On Cardigan Summit - SOLD

On Cardigan Summit ~SOLD (Somebody Liked This!)

12 in. x 12 in., acrylic on canvas    

$144 (unframed)

A beautiful sunny October hike up Mount Cardigan in Orange, NH with a friend last fall opened up to the blustery and oddly smooth summit that is uniquely Cardigan.  The naked, open summit is like an ice cream scoop of plutonic rock, heavily freckled and white-striped with sparkling quartz like a geological football field. This painting is looking north from just below the fire tower, toward the White Mountains in all their autumn regalia, then fading into atmospheric blue layers in the distance. I think the weathered evergreens clinging to the crevices along the curve of the summit look like they are flowing down over a waterfall.  Large brushes were key to keeping from getting caught up in little, niggly, paintbrushy details.

Oh Happiness!

Oh Happiness!
8 in. x 10 in., acrylic on black canvas
NFS

This was a gift for my son and daughter-in-law's sixth wedding anniversary. I painted it from a candid photo taken by a beloved family member during a quiet moment between the two of them at their wedding reception. They had stepped out onto the porch of the park house for a breather and this one image snapped quickly seemed to capture a forward-looking, prayer-prepared journey that God had called them into together. These two. We love them.

The painting itself was a fun (and scary) experiment on black canvas. I wanted to create a piece that felt like a stylized poster illustration, something like a stained-glass look. The black ground ensured that I could cut in areas of paint closely but intentionally separated in many areas to achieve this kind of leaded border effect. I enjoyed the intensity of the way the color popped, and how easily the shadows and muted areas seemed to paint themselves. Of course, this meant having to work a little harder (read: more white from the tube) to achieve the lightest lights. Additionally, I needed to slightly rearrange and even remove some of the park elements for the best and most streamlined composition. Keep the focus on the couple (and not on the less-than-fetching park benches and clumpy hostas cluttering up the background)!

I took care with the proportions and placement 

of the elements of the composition, and drew the 

initial paint sketch with a small round brush in 

diluted burnt sienna. Then I laid down the first 

blocking in of basic color areas with a wide, blunt 

brush, leaving black borders in the areas where 

I wanted them to stay. The groom, clad in black 

trousers and vest, is still a large area of open, 

black canvas.

I tightened up the shapes and sky holes of the far line of trees, intensified the slightly burned summer grass in the distant field with a golden wash, and better defined the middle ground of the park pathways. The porch deck will be lightened with the gray of aging planks, but the reddish brown of the porch paint job will need to show through later, so I laid this color in.  The distant blue-green of the sky and treeline is hazy and cool, just the way I wanted it, but the green of the near lawn is of the same temperature and not warm enough.  

Overpainting the green of the foreground lawn in a much warmer, yellower green changed the whole feel of the painting.  It brought the lawn closer and popped the couple forward toward the viewer. It also pushed the hazy, cool horizon further into the distance and created a longer visual space.  Much better.  

The groom's black clothing needed to come to life. I mixed a dark, dusky violet with pthalo blue, cadmium red and alizarin crimson and, when painted on the flat black canvas, became a deep, glossy color that your eye reads as a satiny blue-black with depth and dimension.  With the deep cool blue strokes of fabric folds, he comes to life. The porch starts to age, and the folds of the wedding gown get some treatment.

The bride's skin, seen mostly in shadow, is modeled, delicately lightened and softened. More work on the gown, the groom's sleeves and collar, and the porch planks.  The middle ground trees finally inherit defined limbs and leaves. The bride and groom's hair get a few conservative strokes without over-fussing.

The "unfortunate tangent" of the intersection between the sharply curving path and the upper porch rail has to be altered.  They visually track very close to each other, and, although accurate to the photo, is awkward here. If I can remove picnic tables, benches and shrubs that don't really need to be cluttering up the painting, I can also chose to alter the trajectory of a garden path.  I've got the paintbrush.  I'm in charge here!

And... there's a pathway that visually makes more sense to the viewer and breaks up the green foreground. I worked some definition into the hands, railings, porch planks, and punched up the sky.  A significant bit of fiddling with the bride's wedding gown, and a slight rusty gold wash over the freaky hot green of the near lawn, and I'll call game on this one.

Happy anniversary, Dave and Dorothy.  Look what God did.   

Wild Blueberries - SOLD

Wild Blueberries ~SOLD (Somebody Liked This!)

6 in. x 6 in., acrylic on canvas   
$72 (gallery-wrapped canvas, no frame needed)

While hiking up Mount Kearsarge (see Kearsarge Near the Top II), these were one of the little treats along the way.  Lowbush blueberries are everywhere along the trail in various stages of ripening.  For a small nature painting, I was surprised at the variety of paint colors I needed to reach for.  Usually I'm using about four colors plus white.  For this one, however, I added an additional three tubes to my palette.

Beginning sketch in pthalo blue.

I washed the canvas with a warm pink 

and then drew the paint sketch in with 

diluted pthalo blue which leans a little green.  

I didn't want to forget where my darkest darks 

were going to be, so I went a little heavier with 

the brush on the darkest spots. 

Basic colors indicated, but quite flat yet.

The next step was laying in some basic colors and getting placement of values without a lot of fuss. The colors are quite chalky and the details are undeveloped.  Either there's been a frost, or those greens are going to need a bit of work to make them look a little more lively, don't you think?  Except for the initial placement layers, the greens were actually one of the last set of mixtures I attended to.  

Upshift in progress...

Every painting seems to enter a transitional zone where it's either going to upshift and become a real painting or it's going to stall out and just turn into a real pain.  During this stage, I'm reshaping some areas, defining edges, and pushing some unnecessary elements backward so they recede. Color, at this point, becomes more definite and refined.  The blues and pinks get their glow on, and finally, those greens warm up and come alive.  That unripe blueberry in the northeast corner is calling too much attention to itself and needs to take a seat in the back with a subtle color wash that is going to neutralize it.

A real painting!

Nearly there.   A few minor adjustments to the foliage and some rusty reds will bump up the volume on the greens and make them look greener.  The darkest darks in the underbrush need to go a little darker to push the important bits forward.  Finally, the highlights create eye candy on the most reflective surfaces... and we have a real painting.  

Kearsarge Near the Top II

Kearsarge Near the Top II

9 in. x 12 in., acrylic on canvas    
$150 (framed)

This is the second painting of a portion of the Barlow Trail on Mount Kearsarge just before the last crest near the summit.  I first painted this as a dainty 5 x 7 inch study, which lives in my studio.  The image is from a hike last summer, and is particularly special to me, so I decided to paint it again, this time in a larger format.  When moving from a small study to a larger canvas, you must also move up to a larger set of brushes, fiddle considerably more with the details, and maybe spend about twice as long on the painting!

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Rhubarb Pie

A backdrop of ultramarine blue 

cools down the warm pink glaze 

on this portrait of one of my favorite 

pies.  I remember eating bright red 

and green rhubarb stalks straight out 

of the garden when I was a little girl.  

It was a challenge to both enjoy the 

flavor and endure the pucker power 

of this magical stuff.  I make this pie 

in the spring or early summer in a 

homemade crust, with white sugar 

and a hint of flour to bind the juices 

just a little.

Rhubarb Pie

6 in. x 6 in., acrylic on canvas 
$100 (gallery-wrapped canvas, no frame needed)

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Blueberries and Milk

This little painting immortalizes an antique

and homey comfort food in my family, passed down to us from my parents, and probably from theirs before them.  When we were kids, during blueberry picking season, we might each enjoy a bowl of blueberries and milk.  Fresh blueberries coated with simple, whole milk and a sprinkle of sugar over all.  My kids and

grandchildren know how good this is.

Blueberries and Milk

6 in. x 6 in., acrylic on canvas      
NFS

Savoy Cabbage - SOLD

Savoy Cabbage ~SOLD (somebody liked this!)

12 in. x 12 in., acrylic on canvas    

$165 (framed)

A couple of summers ago, we tripped up to Fort Ticonderoga, a place we had both visited many times as children, but never together.  The King's Garden was a feature that didn't exist until recent years, beautiful flower and vegetable gardens tended in colonial style.  A row of magnificent blue-green Savoy cabbages caught my eye and this rotund gentleman got his portrait painted.  I nearly named this "Head Shot."

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