Powderpoint Bridge at Dawn

I went to the beach early one morning with my friend Maria to catch the sunrise and maybe set up our easels for the dawn's early light - or at least get some good photographs.  We found a breathtaking sunrise that turned our wooden bridge into shimmering gold.  It seemed to glow out of the fog of the morning.  This week as we braved the arctic elements here in New England, I wondered if I could conjure up that golden morning.

I took some pictures of the progress of the painting and must admit, I think I will try this one again.  But for now I thought it was an interesting attempt.

Beach Road on a Coudy Day

This was done two weeks ago.  My daughter and I are showing some work at a local hotel and I wanted to do some landscapes.  This is the road heading toward the outer most section of Duxbury Beach.  It is a never ending change of color and mood.  The afternoon of this photograph the clouds were impressive casting a purple shadow along the road.  I tried to capture the movement of the clouds and grass with the strokes.

Torn Hat Commission

This past summer, I received a commission to reproduce a Thomas Sully painting which hangs in the Boston Museum of Fine Art called the Torn Hat.  Here is a link to the painting.  http://www.mfa.org/collections/object/the-torn-hat-31554

This painting happens to be a favorite of a friend of mine and he commissioned a copy to be made for his wife.  Here is the original and my copy.  It was fun to do.  I did some research on Sully's palette and enjoyed deconstructing his process.  It was difficult because the painting is behind a glass enclosure in the museum making it difficult to get close to it.  I ended up blowing up a post card to use for my reference.  It isn't an exact clone, to be sure,  but I came to that familiar place where if I continued too much further I would risk botching the whole thing up and killing it.  So I ended where the likeness was close enough and I was happy with the paint application.

Happy Flower

I had wanted to play around with a palette knife for some time.  My friend and I set up a still life of this little happy yellow flower one day in the studio and then went at it with the palette knife.  It was fun.  I like the sculptural quality.  As a happy ending, the painting sold at my annual Open Studios in November.

Finally Back.

I have been certainly been exercising my artistic muscle since the last time I posted...way, way long time ago!  I just have not been faithful, like my brother Ric, to posting my progress.  Check out his blog:  http://ericlarsonart.blogspot.com to see how often he paints and how faithful he is to his painting blog.   You can click it on the bar to the right as well.

Well done, Ric.  I am more impressed overtime I see your work.  And it proves how regular painting is the only way to improve.  I have my New Year's resolution.  It is to paint 2 hours a day, 5 days a week.  My husband, Skip,  handmade a beautiful and LARGE pastel drawer cabinet so that I can get more organized and achieve my goal!  Thank you Skip!

So for now, I am going to post the paintings that I have done over the past 6 months and catch up.  This one was done from a picture taken at Duxbury beach.  My daughter, Callie, loves to sea glass hunt and this is a posture that I associate with her!  

Girl with Garland

It has been a rough winter here in the Northeast!  But Spring has finally sprung!  On a recent day in my studio, I didn't have much time and was rummaging around in my reference photograph file to find something to paint.  I found this photograph of a young girl who had posed for a portrait class.  I had received it from my daughter, (who took the class!)  She had many beautiful poses and knew that I was always in need of painting inspiration and may enjoy painting some of them.   She was right!  Maybe it was the May Day like outfit, or soul-filled countenance, but I was so happy to paint this little portrait!  It has was well received recently at the North River Art Society's "Focus on Figures" show earning an honorable mention!  That was happy!

Almost Ready to Open

And here is my painting from today.  I decided that it is not fair for me to only post the paintings that I feel are somewhat successful.  I feel that I should post even the ones that don't work out so well, because there is something to be learned from every painting.

This is an example of a clunker!  I again was working in pastel.  This is a cute little restaurant in Door County Wisconsin.  They were just opening up and this man was busy sweeping up the side walk getting ready for the day.  It was the subject of a painting demo done by the instructor of my Plein Air workshop last summer.  (The instructor Tim Horn is a fabulous painter.  You can check out his website here: http://www.timhornart.com/ )

On this one, I worked just a bit too fast!  I lost some of the quality of the drawing in my haste to have fun with the color!   When I went back in to try and correct some lines, particularly with the Coca Cola sign, I found that I had so much pastel on the paper that it stopped taking new color.  I also tried to capture the sense of the plastic eisenglass curtain that was hanging on the porch.  I think I could do better! Oh well, ya win some and ya lose some!

I am definitely going to try this again because it brings back very happy memories and I love all the bright red!