My Oil Paintings of Winter in Deep River...and a bit more

Hi Everyone,


Well, if you are from Connecticut, you KNOW we are buried under TONS of snow.  But for those of you who are not--especially our snowbird friends--I thought you might like to see what you are missing.

This storm brought the total snowfall in the month of January to the highest that Connecticut has recorded since we started measuring snowfall 106 years ago.   Before the storm,  59” had already fallen, and this storm added more than twenty inches.  Snowbanks are so high that driving in Connecticut has become a challenge.   Folks shoveling the piles left at the ends of their driveways  are tossing snow  higher than their heads!  If you squint a bit, you can just barely see me at the end of our driveway--BEHIND the snowpile!

Winter Shadows by Joan Cole, oil on linen panel, 8 x 10"

These two oil paintings will be among the ones I will be showing at MAPLE & MAIN's  GALA WINTER OPENING next Friday evening, February 4th, from 5 to 8 pm.

Winter Snowfall by Joan Cole, oil on linen, 9 x 12"

I have created a video of the day for your bemusement.  Interspersed among my photos of our yard are these two plein air paintings as well as three more.  I wonder which will be your favorite?  I hope you enjoy the video.



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.

Great News!

Don't you just love my new hat?!

I am so excited to announce that four of my oil paintings will soon be hanging in The Gallery at Clarke's in Tropic, Utah:  "The Dock in Winter," "Red Barns in Winter," "Waiting for Spring," and "Birdbath in Snow."   This lovely lady is Irene Schack von Brockdorff,  gallery director.  Formerly an art teacher in Tropic, Irene is an artist in her own right.  Here's a link to The Gallery at Clarke's  where you can see examples of works by other artists represented.