Summer WaterScapes

Watercolor on paper, 6x8 

 During this year,  I have found that working in watercolor is more relaxing than oils.   They are easy to set up for a work area, and it's much easier to be able to finish a painting in a single day or weekend.  I love being able to take small breaks while the paper dries before I put on a new layer of color.

These lake scenes  are en plein air paintings while vacationing in northern Michigan.  It feels good to get out of the studio and sit outside all day, and still be productive. If not painting, I can sit outside all day lounging under a tree looking at the water and waves, feeling the cool breezes.  Summer is a short season up there, but its short life is balanced by the abundance of beauty it displays.

Watercolor on paper, 6x8

Last Spring I worked on a few paintings using photographs from past trips to the sea.  I started to become tired of my typical "blues" and as the weather became warmer, I started to experiment with  orange and yellows.  I found an inspiring photograph on Instagram by one of my friends, and used it as my guide for a sunset on the sea.  I am looking forward to returning to this color palette this autumn and winter.

Watercolor on paper, 6x8

  I would like to do more painting en plein air this year.  It feels awkward for me to be out of my studio but I think it might help me grow. I am hoping to make this a new challenge that will take me out of my routine, and to find inspiring landscapes in Indiana.

Watercolor on paper, 6x8

watching the water from sunrise to sunset

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

Looking at the Past

Water Color on paper 9"x12", 2003

(Inspired by my journey to Oran, Algeria 

and the earthquake that occurred in Algiers May 21, 2003)

I have had a version of writer's block, "painter's block" since May.  I have a painting that I am working on, and I am very excited for the work I want to do with it, but it has been very tough for me to focus and concentrate.   I feel very distracted.  

There are things happening in my personal social, work, love life that have me reflecting back to other times, comparing my life now to then.  All of it has been wearing down on my spirit.  A feeling of being overwhelmed by life, and not enough stregnth in my dreams to carry me forward.   

The painting above is a water color that I worked on in 2003, another time in my life that I was without oil painting.   I did this water color as quick attempt to explore other medium in my own style.  When I worked on this, it too was an emotionally trying time in my life.  I was feeling out of sync with life, and continuing on the daily path.  I was not expressing myself enough then, and now, I feel maybe in some ways, I have felt my expression stifled? 

Water Color on paper 9"x12", 2003
(Inspired by my journey to Oran, Algeria 
and the earthquake that occurred in Algiers May 21, 2003)





Whether the reasons for feeling this way are reasonable or of my own fabrication, the end result is that I am still feeling stifled, or closed in. Life feels like it is going backward, but at the same time it has moved forward in small ways.  

I am still painting but one step at a time.