artid

Yesterday the light was good again. For the first time in almost a week I painted, working on this coastal scene which is still far from complete. Colors look right again. They did not in the dim red-gray filter of smoke. (my last blog posting dealt with the effects of the California fires). The edges of the horizon are still marked by smoke from the various fires but a delta breeze moving through the pass where rivers flow into the San Francisco Bay has pushed much of the particulate matter away from my area. while out shopping a short while ago, I looked up and the sky was a blue bowl with a bright white egret flying directly overhead. Oh, joy!

With still some thousand forest fires burning, you can be sure there are many people still under a pall of smoke or at personal hazard…

This drawing in black and white is a modified contour drawing all completed in a single line through to the signature. It is an introspective view of a short haired woman wearing a vee-necked shirt and is a far distance from photo-realism.

I chose to add this portrait my artid page today because it feels a bit like the world around me. Black and white--but unlike the protrait, mostly gray. Notice the big eyes? They have been widened to see the horizon so often that they may be stuck in the mode seen here, which actually came from looking up into the mirror as I drew on a flat surface. Or maybe I'm in perpetural squint from the eyestrain…

I wish I had taken a before photo of this still life. I painted with a group last Tuesday. We were working from a still life set up which included a lemon, a rose, and a cluster of rose leaves against black velvet and white linen. Most of them worked on a vertical plane, but I decided to do a horizontal composition. I did not want to center the two major items in the still life, but in my effort to get them off-center, I wound up with the center of my white rose creating a bull's eye effect at the middle of the painting. The area to the right of it was only draperies.

I liked the form of the rose, and I liked the lemon with its rich yellows, its greenish low-lights and the bright white highlight…

A comorant watches the surf from a rock near shore, while the eye can just make out a seal on a more distant rock formation. Further out at sea a fishing boat and sailing craft ply the waters. In the far distant a cape of land juts out and a fog bank lies ont the far horizon. Blues, grays, and browns dominate. The image is 11" by 14" and will be shipped matted for a 16" by 20" frame.

This is one of those paintings I've had around for a while because I like the way the sea fades from that deep blue into the fog, I like the limited palette, and it reminds me of one of my favorite stretches of coastline…

Friday evening was our community Art Hop, a monthly event where art is shown in about 10 locations in the small city of Lodi. My art group was featured at the prime spot Hutchins Street Square (pictured here) as well as in our own gallery. This was a nice double representation in which the city's arts arm worked with us to help make the public aware of our new gallery. We had one piece each at Hutchins St Sq. Nice evening, lots of good art talk, and not bad turn out for early June.
I was less happy Saturday morning when I was filling an empty staffing spot at the gallery because no one else had taken it--maybe a little too grumpily aware that I do more than a fair share! Message on phone on arrival from someone who wants to buy one of the pieces that are hanging at Hutchins St…

I was in Santa Cruz earlier this week, my daughter's new home so doubtless my new most common place on the coast to visit, edging out Fort Bragg/Mendocino and Cambria CA. I woke up early and set out to find a cup of espresso and a fresh baked scone or muffin to accompany me on a walk to the beach. The ever present small sketch book was in the "healthy back" bag slung over my shoulder. I sketched this sitting on a bench above Sea Bright Beach. It was a pleasant spot to watch the day begin, and a big long-haired cat twined around my ankles and curled up on the bench behind me as I drew. The early morning sun made nice highlights on the lighthouse and rocks. The distance was obscured by a marine layer a mile or so off shore. I may use this as a model for a small painting…

A sail boat at Huntington Lake rests in dock near summer's end in the High Sierra mountains of California. The lake is famous for its July sailboat regatta, but soon there will be frost on the ground in the mornings and the boats will be hauled away to dry dock or milder climates. The work was drawn in ink and the lines are an important part of the image. Watercolor brings up the brilliant blues of the craft and the water, the green of the pines and the brown deck planking. Image is 11×14 in a 16" by 20" double mat.

I love to sit out and draw/paint this kind of thing, especially when wind and sun dry watercolor quickly. The evaporation time under such conditions seems to increase at elevation…

I was photographing the drawing for an oil I was about to begin. I rather liked the drawing itself as value study and because it was a useful way to deal with some of the paint sludge that forms at the bottom of a those mixes one makes to thin paints or clean brushes .

I was struck by how the infant painting looked leaning against the new curtains that I am making for our studio/office room. From there I started thinking about how many of my artist friends also enjoy doing so many things by hand, being both artist and artisan, so to speak…

I'm really working at being more specific and describing my art as if the reader couldn't see the image, as per Mary's advice. Interestingly, the two paintings I've listed since I started trying to implement that advice show as most viewed of all my work on ArtId per the "traffic statistics" listed under business tools.

My most recent work is described as "A pastel drawing is a still life which depicts a coffee cup and fruit on a table with a shadowed wall in the background. Warm brown and gold tones predominate but are cooled by the greens in the pear and apple and the blue shadows. Image is 8" by 12" presented in and protected by a 16" by 20" mat…

I finished this piece. This photograph was taken while it was still taped to my art board; but now it is in its frame and waiting to be delivered to the show I was readying it for. I grayed down the books and made the area with the paint brushes quite shadowy, pushing all that to the back. I intensified the shadows and highlights in the foreground, and I'm happy with the result…

To finish my thoughts on communities within the art world_after talking last time about the sort of community art group which is open to all artists and art lovers and exists for benefit of artists and the art needs of the community as a whole.

An important and very different association is that of the specialist group_set apart because of an interest in a single media or a common professional ground. Many of these generally has specific criteria which must be met, and membership entitles the artist to place a set of initials after his or her name. I am affiliated with only one such group, the NLAPW (National League of American Pen Women)…

This is our first 100 degree plus day of the season; to be precise it reached 103F. Seems a good time to think about an Ice Age creature and that lovely snow. I originally did the black and white ink painting as an illustration for a poetry chapbook I was putting together. Later I decided to add the watercolor and liked it better for it.

A tiny reproduction of ink painting illustrates "Snowflake" in WALKING IN JOHN MUIR'S BACKYARD which I offer at www.carolineart.etsy.com

Enjoy "Snowflake"

Imagine how long the secret was kept
Cavemen saw the world turn white.
Wooly mammoths were tripped in ice.

Time passes as quiet snowflakes fell.
Norsemen learned to ski.
Drifts piled up in the Alps.
Rumors of snow were heard in desert lands.
Still the secret kept…

A comment by Zanderlassen on my last blog got me thinking about the different types of communities in the art world. Ours is essentially a lone if not lonely activity in the creative process, but in a sense it is not complete until it goes into the world.

We, too, being social animals, have a need to go out in the world to feel complete. It is this as much as a desire to promote and improve our art that brings us to groups where we interact with other artists.

I've mentioned in other blogs my activities with the Lodi Community Art Center. Similar groups are scattered among communities everywhere. The LCAC was formed over 50 years ago by a group of local artists who got together to encourage one another and to promote art in the community…

I wrote about this pastel still life a while back. It had been sitting for a while as I was so busy with helping rebuild the Lodi Art Center gallery and working on other projects that I was not putting much time into it. I grew weary of re-assembling the set up every time I needed to use the weights.

As you can see, I've been working on it again, based on memory rather than arrangement or photo. The angles of the top red weight were all wrong. I've lots of details still to work out, and I think I need to mute down those books in the background a bit. However, all in all, I like the way it is coming. I've entered it in an upcoming show (the send entry form early and bring work later sort) under the title "Accidental Still Life"…

Yupo has received a lot of attention in the blogs recently. Since I just added a piece, will also add some comments of my own. I like Yupo very much. I like the bright colors, the way it makes me work at getting the image I want, and the pleasant surprises it creates. Notice the very watery look in my background. The non-absorbent surface helped me get that. For the details I find I need a light touch and dry brush technique.

I thought the bright tangerine and lemons had a nice presence against the more muted pale depression glass plate and white tablecloth, silver teapot, and white teacup…

The pastel I wrote about in my last blog is progressing, with more value contrast and greater development of the paintbrush jar, but I traveled light with art materials as I staffed the gallery today. I set out to do version 1 of Pam's house.

I have done several local buildings in modified contour drawings with a watercolor wash either under or over the drawing. In this one I painted after drawing. Then the color is placed more precisely. It is also fun to just splash out color areas where they will generally belong and build the drawing over that. This one is on Bristol paper. I like the way the ink flows on it.

I like this style especially with old buildings as it tends to exaggerate their unique qualities…

This pastel has been sitting for a couple of weeks, but I am ready to get back to it. I set up the still life with the weights. Ideally I would have had a large block of time to work straight through, for I also lift those weights three or four days a week. However, it did not work out that way, and I kept having to re-set up. I left off in a combination of frustration and interest in other projects.

I chose the elements of this still life as a colorful, but non-traditional, grouping of objects. The idea of keeping fit, the books behind the towel and weights, and the paint brushes which will appear in that unrefined cylinder behind the other objects are all meaningful in my life. I think I've benefited from moving away from this…

I've been ignoring my on line sites for face-to-face, brick and mortar art settings. First I took over, for an indefinite period, an oils class taught by a friend who needs to get her husband through a difficult surgery and convalescence. Also, hard on the heels of my group's big, open, juried spring show, we had scheduled to open our gallery after eight months of being "homeless". Such is life with a non-profit trying to keep heads above water and serve art and arts education in the community.

Lots of hard work involved in organizing, moving items from storage,and taking in and a new show in one side of the unit which was in ready-to-go condition while other members work on fixing up the side which will later be the main gallery…

Playing with materials here, I've used watercolor on papyrus. I've seen other artists use papyrus for Egyptian or other ancient world themed art. It's fibrous, organic appearance seems to me to call for a nature scene. When I began experimenting with this material as a watercolor surface, I was afraid it would be difficult to paint on. What I found was that it takes color well while offering an excellent opportunity to lift paint. In other words, it is quite forgiving. The fibers of the paper show through transparent watercolor, so I would recommend it only where the pattern of woven grass fibers compliments rather than distracts from your theme…

Wonderful experience painting this afternoon. I set up out in the yard, enjoying the sunshine, and painted Iceland poppies. It was windy enough to dry the surface of the blobs of acrylic on my palette, and there were lots of allergens in the air. Nevertheless it was great to just sit out and paint.

If you are in the more frigid zones, moderate your envy. The San Joaquin Valley of California is guaranteed dry summers with plenty of 100 degree plus days.

I've been so busy working for art the past several days, I haven't had much time to make art. We had a successful Spring Show, lots of visitors, and selling just over 10 percent of the show including one of my paintings.

On the topic of making art--I've been loving seeing what is moving across the banner of Artid's home page…