Shimmering Pines

11 in. x 14 in., acrylic on canvas panel

$250, framed

I enjoyed painting this winter alpine scene and getting the glow of the sunrise emerging behind the trees just right.  This piece is quite a simple composition, but packed with a lot of color and a wide value range, with very little pure white. I painted it as part of a show meant to pair haiku poetry with art.  This one was paired with Peggy Willis Lyles' poem of the same name:  

Shimmering Pines /A taste of the mountain / From your cupped hands

Comes in a brown wood frame.  The total piece size is 12" x 16".

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Full Snow Moon

Full Snow Moon

8 in. x 10 in., gouache with pen & ink

$250 matted and framed

The bottom of Fairmont Street just a short way up from my house, goes up the hill toward the horizon, meeting the sky. Last February, while walking the dog, the sun was setting and the brilliant full moonrise was centered over the top of Fairmont.  As crazy as the colors seem to be in this painting, the color of the sky was exactly this for about 10 minutes as the moon hovered over the top of the road.  This piece is double-matted with a black and white strip bordering the painting, and a black frame.  The total piece size is 12" x 16".

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Up, Up and Away

Up, Up and Away

8 in. x 10 in., gouache with pen & ink

$250 matted and framed

This fun painting takes advantage of gouache's ability to reactivate with water after it dries.  The softly-lit bubbles and glowing spots floating in the dark blue water around the jellyfish are made by allowing carefully-placed drops of water to "stain" the painted surface and pull the pigment out and the illusion of glow.  This piece is double-matted with a black and white strip bordering the painting, and a black frame.  The total piece size is 12" x 16".

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Suspicious Minds

 

Suspicious Minds

8 in. x 10 in., gouache with pen & ink

$250 matted and framed

Artists share supplies, or treat each other to new mediums.  I was the recipient of a set of gouache paints and cold pressed watercolor paper from a fellow artist, giving me a fresh way to play. The ability to layer pen and ink over the dried gouache created an opportunity to add textural lines and fine detail, which you see here in this raven. Gouache dries with a soft, matte finish, which is quite nice.  This piece is double-matted with a black and white strip bordering the painting, and a black frame.  The total piece size is 12" x 16".

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For the Healing of the Nations

 

For the Healing of the Nations

11 in. x 14 in., acrylic on cradled panel

Not yet priced

Taking up a challenge to produce an abstract painting for a show, I had the idea to explore an iconographical image with a tree-of-life theme.  The tree runs through the Bible from cover to cover and several places in between.  It is the occasion of the cosmic tragic fall of humanity into death and moral decay and the material that composes the rescuing ark of Noah; it is the Ark of the Covenant where God meets the high priest on the Day of Atonement and the thing that gets planted as a place of memorial; it is a tree that was the instrument of execution on which Jesus was sacrificed, and finally shows up in the New Jerusalem at the consummation of the coming Kingdom of God in Revelation.  I wanted to create an image that conveyed a dynamic full of movement, power and mystic symbolism of a greater reality; something that pulled into one the scriptural themes running through the biblical tree. The title "For the Healing of the Nations" comes from and illuminates Revelation 22:2, describing a divine Christophanic tree so incredible and transcendent, it nourishes and restores humanity.  I hope you like it.

Ruby Red

Ruby Red

6 in. x 6 in., acrylic on cradled panel

$150 unframed (no frame necessary)

This painting reminds me of so many Christmases when we were a young married couple and my husband would buy me a big box full of oranges and grapefruits from someone he worked with.  Some years only grapefruits were available; large, fragrant Ruby Reds so fresh that they would often last me through February or even March in a basket near a window in a cool, winter house.  A gorgeous mixture of pyrrole red and quinacridone magenta achieves the unique, saturated jewel tones of the red grapefruit in this still life.

Reference photo, courtesy by Sarah Sedwick @sedwickstudio 

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No Plow Yet

 

No Plow Yet

6 in. x 6 in., acrylic on gallery-wrapped canvas

$150 unframed (no frame necessary)

This little piece was painted in response to a call for a black & white themed art show.  Painted without many values (just black, white, and maybe three narrow midtones), I very much enjoyed using the occasion of a dark, snowy night street scene illuminated by a single street light. Only the immediate area below the lamp, the surrounding snowflakes, and the icy wires glisten in the stormy darkness. I found this to be a fun challenge for me to try and express a lot with just a little information. Those who live in northern areas with snowstormy winters will truly appreciate both this imagery and the title.

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Where Winter Listens

 

Where Winter Listens

8 in. x 8 in., acrylic on canvas panel

$200 framed

Inspired (instigated?) by a call for art for a show featuring black and white works, this landscape is actually done entirely in Payne's Gray and Titanium White with a few touches of Mars Black. It showcases a range of subtle value shifts to create a sense of space, distance and atmosphere, and felt good to paint; an excellent stretching exercise for any artist to practice care and deliberation in values.  Beyond that, I like the feeling this painting creates of a silent, snow-blanketed landscape in winter, and the suggestion that it might even be still snowing that tiny, fine kind of precipitation that loses the shapes of the far treeline into low visibility.  It does feel like winter is straining to hear any sound, doesn't it?

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