Skeleton in the Classroom

This friendly fellow (seems male to me, don't know why) is part of a still life that is set up for my AP Studio Art Students.  I decided to work alongside the students.

What I re-learned....Sketetons are hard to draw!!

The one on the top is done in watercolor and oil pastel on gessoed backing board and the Smiling Fellow  is done in waterbased oils and oil pastel.

Collage in 3-D

This artwork was created for the DiscARTed show at the Geauga Park District.  I could only submit two entries and I made four.  The two that were entered are a cigar box which I call Bird Box and a book which I altered with collage, painting, stitching and sketching. Pictures will be posted when the show comes down in January.
For this one I assembled pieces and parts of old paintings, collage materials, and plexiglass.  It's mounted on a stretcher frame from an old canvas.  The little popsicle stick figures were made by my daughter when she was about ten years old.  They're meant to symbolize us--the human race, the owl represents wisdom. I placed the people behind the plexiglass with the idea that it represents a barrier.  The barrier for when we aren't connected to earth.   The circle in the background symbolizes  the circle of life, our life path. The hands are painted with symbols which I read about in a National Geographic magazine.  Hand prints were discovered on a cave ceiling in a remote area of Papua New Guinea.  They are ancient and thought to be ceremonial, ritual handprints of an ancient culture.  The amazing thing is that each handprint was painted with a different symbol.  Who knows what they represent?
So I was trying to link the ancient world with the 21st century (popsicle stick people); the birds represent our beautiful earth and the inhabitants of the natural world. The Owl being wisdom, linking the old with Now.  My prayer is that we are wise enough to honor and love our earth.

Gray Day

After spending an hour or more working on this; the commission piece that is taking its good old time reaching any sort of resolution, I switched over to a fast painting over an old painting. 

(a side note about the commission:  the buyer saw one of my smaller paintings (8 x 10) that is soft and moody.  She wants a larger work, about 42 x 36--soft and moody.  At this point, I'm beginning to get the softness, but its been a challenge to take what is so easy to capture in a small piece and bring it to a large format.  There are some compositional kinks I'm working on, and I'm struggling with the trees in front.)

Today was a Gray Day.  Rain, rain and more rain. 

The fast painting over the old painting is below. I plan to work some lighter grays into the sky. 

I like to paint Gray Days. I find it a good challenge to capture just the right colors for gray sky.

(my camera hasn't captured the colors with accuracy)

We were driving to a Christmas dinner at dusk. The white barns in sillouhette against the white sky were striking. After painting for several hours today, my seeing eyes were charged up. I wanted to turn the car around and go home to paint the white on white.

From Here to There (sketch to painting)

This summer I spent a few days with my sisters at the beach in Vermilion, Ohio on the shores of western Lake Erie.  I sketched a bit one afternoon, loving the variety of blues in the water.

For the last two weeks while "trying" to paint a commission piece--which isn't going so well--I started and finished the painting above.  I usually work on a couple of pieces at the same time, if a painting is too wet, I'll move to another.  It also keeps my energy for the paintings fresh.  This time I think I was using other paintings to avoid the commission, but also in hopes that I could take my enjoyment from the other works and infuse it into the commission.  So far its not working. ugh.  Fortunately there isn't a huge rush on the commission and I plan to get to it when I figure out what is blocking my creativity. (maybe I'll post a pic of what's happening so far)

So about the sketch and painting pictured here. In the painting I ended up turning Lake Erie into a landscape. Initially I had painted water, but I came back to the canvas a day or so after the water was in and it kindof morphed into landscape--which I know so much better than water--simply because I don't see the Lake on a daily basis, whereas I do study my little corner of the world everyday.
I painted a few pieces this summer which have a similar composition to the painting above.  I'm toying with the idea of painting a Horizon Line series.  I love the meshing of color, verging on abstraction; still landscape.

How can We Eat THIS?

My Pastry Chef daughter made this wonderful work of art for Thanksgiving dessert.   YUM! Beautiful!!!

Plus pie?  My not the pastry chef son  (although, he did work with me  as pie maker's assistant when I was a pie maker) is making two apple pies and I'm making two pumpkin pies.

Gluttons?  Yes!  Lots of people to help eat all the wonderfulness, yes! 

Happy Thanksgiving!

Twenty Minute Challenge and a Bonus Bald Eagle

Not such a clear picture of a Bald Eagle, but, I had to share it!  My neighbor and I have decided to walk every trail in every park in our local park district; no set time limit for the walks or for when we complete the venture.  It is serendepitous in plan, we go when we can, weather permitting.   The mild November weather lingered for our walk today.  As we emerged from the woods into a large open meadow, one bird flew by (Bald Eagle #1), a second followed.  The second Bald Eagle rode the thermals for a long time.  We lingered.

It seems I can't stop with the Twenty Minute Drawings.  I'm loving it!  Its great practice. The two shown here were done during AP Studio Art Class.  It was a quiet day, the students were working with such intensity that I was able to sit (for the most part uninterrupted) and finish in twenty minutes. The top piece is oil on watercolor paper and the bottom was done in my sketchbook using mixed media; prismacolor markers, watercolors and pencil.

I guess I'd better enter  The Twenty Minute Challenge soon.

Peace on a Sunny Day

 

YES.       on this sun filled day.  easy to breathe peace.

peace

it doesn't mean to be in a place

where there is no noise, trouble or

hard work.  it means to be in the midst

of those things and still

be calm in your heart.----unknown

(unfortunately i don't remember the name of the artist who made the awesome hand, but her work was innovative, expressive and spoke to me.  the hand sits in front of my studio.  love her work!)