Art Blog - Caroline Henry

Merry Christmas! I've listed this painting just as December is about to begin. Paint and collage combine in depicting a cold and silent night with angel voices singing. I am always intrigued by Christmas stamps, and enjoy seeing both the secular and the religious ones. So often these bring us miniature versions of great art from the Renaissance period. Here I combine Christmas stamps, beautiful papers, and painting in watercolor and gouache for an unconventional and somewhat abstract portrayal of the holy night. The gouache was necessary to produce my whites on the dark paper and deep blue watercolor on the sky. I hope you enjoy the painting and accept it as my greeting card to everyone who reads this. I am using it on greeting cards I will send out this year… Continue reading… 0 comments

Every work of art has to have its beginnings. First there is the idea. Then the idea becomes concrete as we choose our media and mark a surface. Those beginnings are critical. They may be bold or hesitant. Some of that is personality, but there are works that I tiptoe into and others where I just start pouring paint and see what happens. I don't think there is a single best way to begin, but there are many good ways: 1. A certain amount of organization helps make for good beginnings. Some time spent making you have a clear surface and the necessary materials at hand avoids distraction & frustration. 2. Thumb nail sketches are a must for some artists. Advantages are solving many problems ahead of time… Continue reading… 0 comments

A lighthouse on dunes where a river meets the sea is surrounded by breaking fog and by dune grasses. The piece evokes a feeling of the shore without a bit of water in sight. I have painted this lighthouse before in watercolor, but I decided to try it in scratch board, a medium which emphasizes the importance of line. The architectural lines of the lighthouse contrast with the random sway of the beach grasses. There was some risk in placing the strong verticals of the light tower and the pathway so nearly at the center of the composition, but I think it works. The broken vertical moving from the light tower to the pathway and the interesting window to the right of the lighthouse door help create harmonious movement. The color palette is very limited… Continue reading… 0 comments

White desert poppies grow on the eastern side of Sierra Nevada peaks, where moisture is sparse. Their yellow centers are echoed in the dry plants and soils beyond. Few trees climb the base of the mountains. The hearty flowers brighten the day. A trace of snow dots the mountain caps behind them. It was tempting to make this painting a floral, pulling in close to the blossoms and prickly leaves of this flower. This time though I decided to place them in their setting. The viewer gets a chance to see how these bright white little blossoms capture attention even in the bigness of these western lands. The thin petaled blossoms bend to various shapes in the desert winds, but the plant they grow on shows a rugged tenacity… Continue reading… 0 comments

A robin stands in the grass with foliage showing in the background. The birds head is raised just slightly in an alert pose. I painted it from a photograph which I took on a bright July morning, and the grassy area has a sun-drenched look, while the bright chested bird most definitely keeps its "cool"! Right after finishing it, I framed it and put it into an August show. Now it's back and available here on ArtId… Continue reading… 0 comments

Gold resist outlines the shapes of brilliant color in this landscapes painted in silk dyes on a circlet of silk. Sunrise upon green fields, a pine tree, and a meadow scattered with white flowers promises a lovely day. Usually when I paint on fabric it is in creating accessories or garments, but occasionally it is a pleasure to do for purely decorative purposes. Silk painting requires the lightest of touches. Lovely loose freehand works may be created without resists, but for this piece I chose to use a gold resist to highlight the golden light of sun in early morning. Perhaps the happy feeling of this little landscapes reflects my own joy in the beginning of day… Continue reading… 0 comments

Black and white iris make a striking contrast where they grow in my garden, so one fine spring day this trio caught my eye and I had one of those "I must paint that" moments. The work went very quickly, or as quickly as it can in watercolor when you reach points where you don't want to work wet into wet; for I was very aware of catching the nuances of color and the shapes before they changed as flowers will. Those "I must paint (or draw)..." moments can happen anytime, anywhere, and they can be an artist's friend and powerful force. It can be the toss of a horse's head, the tilt of a sail in the wind, the green depths of the sea, a rickety old building, a compelling face, an odd arrangement of rusty items in farm's discards--whatever speaks to a particular artist… Continue reading… 0 comments

A goat in the foreground looks directly out of the picture plane to the viewer. Further into the field a cluster of three go about their goat business. The greens of spring color the field along with a scattering of wildflowers. I find it interesting that animals will give you that arresting stare and judge whether you are a danger. If they mistrust, they are out of there. If you seem okay, the stare may continue as if in pure curiosity. This goat looked up as I parked the car along the roadside, watched as I took the photo, and didn't lost interest until I was ready to go. In that instance, we both had about the same attention span! The setting had enough bucolic, spring time peace and beauty to have set a romantic poet, such as Wordsworth or Keats, to creating a new ode… Continue reading… 0 comments

I just posted a framed painting/drawing built around an ACEO card. "Coffee Cups" invites an amused and joyful view of life. Ordinary objects are given importance in the ink and marker drawing, and that same drawing is complimented by its embossed paper background and the surrounding mat and frame. Yet at only 8" by 10" framed, it does not demand a lot of wall space The popular 2.5 by 3.5 inch art cards may be kept in albums and storage boxes, but they also make some very nice framed art. From an artist's viewpoint, small art is a wonderful way to work when life takes you away from your studio or the great outdoors and you must achieve something within a small work space. From a collector's viewpoint small art allows us to enjoy more works of art than we might think we have room for… Continue reading… 0 comments

A sweep of high plateau leads back to mountains and a clouded sky. Storm clouds gather for summer rains that clean the skies and green the earth. Bison graze in the distance. Sage and a bright yellow wildflower cluster complete the foreground. The painting is especially about the sky and its relationship to the life below, thus the title and the focal point formed by the sun-kissed upper right point of the largest cloud. For more thoughts on art & skies, see my ArtId blog… Continue reading… 0 comments

Painting fog presents a different challenge in every medium. There is great variety in the fogs that the artist may be depicting. Wisps of fog hover low over an autumnal field. Pea soup fogs cut visibility to a few yards, or even a few feet, in every direction. Low lying coastal fogs can obscure the lower landscape leaving crisp clear views of lighthouses, cliffs or mountain tops, or the spires of the Golden Gate Bridge. The marine layer often plays cat and mouse games with the coast, approaching and withdrawing in its own mysterious ways. This is the fog of Emily Dickinson's short but vivid poem: The Sun and Fog contested The Government of Day _ The Sun took down his Yellow Whip And drove the Fog away We know that sometimes the fog wins, thus it is always a contest. Fog has drama… Continue reading… 0 comments

Persimmon trees are at their most beautiful in winter when bare limbed trees are ornaments in bright orange. They are stunning on clear January days when outlined by a bright blue sky. The persimmons take on a magical glow when caught in light against a night sky. This tree is behind a house, lit by the light shining out a large window or sliding door, with the dark night sky beyond. A dusting of snow on the tree, the fence, and the ground adds to the feel of winter. The one area of bright color is the orange fruit. The work is in pastel pencil. Image is 6" by 9" shipped in an 11" by 14" white mat. For comments on this painting in the broader context of Nocturnes in Art see my art_composition ArtId blog http://artid… Continue reading… 0 comments

I brought home lots of art inspiration from my recent vacation, most of it in the form of wild country and wild animals in western Wyoming and northeaster Utah. In the midst of this great open country nestles Jackson Hole, where the small city of Jackson, Wyoming is one of the leading cities for sales of western art to the world's collectors. Best of all, it houses the National Museum of Wildlife Art, http://www.wildlifeart.org/ While most of our national museums are in the great cities of America, the structure and the setting could not be better for presenting wildlife art. The museum, designed by Denver architect Curtis Fentress, fits smoothly into a landscape of rocky cliff formations and sagebrush covered hills backed by magnificent mountains… Continue reading… 0 comments

Modified contour ink drawings catch a likeness in a quick effort. While I don't see a portrait of myself as a marketable work, I do accept commissions. Modified contour drawings such as this fall somewhere between the highly realistic and the caricature. The look is informal and fun. Almost any artist who enjoys drawing or painting people will produce a number of self portraits. Among the old masters, Rembrandt may be the ultimate self-portrait artist leaving behind excellent examples of his likeness from youth to old age. But almost no artist can resist. What model is more handily available? Then there is that very human question "Who am I?" which makes the experience both an artistic and a psychological exploration… Continue reading… 1 comment

A city intersection in an older part of town is sprinkled with unexpected elements. A green snake climbs the planter stake and someone has walked out of her red high heeled shoes. A dogs lazes in the street despite traffic. The more you look that more surprising details emerge. The drawing is 11" by 14" on watercolor paper with watercolor wash. Unframed. I spent a lot of time on this piece. I wanted to make it a layered experience. It needed to be that pleasant looking tree-lined street corner, obviously in an older part of town with newer high rises in the distance. The boy on a bicycle fits right into that charming little scene. It is so normal that the strange to surreal elements provide that much more an intersection with expectations and the unexpected… Continue reading… 1 comment

Watercolor wash with pen and ink produced a vignette of a creekside area very near the apartment door of someone dear to me. This is another of my sketchbook pieces, done during the recent weekend. My sketches often inform other works, but this one will probably simply stay in the sketchbook. It was a morning moment when my tendency to be an early riser gave me an opportunity to take a cup of coffee out to a quite spot of wilderness within an urban area and record the pleasant scene… Continue reading… 1 comment

If you are a gardener, are you drawn to painting what you grow? Almost every floral I paint, almost every still life with vegetables or fruits worked into it, is inspired by time spent in the yard. This simple ink painting on rice paper celebrates the beauty of the artichoke. Lights and darks carry the repeated shapes of the layers of leaves. My artichokes produced their first harvest of the year a few days ago, One on the delights of seasonal growth is that we are reawakened each year to the beauty the reappears. Thus we have an artichoke at perfect ripeness--too beautiful to eat; too delicious not to. The soft tones made possible by ink painting provide a lovely black-and-white rendering of the soft greens of this vegetable… Continue reading… 0 comments

A collection of wedding scenes are painted in watercolor, a background of pink ribbon and scattered leaves on a purple background unites the moments. The largest vignette a traditional bride and groom pose; others include a view of the entire wedding party, cutting the cake, a detail of the back of the brides necklace, and the band. Others portray details of the setting. This painting is not for sale, but I am available for commissions. This was a complex work. Any part of it could have been a painting in itself. The first dance at the reception also makes a lovely painting. A couple might cherish a painting of the church in which they were married, especially if it was the home church of both… Continue reading… 0 comments

Original pastel shows three tangerines next to a celadon vase with an abstract water lily leaf pattern in blue. A blue silk cloth lies under these objects and a peach colored wall is seen behind them. This small pastel is on 5" _ 7" Ampersand pastel board, and will be shipped in its 8" _ 10" frame. I love working with the toothy Ampersand pastel board. It hangs on to the pastels extremely well. Notice the repeated shapes and colors accompanied by eye pleasing variation. The purple shadows and the fruit break the blue into a larger and a smaller segment, and the vase breaks the larger segment for three blue shapes. The three rounds of fruit are each smaller and paler moving back on the picture plane… Continue reading… 0 comments

At the top of an off shore rock pelicans gather, and a lone comorant stands sentinel at the left end of the formation. Mists swirl in the blue sky behind them. The rock itself is a rugged blend of light and shadow. This original painting is in acrylic on stretched canvas. Without a drop of water in sight, this painting speaks of the sea. Part of it is the light bouncing white off the top of the rocks and reflecting back in the fog swirling in the sky. We identify pelicans and cormorants with the sea even though they can be found along in shore lakes at certain times of the year. The birds also speak of the ocean breeze, either facing directly i to it or hunkered down against it as several of the pelicans are… Continue reading… 0 comments