Friday, January 20, 2012

"Visitors" 8" x 8" Oil on Panel

The Florence Griswold Museum

Well, anyone who knows my work knows that I love to work with eggs. Especially those raw in clear a glass container. The variations of yellow I love with the distortions caused by the glass. I'm working now on putting a little show together for early March. Actually the show is booked, I just need to get everything framed and have cards printed. The last couple of weeks have been rather sad for me, for my best friend and art buddy, Carol Dulaney died. We first met in Studio 2 in Westport, Connecticut in a painting class, then roomed together for my first painting workshop on Block Island. In the late 80's we would drive into NYC every week for 2 years to explore art. Primarily we were hunting out paintings, but found many surprises along the way. Of course lunch, or tea at the Stanhope was mandatory to replenish our thirst and feast our eyes once again. We did a lot of sketching there, too. As the years passed, we still did workshops and gallery hunting, but then there were times when we just sat around talking art and books.   
On one of our last trips together, we checked into a hotel to watch the Presidential Returns with full room service. Carol was so lovely and generous. She was there for my divorce and knee replacement surgery and I would be there for her surgeries. I miss her so much. I will always look at art with a bit of her spin on the academics and theories. She would have loved the opening of the new American Wing at The Met and the latest Biennial Show at the Whitney. One of our favorite museums was at one time a boarding house for an art Colony in Old Lyme, Connecticut, called The Florence Griswold Museum. This was the location of the beginning of American Impressionist Movement and is such a wonderful gallery to see some of these early paintings. I must make a trip back there again soon. Anyway, I dearly miss Carol, as do so many others.

Monday, January 2, 2012

after N.C.Wyeth oil on linen


Copying paintings is supposed to be good practice....as long as you give the original artist credit. NC Wyeth was one of my favorite illustrators, though his illustrations did not fulfill his creative mind. He left illustration to paint his own scenes, but his inability to meet his financial needs forced him back to illustration again. The scenes he painted are so filled with emotion and drama. We know him by his dramatic scenes of knights secreting a cave by torchlight or of pirates landing on shore with huge billowing clouds taking two-thirds of the canvas. Wow! I've always been amazed by his wonderful painting and striking scenes from childhood stories. So.... over Christmas, to get the spirit going, I decided to copy one of Wyeth's best loved magazine covers with Santa Clause. I became restless and frustrated early since I did not chart the whole painting out from the beginning, thus not getting critical parts of the painting on the canvas. Perhaps I would like to try this one again. It will be fun, anyway, having this one hanging around the house at Christmas time.