My Finished (?) Still Life

Still Life with Fruit, pastel, 9 x 12" by Joan Cole 2011

          Well, I think I've finished the pastel I began in Claudia Post's class on Tuesday at Maple & Main Gallery in Chester, Connecticut.  I will be eager to hear at next Tuesday's class the critique of my fellow artists and Claudia herself.  I lost track of time Thursday evening as I was working to bring this piece from the way it looked in my previous post to what it is now.  It certainly was a much warmer activity than the outdoor paintings I had been working on last weekend.


          As I mentioned in an earlier blog, I had begun two plein air paintings of the same view of our lake and the surrounding snow-covered woodlands.  Unfortunately, the snow gradually began to melt from Monday until Friday.  Luckily for me, snow began falling yesterday afternoon, and now the lake and the ground are back to white.  So I'm hoping I'll be able to finish one or both of those oil paintings this weekend.  I've got my fingers crossed....  We'll have to wait and see.

"The Guardian" ...

... is one of the paintings that I have on display at Maple & Main Gallery of Fine Art in Chester. 

"The Guardian" is an original 16" x 20" oil painting.

          This is a plein air painting I began on a day in spring this past year.  That seems so long ago now, when the temperature here in Deep River is 18 degrees and ice is beginning to form on the lake.  All the wonderful greens that surrounded me then have been replaced by winter browns and greys. 

          I have worked on the painting randomly off and on since then.  Perhaps for some reason, I didn't want to let myself be done with "spring" and let it go.  No matter how long that tree has been there or how worn those rocks are that the brook flows over, "The Guardian" reminds me that the cycle of the seasons goes on whether I want it to or not.  However, just a glimpse of this view and I'm drawn back to that day when rain was in the air and life was beginning anew.   I look forward to the time when May apples--an indigenous wildflower--will again be in bloom, as they were then. 

          If you weren't able to make it to our opening party last Friday evening, I hope you'll stop in the gallery and enjoy all the beautiful work on display there.  If you do, when you see the original of this piece, remind yourself that we're one day closer to springtime!

     Gallery hours are Wednesday through Saturday 11 AM to 8 PM and Sundays from 11 to 5.