Blog

Hello Reader!  After attending last night's Steeler game against Buffalo, (unfortunately a loss for my team) I am energized for the upcoming winter weather and excited to paint snow while looking out my living room window.  Ha!  That's right - I was bundled up from my boots to my hood, which was covered with a hat, and utilized toe and hand warmers!  As a native Pennsylvanian, I don't want to disclose how many winters I've spent shoveling snow or darting back and forth to my car in an effort to escape freezing temps.  So I figure I've earned the right to paint snow from the indoors.  Right now our Christmas tree is in the way, but in a few weeks it will be down; I can throw an old sheet on the floor, set up my easel, and go at it.  

In other news, the abstract art class I was supposed to teach in November was postponed.  We (the Norwin Art League and I) are attempting to reschedule for February.  I’m keeping fingers crossed that snow doesn’t interfere and aiming for January 31/February 1. 

On the figurative side of things, I have signed up for a new live model class in January that meets every other Monday night at the Wilkins Community Center through the Pittsburgh Society of Artists Guild.  I’m also continuing with the once a month figure class in Greensburg, painting and drawing from life to keep my observational skills sharp.  The Greensburg Art Center will have a figure class this coming Thursday (12-19-19) and the model is supposed to pose with her cat sleeping in her lap.  I’m curious to see how this will work out.  While I dearly love cats, I am skeptical and can’t completely trust that the cat will behave as planned.  I guess we’ll see what happens, and I will let you know!  Exciting!  I have never attempted to paint a live animal before!

Now that Doreen Currie's class is on hiatus, I am working on my landscape painting at home and have started a series of small five by seven inch paintings on gessoboard.  That series is currently in progress and I hope to launch it soon!  Stay tuned.

Thank you so much for stopping to visit my website, reading my blogs and emails, and for your interest in my art journey.  As this will most likely be my last blog before the winter solstice, I wish you and your family and friends the happiest and safest of holidays!

During this short period of time between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day, I don't typically have much time set aside to paint.  Too many parties, too much eating, cooking, and shopping.  But I've discovered that little 5x7 inch paintings are just the right size for short bursts of creativity.  During Thanksgiving week I managed to create three small paintings of Pennsylvania farms.  The third was too wet to handle easily, but the two previous paintings are dry enough to photograph and put up on the website today.  

I am particularly proud of them since they make use of a very limited pallet and are snow-filled, making them seasonal. 

These were painted 100% with a brush, which differs greatly from my Mon Valley series.  The Mon Valley paintings were done 99% with a pallet knife.  I am struggling to gather my various artistic impulses (size of stratus, medium, paint application tools) into one definitive style.  The more I paint, the closer I get.  It reminds me of what I learned in calculus class many years ago when we learned how to measure the area under a curve.  You can't measure it exactly, but very, very, close is good enough!

Thanks for stopping by!