Happy New Year's Day!

Well, it's here at last!  2011!   I ended 2010 with a paint brush in my hand, and today I started the new year by painting from morning until late afternoon.  My goals for 2011 are to produce more work and, in the process,  to grow as an artist.   

I want to become a more prolific and proficient plein air painter.  My pastel classes, which begin on Tuesday, will be one way of doing just that.  I know that masterpastellist Claudia Post will significantly influence my drawing abilities as well as my use of color.

The palette I was working with yesterday was totally different from today's.  Yesterday, working primarily in greens, I was putting finishing touches on a second lupine painting from a photograph my husband had taken in Searsport, Maine, a few years ago.  Today, when I began, the weather was sunny with the temperature on our deck in the fifties.  The first painting is in high key winter colors:  whites, greys, blues, browns, pinks.  The palette darkened on the second painting as the sun, now shrouded in clouds, dropped further to the west.  I hope to finish both paintings tomorrow, though the forecasters are predicting rain. 

This is approximately the view that I was painting today.  "Waiting for Spring" was completed in February of 2009.  I'll be eager to see the difference between the two new paintings and this one.


Waiting for Spring, oil, 12" x 12"

I hope everyone had a safe and happy New Year's Eve and a relaxing, peace-filled New Year's Day.  May the year ahead bring us all a wee bit closer to our dreams.

Happy New Year!

Well, Christmas is past and New Year 2011 is waiting in the wings.  Only four more days till we all get to begin anew.  My hope for myself in the year to come is for major growth in my skills--both artistically and technologically.


I got a head start on the latter in December, when I completed another Jan Blencowe course; this one was "Marketing for Artists."  She has shown me many areas in which I can grow my art business, not the least of which is being more active with blogging, Facebooking, and Tweeting.  Along these same lines, I'll be a returning member of Arianne Goodwin's Smartist Telesummit in January, so I will continue learning more about the marketing side of the art business.




This 9 x 12" pastel sketch is the view we had from our hotel porch in Port Clyde, Maine, in August of 2006.

 I'm very excited to be registered with Claudia Post at Maple & Main Gallery of Fine Art for a class in pastels, starting in January.  When I see the level of work that her present class of three young students is producing, I wonder if I can do half as well.  They are SO very talented.  Be that as it may, I know I will be pushed by Claudia to go beyond where I am in my painting, which is what I look forward to.


Cherry Tree, 9 x 12, pastel on black paper

I enjoyed painting our cherry tree in April of 2005.  This is the view we have from our side deck. 



Apple, pastel, 9 x 12"

 This is one of the few pastels that I have done using pastelboard.  I had fun learning to use it with Nancy Tracy, another of my colleagues at Maple & Main.  Working on the rough board felt more like painting than the two previous examples, which were on paper.

I KNOW that I will have better examples to show as I learn at last how to REALLY use pastels.  Claudia Post, you'll have your work cut out for you with me!

Happy New Year!

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Here it is, January once again. A new beginning. I'm working on a painting of our birdbath which I see out our front window. It's lovely: a sculpture of two figures--one male, one female--rises from the bowl. Right now it's full of snow, so they look like they are dancing up out of it. So beautiful. I hope I can capture that beauty.