Mom Always Called Him Sunshine, II - SOLD

Mom Always Called Him Sunshine, II 

~SOLD (Somebody Liked This!)
12 in. x 12 in. acrylic on canvas

$190 (framed)

Bruce was my mother's only son, and from the time he was a little shaver, even when he grew up to be a big, burly man, she often would address him as, "Sunshine."  When asked, she said it was because of his headful of unruly golden brown curls that framed his face as a little boy, and that to her he looked like a round-faced sunshine.  When my brother died unexpectedly in January and we were fumbling around in our grief trying to put together a fitting funeral for him, I could think of nothing other than somehow getting my hands on a big glass ginger jar full of brilliant sunflowers in his honor, even in the midst of a snowy New England winter.  This painting is of a few choice blooms from that gorgeous and nourishing riot of sunshine that will always, always, always be a symbol of my funny and precious Bruce, who is now most definitely basking in the light of the face of Jesus.

Losing Geoff (Triptych) - SOLD

Losing Geoff (Triptych) ~SOLD (Somebody Liked This!)

Three 9 in. x 12 in. panels, acrylic on canvas

$378 (unframed)

This triptych is a few years old, and had been living a quiet life in my home for most of that time, with only three ventures out of the house to go on display at brief events. This week, at its third outing, it sold almost as soon as it went public. In fact, at the New Light Art Show reception, several people commented on it and one woman told me I could have sold it at least a couple of times over, based on her own love for it, and on the feedback she said she'd heard from others. 

Losing Geoff was the first triptych I ever painted, and, despite it having been a memorial exercise on the occasion of losing a friend to a sudden illness back in our old church, it was an enjoyable challenge to paint.  The composition is a "treescape" or an expanse of oak branches viewed from underneath the tree, looking up at the summer sky, and spanning the entirety of three panels.  The piece may be enjoyed for what it is, without knowledge of the "Easter egg" within it to which the title refers. 

The story the painting tells is as follows: The leaves are a community, of sorts, all living within reach of each other, brushing against and interacting with one another, all clinging to, and receiving life from the tree to which they are attached.  A few bare twigs void of leaves mark the piece here and there, but on the leftmost panel, there is one vacant twig, freshly bereft of its leafy member, marked by a single, glistening red drop on its terminus, a fresh wound made by the amputation of the living leaf newly ripped from it.  This image was an apt reflection of the painful void in our fellowship left by the unexpected death of our dear friend and brother in Christ.  

The branch will not be bare forever.  We will vacate our own branches each of us, one by one, but we will be together with our lost one again.  Spring will come.  He promised.

Mount Kearsarge, Wilmot Side - SOLD

Mount Kearsarge, Wilmot Side  ~SOLD (Somebody Liked This!)

12 in. x 16 in., acrylic on canvas

$196 (framed)

The northern slope of Mount Kearsarge is home.  I spent my earliest years living in Andover village, at the base of Kearsarge.  His stately, flat top will always be recognizable to me from wherever he rises up from the horizon, and when I go near him, I feel like I could lie on the soil of his dominion and become part of his very roots.  I have climbed to his square-blocked, rocky summit many times; my first climb was when I was six years old, and my forty-something mother, refusing to be outdone by the younger moms in my first-grade class, insisted to my teacher that she would most definitely be one of the chaperones on our field trip up the steep Winslow Trail.  Here he sits under a dramatic skyscape in a pose most familiar, just off NH Route 4 just north of the Andover town line.

Bartlett Pear Study - SOLD

Bartlett Pear Study ~SOLD (Somebody Liked This!)

6 in. x 6 in., acrylic on canvas

$72 (gallery-wrapped canvas, no frame needed)

Just a quick study of a simple Bartlett pear, with it's bumpy, green-to-yellowing ripening transition.  I love pears, and I grew up with Bartlett pear trees with were heavy with huge yields every fall.  I think they've gotten short shrift here in America, where we're all about apples, all the time.  Pears are mellow, juicy and lovely, and ought to be used more often in our common cooking and baking.  If this were a food blog, I'd dazzle you with a sexy photo of the glorious pear and cardamom skillet pie I made last fall.  

Franklin, NH, Christmas 1972 - SOLD

When I was a little girl, and we lived in the small town of Andover, NH, the nearest city my mother would drive to for groceries and the like was the small mill city of Franklin, about a 10 mile drive from Andover across Route 11. This intersection is Central Street and Franklin Street at the old bank on the right, with the old J.J. Newberry storefront on the left. At Christmastime then, and still today, the city of Franklin decks out the downtown with those wonderful retro electric-lit Christmas swags and ornaments, looking a lot like the fictional Bedford Falls from the movie, "It's a Wonderful Life." This little painting is from an old photo after a snowstorm and heavy road sanding, looking toward Willow Hill. Other than Newberry's and it's fantastic old wood floors being gone and the the cars being newer, the scene here looks very similar to Central Street in Franklin today.

Franklin, NH, Christmas 1972 

~SOLD (Somebody Liked This!)
6 in. x 6 in., acrylic on canvas
$72 (gallery-wrapped canvas, no frame needed)

Winnisquam Sunset at Ahern - SOLD

Winnisquam Sunset at Ahern ~SOLD (Somebody Liked This!)

8 in. x 8 in., acrylic on canvas  
$115 (framed)

A late summer afternoon with a friend sitting on the sandy eastern shore of Lake Winnisquam at Ahern State Park here in NH was the inspiration for this painting.  There's a little walking trail that leaves the beach and runs up the knoll through the woods, emerging on this little woodsy rise overlooking a sharp drop-off down to the water.  The sun was setting on the other shore (that's Steele Hill, there) with strong light right in our eyes just outside the right frame of the painting and illuminating the dry leaves and pine needles on the ground with gold. The warm and cool colors were exciting to me and the shadows were fun and dramatic.  It was a good excuse to use blues and oranges, my favorite complementary pairing together.

Two Lights On The Rocks (A Mini Painting) - SOLD

Two Lights On The Rocks 

4 in. x 5 in., acrylic on canvas

SOLD

When you visit Two Lights at Cape Elizabeth in Maine, there's a small, elongated promontory of brittle quartzite and phyllite that rises up and juts out into the Atlantic Ocean.  The long, stepped and faulted surface looks like squared off logs stacked like stadium seating and rubble tumbling into the surf on one side and dropping off to a cliff on the other. When you stand on the top of the promontory looking out to sea, you get the rubbly view of this painting.  It was a moody, overcast day in winter, and everything was blue-green midtone.

It's a tiny painting... see?

This is a mini-painting, a small study of the rocky outcropping at Two Lights that can fit in your hand.  It required brushes many times smaller than I usually reach for, but it was a fun challenge, and captures the chilly, rocky and nonstop wind here.  It's a cool, simple composition, but if you've stood out on top of the ledge here, you recognize the sights and you can hear the open sea pounding into the rubble around you.

And maybe being confined to a tiny painting tames the power of the place just a little? 

Give A Piece of Original NH Art for Christmas

Original art is special.  It's one-of-a-kind and originates in the mind's eye of the artist long before paint ever touches the canvas, and the soul of the artist has brooded over the work as problems are solved and pigments are mixed and applied.   The subjects of a still life, simple as they might be, may be perfect symbol of comfort for a special person, or an emblem of a some experience or place that is meaningful.  A landscape that looks like "back home," or a evokes a particular memory will hang in that special spot in a home or office, and the effort that went into that unique piece magnifies the love of the gift-giver.  

People pass by the mass-produced, soul-less printed canvases and prints stacked like cord wood in home fashion aisles of department stores every. single. day.  There's a reason for that.  It might look nice on your loved one's wall, but who wants to give a gift with no soul?

I have several small landscapes and still lifes that may be a special and meaningful Christmas present for someone on your list.  All artwork is unframed, but sometimes that's best done by the one who knows where it will call home.  Browse the paintings here on this blog.  Hit me up if you have any questions.  Shipping doesn't cost much; canvas art is lightweight.  

Merry Christmas!

~Shawne

Fog Signal House at Two Lights - SOLD

Fog Signal House at Two Lights ~SOLD (Somebody liked this!)

9 in. x 12 in., acrylic on canvas    

$148 (framed)

Last February we visited Two Lights, as we often do on our winter vacation trip to Maine.  It's quiet and sparsely visited.  I love it here.  You can pick sea glass from the little pebble beach right in front of the little parking spots, or you can check out the cave in the rocks if the tide's out far enough.  I love to climb the rocky peninsula and scramble out to a warm spot on the rocks.  There's a lot of subject matter to paint here.  In the winter, the lobster shack is shuttered until spring and all the whole place a long, wide, rocky staircase angling down to the rhythmic tidal spray.  The sea has a green cast here in the morning, and on this particular morning the sky was all movement and bars of sunlight between the windy clouds.  You might like this painting if you've been to Two Lights yourself.

You'd better mind the fog signal and not be too close if you're there when it goes off.  Here's a link below to where you can see and hear the signal, looking down opposite from the vantage point of this painting. 

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHtlCUDrmIE

Ursa Major SOLD

Ursa Major (Illuminated Twitter Poem)
11 in. x 14 in.,  Pen & Ink and Watercolor
Unframed, $85  ~  SOLD (Somebody liked this!)

For some time I have enjoyed the challenge of using what used to be the old 140-character limit Twitter format to compose a bit of poetic verse.  For those of you who know me, you will not be surprised that I have several rueful lines aimed at my disdain for the month of March.  A couple of Septembers ago I was out at night for a run and there in the darkening sky was The Big Dipper, that highly-recognizable portion of the constellation Ursa Major that as children we might first learn to find and become familiar with.  Staring at it twinkling in the cooling heavens, I thought about how much larger the full constellation is supposed to be and how the classic Baroque drawings of Ursa Major (The Great Bear) often showed an odd bear with a long tail (?) arranged over the stars in a non-sensical way.  And so often in reality the stars beyond the dipper in the full constellation are just not visible.  I found myself re-imagining Ursa Major along the dipper itself without the extended, invisible stars, and suddenly, there he was, crouching just above the horizon, eyes penetrating and ears at attention, his powerful back tense and curved upward and away.  

I drew Ursa Major on mixed media board with pen and ink in Zentangle-style and washed watercolors over the top.  There are washes of iridescent aqua blue watercolor over the surface of the sky.  In person, he sports interference shine across his intimidating form. The poem he is illuminating is casually lettered below.  At some point I will mat and frame him, or whoever buys him could opt to have it done themselves.  He was enjoyable to create, and I hope you like him. Maybe other constellations will follow.

Ursa Major

Unblinking
Straining across the cold black
he arches low, blocking the
northern passage.  I am pinned beneath
his unmistakable vertebrae.

Near Mount Tom - SOLD

 

Near Mount Tom ~SOLD (Somebody liked this!)
8 in. x 8 in., acrylic on canvas
$115 (framed)

I enjoy hiking when I have the time and opportunity, and if I can get someone to climb a mountain with me, I'll go.  But my friend Linda has logged serious miles hiking up and down and all around.  Recently, she posted a breathtaking photo from a cool-weather hike, and I fell in love with it.  She generously gave me permission to paint the landscape she captured in her photograph.  This is a portion of her ascent along the Mount Tom, Avalon and Field Loop up near Bretton Woods, New Hampshire.  The silent, frosty calm of the trail disappearing ahead and into the misty trees among the spruce was just asking to be painted.

Sometimes when I paint I listen to theological lectures.  It keeps the right brain working undisturbed by left brain who wants to criticize and backseat drive.  Listening to theology feeds my soul and also give left brain enough ontological meat to chew on so right brain can mix colors, choose brushes and make compositional decisions.  In classic Sesame Street fashion, I'm happy to tell you that this painting has been brought to you by lectures on The Psychology of Atheism, and by the first three parts in a series on Justification.  I hope both Kierkegaard and Luther would have liked this little painting!

Amy's Butternut - SOLD

Amy's Butternut ~SOLD Somebody liked this!

9 in. x 12 in., acrylic on canvas    

$150 (framed)

My friend Amy knows how much I absolutely adore butternut squash.  If I could only choose a single vegetable to raise, it would probably be these sweet, golden gifts of the natural world. So when she grew a small crop for herself last fall and presented me with one, it made me so happy. That being said, however, when I saw that she had left a portion of vine attached, complete with springy, dried, skeletal tendrils, I HAD to paint it.  I decided to forego enjoying the goodness of her harvest in order to have this specimen sit enthroned in the studio on an old cloth for a portrait.  

I played with the bluish and blushing fleshtones on his heavy, sturdy form at the Twiggs Gallery event in February, and the many people who came through to watch us in the live art room seemed to appreciate watching him become something.  His curly accouterments, however, dress his plainness up, like a good, non-symmetrical hairstyle; without them, he's just a big knucklebone. When I finished the painting and set it aside next to the actual squash to dry, I noticed I had painted it very near to actual size on the 9 x 12 surface, something that I hadn't necessarily set out to do.  Behold, the Butternut!

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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    
$250 (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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