Let It Snow!!

I am hoping your holidays were lovely!  I always think of the week between December 25 and New Year's as a bonus week; not quite the old year (everything completed for 2014) and a hiatus before starting a new one.  I like to review, re-live, evaluate and imagine new projects or adventures.  It's a quiet time for cocooning,  nesting, or whatever you like to do when your engines are idle and you want to recuperate, refuel and recharge.

So let it snow! ...figuratively or literally. We are hunkered down before a fire reading and sipping and making notes while listening to music.  My husband thinks he loves snow but as his blood gets thinner what he really loves is the idea of snow.  It forces him to slow down, move with care, play a little and enjoy a hot drink.

Along those lines, look what I came across while re-organizing:

I painted this landscape in 1964....exactly 50 years ago.  I believe it is painted in what they called casein paint which predates acrylic.  It was probably from a postcard my art teacher, Barbara Bassett, had as reference.  I was 11 years old and while I may have seen a mountain on vacation once or twice, I know for a fact that I had never seen, touched, tasted or walked in snow.  I wonder why either of us would suggest I paint such a thing?  These days I believe that the more engaged one is with the subject at hand the more authentic the rendering will be.  JMO (just my opinion as they say.)

Fast forward to another snow painting, this time rendered in pastel and now from the vantage of having experienced snow many times.  I loved this afternoon, we went out driving to see how the country side looked in its chilly, white coat and I wandered across this bridge with the sun at my back.  I took many photos of the light sparkling on the river filled with chunks of ice and it wasn't until I downloaded the pics that I noticed my shadow in the water.  This was equally fun to paint but I definitely had a sense of what I was trying to capture.

There was a huge gap in my childhood painting and when I resumed the craft many years later.  But there are  lessons from those early years that come back to me even now.  I was fortunate to have had those classes for they taught me to see.  Maybe painting snow made me want to see it, to travel, to experience things I saw on postcards?  Who knows?  But those lessons did introduce me to a lifetime of pleasurable pursuit.

Thanks Mom and Dad, and thank you Barbara Bassett!

Happy New Adventures,

Cindy

Continuous Line Drawing

I still cannot hold a paint brush up higher than my waist so I have been experimenting with art exercises.  Continuous line is a  bit like contour line with the exception that you do not lift your pen from the paper until you decide it is complete.  You may do more than the outside contour line, but it must be all done from one unbroken line.  I remember doing this eye/hand exercise in lessons with Barbara Bassett, Orlando, FL, back when I was in junior high!

Here is the first one I attempted from a magazine adv,

 I added the decoration in background with a separate line after finishing- it needed something!

Next I did some "glamorous" faces from the magazine, trying to plan out how to get from one side of the face to the other with only one line...

And finally I did a face where I was able to start and stop at the exact same point:

Feeling that I was getting (a little) better I bravely pulled out a Gauguin book and attempted to copy one of his paintings titled "The Noble Woman."  Shrinking it to a 5 x 7 size was only one of the problems a full painting presented.

The book copy of "The Noble Woman"

I made two attempts at this, the first is the lower one.

 Trust me, the second one (with the paint) was not any easier to plan out or to execute, but at least her chin does not come to a point.

I think I will be doing some more of these continuous line drawings; I like the way the figures end up looking rather Picasso-esque and a bit distorted.  If one chose, one could intentionally draw important things in bigger proportion (which is what I think our subconscious does anyway).  However, I think the point of the exercise is not to distort but to continuously check back and forth from the model to the paper to see if you are lining things up correctly in proportion to one another. If the artist can draw imaginary plumb lines from what he has drawn to what is next he can learn intuitively how to compose the subject properly.  

Since I rather liked my 'modern version' of a noble woman I added some paint to her along with a mat which makes her look important.  Now back to my physical therapy so I can soon be at the easel!

ARTfully yours,

Cindy

Blast from the Past

My recent paintings of snow reminded my mother of one I did when I was 11 years old...and here it is!  In 1964 I had not even seen snow so why I chose to paint this scene is beyond me...and it must have been from a postcard because I feel certain those are not the Smokey Mountains in the background.  This is a large painting, about 18" high by almost 24" wide and was done before acrylic was even invented, I think we called this paint "casin."  For fun I decided to replicate it in pastel and, painting only from the original piece, here is what I came up with:

This rendition is only 5" x 7" and is done in pastel on paper.  You can see that I took some liberties with the composition, adding and subtracting a few things.  And today, a bazillion years later, I have seen snow and the Rocky Mountains.  But honestly, I'm not sure that my re-do is all that different in style and technique!  Perhaps I will date and sign this one and, in a few years, revisit it once again...might be interesting to observe the progress as time moves on.  In fact, I already see a few things I need to change (the camera does that) so I'll make some notes and, if we're all still here, send it out again in 10 years!!

p.s. Kudos to my then art teacher, Barbara Bassett, who made me so proud when I finished a piece...she instilled in me a love for creating that exists even today.  Wonder if I can find her on Facebook!?!!