Winter WaterScapes

Watercolor on paper 8 1/2" x 5 1/2"

I've been continuing to work with watercolors.  I like them.  They are easy for me to set up, finish a painting, and easy clean my work area. I can work in watercolor paint without dedicating too much time to the process.   I have set up some new lighting in my studio. This helps me to have more flexible work hours and to be able to work at night.  

I've been out of my studio for a while.  I had a visitor who needed a bedroom for a few months, and I gladly gave her my studio/office to set up a room. I needed to change the energy in my place, and having her here helped me see what I was missing from life. During her stay, I stopped being creative and threw myself into my career. 

Now that I have my studio back, I've reorganized, and found a new desire to get back to work.  

I hung a large oil painting in my studio. It had been stored the past five years so haven't really been able to look at it.  The canvas fills most of the wall. It is the painting in the post titled "Green Blues" from 2012.  Looking at this painting everyday has inspired me to go back to this style in composition.  Calm waters in the background, with textured water or land in the foreground. 

 These watercolors include using my gold pen.  A fond memory from my days working in my atelier in Nice, France. 

Watercolor on paper 8 1/2" x 5 1/2"

Watercolor on paper 8 1/2" x 5 1/2"

Water Inspired

Water color on paper 6 x 8

 I had a little time to travel in June up to great northern Michigan.  I have Oil paintings that I have posted of this small, calm lake.  For this vacation, I wanted to do some sketching, and I chose to bring along my water colors as a way to quickly bring some color to my thoughts and sketches.    

Whenever I am at the lake, I can feel the history of the area.  The summer travelers since the early 1900's have come up here to escape the heat of the summers. Ernest Hemingway had a cottage on a lake near by.   I always feel inspired, as maybe he did, to express the peace and calm of the surrounding nature and the lake.  It's a peaceful retreat to be able to calm my thoughts, release tensions, and fill my senses with nature.

I feel privileged to be able to continue to enjoy this home away from home that I have known all my life.  I can feel much love permeating from the walls when I walk around the cottage.  Every room and hallway are filled with the love of my grandparents, and the continuing care of everyone in my family who enjoy the cottage.  The rooms still have all the same comforts that I remember from my childhood.  It is a place to escape that is familiar,and not changing too fast. I am able to easily slip into a routine that I have know all my life.   

Water color on paper 6 x 8

Water color on paper 6 x 8

Pencil on paper 5 x 7

Pencil on paper 5 x 7

Pencil on paper 5 x 7

Going Back

Acrylic on Canvas- 25"x 32"
tableau de Yannis

I call this painting tableau de Yannis.   While I was in Nice 2010, I asked Yannis for his advice several times for the direction I should take with this painting. 

I met with Yannis and Paulin again in September. It has been the first time to see them in five years.   It was good to see the gallery again.  It was time to go back, no regrets.   They have shared with me a significant part of my life that will not be forgotten, and for their friendship, I am grateful. 

There was always laughter between the three of us.  We were the three artists.  The best moments were spent filling my sketch book with characters and scenes while drinking vin chaude or beer in the afternoon.  We spent hours in bars sitting at a table, telling our stories conveyed in small caricature drawings.  There was once a day we spent a few too many hours at one of our favorite bars.  Our laughter and behavior started to become a little too disruptive, and eventually we were asked to leave.  There was much joy between the three of us. 

les trois amigos

 It felt good to be back again, like a second home, seeing them, and knowing that there could still be a small part of me in them as well. 

Progression

From this: 

PHASE  1:  Oil on Canvas 30x42

To this: 

PHASE 2-  Oil on Canvas 30x42

A progression from inspiration and motivation to a product of my thoughts and emotions and aspirations.   I am still not sure where I am going with this phase.  I am still experimenting in painting with no  planning or design and using intuition.  My subconscious is revealing what it believes needs to happen, even when I consciously try not to be predictable. 

Autumn

  Autumn Waterscape -Oil on Canvas 36" x 48"

I didn't want to paint another waterscape, but this came out so quickly and easily, I did not let it go.  I let it flow, and I am not disappointed.  The colors show my transition into less blue and more sepia tones.   

Feeling a little blue lately.   My birthday is arriving soon, and much reflection about my past, present, and future,  the unknown future. 
I just finished a new painting.  A painting with no forethought, planning, design, or reason, only intuition and desire.  It gave me a lot of new energy and inspiration to start another. Hopefully this new productive energy can carry me through the winter, and into a new season.   

Transitions

Oil on Canvas- 36"x 48"

I finally finished my blank canvas in July.  My life has been transitioning with work, and I am feeling myself opening up for more travel again.   

Transitioning and acquainting myself with my past, and finding its bearings on my current path of Life Journey. Transitioning away from the daily routines that do not provide me growth, and cause me to question my place in the broader scheme of life.   Living and searching for more joys in life, and cutting out the persons and activities that feel like there is a weight wrapped around my ankles. 

Maybe I'm just tapping my heals wishing "There's no place like home, There's no place like home."

Dreams

Italian Water scape  Oil on Canvas- 22"x42"

A few weeks ago  a friend and I were talking about vacations. We discussed what the perfect vacation meant to each of us.   The perfect vacation to me is time away from my routine life, and painting...Spending a little time each day painting on a canvas or in other types of creative endeavors. 

I have traveled twice this summer to two separate inspiring locations... but since the logements were not my own, my creative time was limited by participating only as an observer.   I have a dream to find a space one day that I can make my own, and set up "shop".  Somewhere to escape for productive and frequent times away; regenerating my energy. 

A place where I can explore the landscapes around me and feel the energy of my neighbors and life on the street.  A place that I don't have to feel isolated, but a place where I can be productive and focused with mes oeuvres and still have an opportunity to step out and interact in the world around me.  This dream is very familiar to me because this dream was once a part of my life.  And now I seek this dream again. 

These words come to my mind "Seek and you will find", but I know also that "when you dream, you are already there." 

Short Stories



Oil on Canvas 11x14

Recently I was inspired by a friend of mine who is also an artist to work in a smaller format.   This was an important moment for me because until I saw the body of work he had produced, I was giving up painting and being an artist.   In the past few months since my last post, painting represented to me not a labor of love but labor to prove my value and worthiness to call myself an artist.  Without any new inspiration, I closed the door to future work. 



Oil on Canvas  11x14



 

It has been refreshing for me to work again in these small canvas's.  It's a quiet passion.  A smaller work that does not come with the rewards of seeing a large canvas come to life, but gives me the satisfaction of moving forward. I am still passionate about my Lake Scenes, or now they have become just "Water Scenes".  This format lets me continue to work with my mind's eye freely and without justification.