  I am focusing now on researching how to handle overcast light conditions and will try to subject myself to those conditions again to improve. 

I don’t expect that most of you reading this will undertake a 30 day painting challenge, and truthfully, I’ll think twice about it again myself!  Nevertheless, focusing steadily on your passion has some remarkable benefits.

The journey continues!

I’ll be sharing stories of Key West in the near future.

If you want to be the first to know about exhibits and discounts, sign up for my NEWSLETTER email list on the home page of Sheffield Art Studio.

Thank you for reading. If you enjoy my essays, please forward to your family and friends.  I’d like to hear from YOU!  Please leave comments and questions.  

My paintings are available at my studio in Cary, NC, online at Sheffield Art Studio and at my Daily Paint Works (see also clickable link above right)

Please LIKE me at my FACEBOOK fan page.

Coming Together

A future painting.  This is a tree on the low road to Santa Fe on a dangerous curve in the road. Didn't feel safe doing it plein air

 

Taos and our too short venture into Santa Fe, New Mexico, showed us a unique coming together of cultures, not always a mixing, but a respectful influencing and sharing.  It makes for vibrant food, art and architecture.

Taos Pueblo.  Must pay high fee to paint there.

In Taos we spent a few hours at the famous Taos Pueblo and discovered a shop owner and pottery artist by the name of Carpio Bernal.  In his youth he had toured the country in the American Indian Theatre Ensemble and had performed and become friends with the now famous Dame Helen Mirren when she was with the Royal Shakespeare Company (proof provided by a book she'd written with his picture with her in it and her personalized inscription).  He chose to return to his beloved pueblo. Dame Helen visited him and his family a few years ago in Taos and present him with her signed book. His patient wife, rolling her eyes, had endured the Helen Mirren story many times, which was nonetheless interesting to these tourists and garnered them a pottery purchase!

In Santa Fe we, of course, meandered through all the wares of the American Indian artists in the central square, and then savored several hours in the nearby Georgia O’Keeffe Museum.  We were awakened to her watercolor work and to her Hawaiian period, which re-energized her career and work.

From our B&B in Taos, we had a daily coming together of morning fellowship at breakfast, meeting and greeting fellow travelers from around the country.  We heard stories and made new friends.

The diversity and sharing of the southwest was not lost on us.  We always incorporate something new from our trips into our everyday lives—from Taos: green chilies, boldness in painting, good stories, and new friends!

 What’s on the horizon?  We head southeast for a painting holiday in Key West, Florida.

 

(The answer to the riddle posed in my newsletter: What do Dame Helen Mirren, a potter and Georgia O’Keeffe have in common is . . .  Taos—O'Keeffe was in Taos for a good bit in the late 1930s before going off to her beloved Abiquiu, NM and much later still to Santa Fe.)

If you want to be the first to know about exhibits and discounts, sign up for my NEWSLETTER email list on the home page of Sheffield Art Studio.

 Thank you for reading. If you enjoy my essays, please share with your family and friends.  I’d like to hear from YOU!  Please leave comments and questions. 

My paintings are available at my studio in Cary, NC, online at Sheffield Art Studio and at my Daily Paintworks Gallery (see also clickable link above right). 

Please LIKE me at my FACEBOOK Fan Page.

Failing Up

8 x 8 oil Available here Lilacs on LeDoux

I really didn’t get it right.  I was excited to find the two beautiful lilac bushes flanking the door near the Blumenschein Home and Museum* on Ledoux Street in Taos.  I set up my plein air easel and quickly set about painting.  After two hours of struggle it was clear I had a failure.    The composition was dull—one, two, three things in a row.  The middle was a gaping dark uninteresting rectangular door, the wrong focal point--not the flowers, the whole reason for the painting!  The painting was 95% dark.  The brushwork was heavy-handed. I was disappointed and disheartened.  So distraught I destroyed the painting. I had come to paint lilacs, and, by-gum, I was going to get these lilacs!—just not today.

Photo of the first composition try.

 Of course, part of my problem, was in not thinking before painting. If I were to make progress I was going to have to look at this mistake and find the roots of it. First, I chose to paint the scene from the most comfortable vantage point (shade and level ground), not from an interesting composition vantage point. Bad me! Second, so worried about losing the light late in the day, I didn’t take the time to work out a few small sketches.  Finally, had I thought any about what my teachers had taught me? I went back to lessons on compositions, about light versus dark, about balancing warm and cool, and about finding some exciting place for a spark of unexpected color.  What was I trying to say in the painting? After reconsidering these, I went back later in the week.  The result is my failing up “Lilacs on Ledoux.” (top)

A lesson learned in the hot and dry western land is not soon forgotten. You’ve got to use your brain when you paint.

Postscript* The Blumenschein Home and Museum is an appropriate place for a “failing up”, of making progress as a painter.  Ernest L. Blumenschein was  one of the New York and European trained artists who settled in Taos, NM in the early part of 20^th c and founded the Taos Society of Artists.  Though it was disbanded about the time of the Great Depression, he and its members are largely credited with making Taos the artist colony that it continues to be today.

Thank you for reading. I'd like to hear from YOU!  Please leave comments and questions. Please share with your family and friends. 

My paintings are available at Sheffield Art Studio in Cary, NC and online and now, if I have paintings on auction, at Daily Paintworks auctions (see above.)

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