Painting on vacation....

As you may deduce from my attire, the weather on Grand Cayman was sunny and WINDY!  But the view was spectacular!  [no snow!]

is like being a child in a candy shop in your dreams.  Everything tastes good.  No one is there to stop or influence your choices.  All colors look appealing.  Everywhere you turn, something beautiful or unusual is tempting.  Time stands still.  I am painting out of time, beyond time.

Writing is a recursive activity.  Thank, write, read over what you've written, think, make changes, write more, reread, think, make more changes.  Writing is an on-going revising process.

Painting is recursive in a similar manner, but with less stop and go.  The thinking process goes on simultaneously with the painting process.  Each color chosen, the placement of each stroke of the brush involves continuous decision-making, evaluating, assessment, adjustment.  However, painting in watercolors allows for much less revision than painting in oils or pastels.

"Carribean Morning," 9 x 12, unfinished watercolor by Joan Cole, copyright 2011

I have not painted with watercolors for at least a year.  It is so different from oils or pastels.   It is working from light to dark, which means knowing before I start where I want my lightest lights or whitest whites left.  So, the tops of clouds and crests of waves must stay untouched until I've worked my painting around them.

"Carribean Afternoon," 9 x 12, unfinished watercolor by Joan Cole, copyright 2011

That is the opposite thought process required for painting in oils and pastels.  There, I can start with midtones and build up and down in value.  Or, I can begin with my darks and work up.

How I long for my oils to push around like vanilla butter frosting to shape the waves I'm watching roll in and crest and break.  The colors are so spectacular, and I am so rusty with watercolor.  It's a delicious challenge.

(Note:  This post was written a week ago when we were vacationing on Grand Cayman Island in the Carribean.  I spent the week painting in watercolors, writing, and relaxing.  We'll have to wait to see what I do with the paintings I created.  As you can tell, I don't consider them finished yet.)

YOU ARE INVITED to the Opening of Maple & Main Gallery of Fine Art. . . .

. . . .next Friday, the 17th of September,  at 5:00 o'clock in Chester, Connecticut. 

In celebration of "Come Home To Chester" weekend, we will open our doors to the public for the first time!   More than thirty artists have gathered together to create both a showplace of their works as well as a studio in which to share their knowledge and expertise.

....It's only one week from today!  So, I hope you've put the date on your calendar. 

Come tour the new gallery, enjoy

the art, meet the artists, share some delectables, and visit the

                                                            studio and classroom space. 

                                                            Some of my latest work will be on

                                                            display.  See you then.

Please visit http://www.mapleandmaingallery.com/.

Happy Chinese New Year!

Did you know that this is the Year of the Pig? Today is Chinese New Year--I hope we will celebrate it by having Chinese food for dinner.

Much has happened since I last wrote. On February 11, I was honored to receive a Madison Art Society Award for my painting entitled "Lord's Cove, Tidal Marsh," which was chosen as the members' favorite in the Associate Artist category. On exhibit right now in their show at the Scranton Memorial Library in Madison, Connecticut, it is a 9 x 12 oil on linen. Perhaps someone will like it enough to buy it.

Anyway, I have been very remiss in writing, partly because I have been away on holiday. Roger and I were married on Valentine's Day, 1980. It doesn't seem possible that 27 years have flown by. Well, we watched the Northeaster's snow & sleet from the comfort of the Inn at Woodstock Hill here in Connecticut. Built in 1816, this inn boasts four fireplaces in each of the public rooms so we were toasty and cozy during our anniversary getaway. While there, I enjoyed painting a watercolor a day of the view from three different windows: a gnarled tree outside our bedroom during the height of the storm, the fields and hillside from a private dining room next morning, and a birch tree standing sentinel outside the main parlor the day before we left. I haven't played with my watercolors for too long. It was challenging but fun.

Joan Cole's love of color is apparent in her paintings.

Cold, bright February days such as this remind me of my childhood. As a young girl, I loved experimenting with color. I'd scavenge empty containers from my mom's jar drawer, fill them with water, line up the jars on the piano bench, and drop in bits of colored construction paper. The dyes I coaxed from the paper transfused the water with magical hues. I spent hours mixing these tinctures in more empty containers--a little of this, a tad more of that. Finally, standing on a kitchen chair at the white porcelain sink, I'd watch my potions blend into a river of brown, heading for the drain. Whenever I paint, whether in oils or in watercolors, I become that child again, playing with color.

Joan Cole Fine Arts

Rabbit, rabbit, rabbit is what we say in my family on the first day of each month. Then we make a wish, knowing it will surely come true. My wish today on the first of February is that I can really get my blog up and running so that I can share my art work with all of you.