Interior 2

Finished! I liked it until I saw the picture below...

Now that it's finished, I like this version the best. I can't see me going out there and "unpainting" all that, though.

I loved my first shot at an interior/exterior so much, I'm trying another. I am not sure where these images come from. These are in process, wet paint, poor light, but I like the painting so far!

Got up this morning and really didn't like the green and preferred the underpainting, so my first job was getting rid of the green! 

Cities!

NYC in Red for Sandi, 2013

Chicago with Peter, 1981

Not my usual style or subject matter, but there is precedent for this kind of painting. Years ago I did a city scape of Denver in handmade paper and water color, and before that was this amazing thing of Chicago as it felt to me during/after my visit to an extremely problematic boyfriend.

Sledding in the Woods with My Brother

Sledding in the Woods at the Mission with My Brother, colored pencil on paper

We had Flexible Flyers and no fear. We rode our sleds down very narrow trails through the forest that belonged to the Columban Fathers, their mission, in Bellevue, Nebraska. We sledded above ravines, between trees, running first across a great meadow, finally arriving at the destination; an open connection of backyards, a steep hill, a lip (retaining wall) a jump, other kids, short winter afternoons, not caring about uphill home, or wet feet, or a bloody nose, or anything.

Little Cow and Willow Tree

This year I had planned to set up a table at the Descanso Fall Arts and Crafts Fair. Thursday (because I teach Fridays and Saturdays)  I loaded all my paintings into the car along with the trappings of my neophyte traveling show. I needed a painting for the raffle so I decided to put up this one, mostly because just don't like it. I learned a lot from painting it, but it just doesn't work to me at all. In fact, I have to grit my teeth to look at it.

Other people do like it, and it is absolutely a scene of Descanso, one particular very special tree in Descanso Meadow.

As it happened, I stayed at school in San Ysidro this morning longer than I thought I would to help students who needed it. That was my first obligation. Then I had to run necessary errands on the way home, so by the time I got on the road really to Descanso, I decided not even to bother with the fair or setting up my stuff. I'd only be there an hour and a half and godnew the dogs had been in the house already five hours.

But, at the last minute I turned up to the Town Hall, parked right in front, got the painting out of my trunk and took it inside. Lisa, the woman running the kitchen and watching over the raffle items took it and started to set it up, "Do you have cards, Martha, I could put out with it in case someone's interested?"

Well, since I was running on impulse, I'd left my wallet -- with my cards in it -- in the trunk. I ran out to get them, not gone three minutes. I got back to learn someone wanted to buy the painting outright without waiting for the raffle! $75 donation to the Descanso Town Hall just like that and (to me the best part) someone loved that painting with its little cow so much she didn't want to take any chances.

The Artist in Her Studio

Rembrandt, The Artist in His Studio, 24.8 x 31.7, oil on canvas

Me, Favorite Painting So Far, 16 x 20, oil on Ampersand Gessobord

I was never a fan of Rembrandt (I am now) until I saw Simon Schama's The Power of Art series and the segment on Rembrandt began with this painting. I loved it. This young artist, Rembrandt in his 20s, stands back from the power of a white canvas that radiates light; inspiration. I loved the idea that the empty canvas was not the "enemy" as the "white page" was portrayed by Hemingway ("Oh, poor me, I'm an artist") but as something really great, a "light bringer."

When I went to Italy in 2004, I spent a couple of nights in Munich. The first night after I arrived (in the morning) I literally fell asleep without knowing it. I woke up some time later the window was open and light from an Indian restaurant down the street was coming through the window into my otherwise dark room. I decided I wanted to paint the scene since I haven't tried any figures at all since I started this painting thing, except for the figures on the thangka I did FIRST in 2009.

As I painted on the Ampersand Gessobord I experimented with colors. I used Alizarin crimson because it's so beautiful, but it's also intense and transparent. I also used Indian Yellow, same reasons, and Ultramarine Blue, same reasons. I used a new kind of black that Gamblin has come up with, Chromatic Black, and liked it. It doesn't act like "black" and take over everything; it just wanted to join in and help, and did beautifully. I used Gamblin's Zinc white, for the most part, but then Titanium white for highlights.

Then in the midst of painting this I realized WHAT I was painting (besides wanting to play with colors and remember that moment and paint a figure). When I left Munich I was heading to Verona where I was looking for anything I could to help me imagine the world of one of the characters of Martin of Gfenn. I was going to study Italian, follow Goethe and look at paintings. I would say now (and I realized as I worked on this painting) I was looking for inspiration in the outside world.

As I painted I realized I was painting the opposite of Rembrandt's painting. He is in a studio, looking at a canvas. There are no visible windows and the light comes from the canvas. He's active, attentive. In my painting, the artist is konked out, one could say passive, but I'm not sure sleep this intense is passive. That was hard-core, give-it-all-you-got sleeping. Realizing I was painting inspiration, which was coming through the window from the outside world, I decided to use gold leaf on  the wall above the subject's head. Ultimately, I didn't. I used Gamblin's gold paint which worked better and looked better to me than the cheezey coppery fake gold leaf I had ordered. I can use it for something else. The Gamblin gold is bronze particles but mixes beautifully with the Indian yellow for a more intense "gold" and it's shiny.

Descanso Falls in December

18 x 24 inches, oil on canvas

Cornflowers

Cornflowers in My Garden

This is a small (8 x 10) oil on a deep-cradle (1 1/2 inch) Ampersand gesso board so it doesn't need to be framed. It was incredibly fun to paint. These are some of the few flowers in my garden that the gophers are not interested in! I was a bit worried about the colors as I was painting, but a bee came into the shed as I was working and hovered over the flowers in the painting. Risky for her, but solid confirmation for me!

Also impressionism is a combination of painting wet into wet paint and not wearing ones glasses. Impatience, color, myopia.