Sunset on Mudflats

pastel on archival sanded paper, 9x12 in.

Lately, I've been busy trying to reclaim my neglected garden and ready it for planting, deal with a broken sump pump hose (flooding said garden), and other domestic pursuits. Evenings, I've begun sorting through boxes of old photos in an attempt to organize and label. My love of landscape began long ago, so there are lots of photos of places I spent time at. Some were of a place I used to take my kids to camp, on the Oregon Coast, near Cannon Beach.

Daytime, mudflats at full ebb can look pretty drab. But there are times that bring out the astonishing beauty that mudflats have: days with light mist, sunsets, moonlit evenings. In the summer, the Pacific Northwest coast often has stupefyingly brilliant sunsets. I found several photos I'd taken of one particularly stunning sunset, and began to visualize a pastel painting. Yesterday was too hot to work outside, so I got out my pastels for the first time in nearly a year. I wanted to try to express both the brilliance and the serenity of this place at that particular time. I think I came close.

Esoterica: for the last two weeks, little bitty black ants have been trying to establish a nest in my mailbox (an old-fashioned rural box on a post). Leaving the door open worried them enough that they would scurry to remove all the eggs and larvae, but then the next morning, or the next rainy day, they would be back.

Day before yesterday, after they had finished evacuating, I sprinkled geranium oil inside (it works to deflect skeetos). This morning the box is empty. I don't know if it was the oil, or if it was because yesterday was 90 degrees and the mailbox is a black oven. Hope it is the oil, as it is cooling down, and, frankly, it is guilt inducing to realize I have assumed the role of natural disaster in the ant universe.

This is not something I am likely to paint. Or maybe...

Shoals of Vermont: finished

oil on stretched linen, 20x16 in.

I didn't make any real changes in this one, but I did correct some details, and did another layer of paint along with a bit of glazing and scumbling over the sea to give it some substance. I may go back later along the horizon, but this one is otherwise finished. To see it in its earlier stage, go here (which is actually just two posts down).

I've been working on another painting that is in the middle somewhere. It led me in an unexpected direction (I am getting used to this) and then stranded me. So so it is resting quietly up in the drying room until it gets around to letting me know what it is. Whatever it is, I like it so far.

Some weeks are like this...

blank canvas, 20 x 16 in.

What more can I say? Sometimes that's just the way it is.

I had gotten several paintings out of holding pattern, and in the drying rack. And made up a CD of paintings to be juried.

Then the SUN actually shone, the ground was finally unfroze, and, with help from my family, I spent a week catching up on cleaning up the yard and getting my garden ready to plant. I even managed to plant an arborvitae hedge 40 feet long and 18" tall. With such little plants, you'd think it would be easy, but remember-- this is Vermont. Digging holes means acquiring a small mountain of rocks. That was a day's work in itself. Then it rained again.

THEN... one of those life events that leaves you reeling with 360 billion emotions all at once.

Two weeks ago, a person I last saw as a 9 pound 2 ounce baby boy suddenly reappeared in my life as a full-grown man. My son. Instead of painting, I spent days emailing and facebooking him and getting to know him and telling him about his birth family and calling all my friends and journaling and either dancing through the house or walking around dazed. He brought up the part about feeling 360 billion emotions all at once, and that pretty much covers it.

Ironically, the day I first heard from him, I had just sent an email to my youngest daughter on her birthday, and his message to me came in the download.

I've been nuts ever since. Today I heard his voice for the first time, when he called to wish me Happy Mother's Day. I can't talk about that yet. Tomorrow is his birthday, and for the first time I can wish him Happy Birthday. We live on opposite coasts, so now I have one more very special relative to visit when I go out west this year. I can hardly wait.

What a special Mother's Day. My daughters and my son.

This calls for a special painting, and one is starting to take shape in my mind. I am going to use one of my new wood cradled panels.

Must paint. Must paint.

Shoals of Vermont

oil on stretched canvas, 20x16 inches

This is either finished or almost finished. I am not sure which yet. I put it away upstairs so I won't be tempted to fiddle with it. I do need to do a little touchup and minor adjustments once the paint dries enough, but I am feeling that I want to leave the composition as it is now.

I began this painting with a general sense of its composition (I usually sketch it out on paper or on the canvas in a general way first). Then little houses spontaneously began falling off into the midground, which somehow became watery rather than fieldy.

The title bobbed up from my somewhat warped sense of humor. I think the painting itself emerged because of my feelings of having my life stranded with no way to escape (note that none of the houses have windows or doors). But the painting, and the title, took on a larger meaning. And of course, it must: there are all these houses, all these people around me whose lives are full of uncertainty. My own foundation is pretty secure in comparison to many of the people I know and see.

Sentinal Tree, finished

oil on stretched canvas, 20x16 inches

This is the same canvas I posted on February 8th (you can see it here), now finished with the terra rosa on the branches and the distant vista misted in. I added a little color to the sky, too.

While I was showing it to a friend the other day, she mentioned that though the outside is scarred from lightning strikes, the inside is still green and thriving. "Like you", she said. Her words startled me, but when I reflected I realized that there is truth in what she said. Perhaps it is why I was so drawn to this tree in the first place, and may be why this painting resonates so much for me. In some fundamental way this is a self-portrait. When I look at it, I feel very connected, and very at peace.

Anders Zorn's palette: an experiment with green and blue

Yes, two posts in one day again!

Periodically, the issue of Anders Zorn's limited palette comes up in artistic circles. Zorn is famous for his stunning portraits and nudes with very rich skin tones. His paintings are a feast, in color, composition, and form. His palette is said to have consisted of Ivory black, white, scarlet, and yellow ochre, though he probably occasionally used other pigments on occasion. There are some who find it difficult to believe that he could actually used that palette, as many of his paintings show blue (albeit subdued) and some quite vivid greens. Thus, these nay-sayers claim, he must have used blue, or he could not have achieved green. Some allow the blue, as warm grey tones will read blue when placed in context with warm colors such as yellow and orange.

However, I know from my own experience that it is possible to mix greens without using blue pigment. So in response to a blanket statement by one of those people who are adamant about their assumption regardless of the facts, I did a quick little demonstration. These may not be the exact pigments used by Zorn, but they are nonetheless a clear demonstration that it is indeed possible to achieve both blues and greens with his limited palette.

I use M. Graham oil paints, and already had a selection laid out for a painting. From those, I used ivory black, zinc white, azo yellow, terra rosa (one of the iron oxide reds), and quin red (a modern scarlet pigment that Zorn could have used). I chose the two reds because I wanted to see what the differences would be. I found the results quite interesting, and learned something in the process. Here it is:

On the left: Ivory black and terra rosa, tending toward green.

On the right: Ivory black and quin red, tending toward blue.

The top two patches in each line have azo yellow added.

I found it interesting that with the quin red, adding yellow created an olivey shadow leaf green, while with the terra rosa, the yellow brought out an intense grass green.

The bottom patch on the left is not as dark as it appears here-- it is distinctly a deep green.

I was surprised to see how much blue showed up in the quin red/ivory black combo, especially when white was added. In real life, it is slightly greyer than shows here (the paint was still wet, so reflection probably increased the blue). But perfect blues for water, and certainly in contrast with warm colors the blue would stand out. It would be interesting to try this with other reds and yellows to see what kind of greens and blues would emerge.

Mixing colors is fun. And Zorn is vindicated once again (many, many people have demonstrated this, but it is worth doing just for the learning exercise).