230 at Salt Springs Rd, 12" x9"- on location

Last Monday I went painting with two experienced plein air artists at the home of one of them. It was a beautiful evening, and the neighborhood offered several possibilities. I was very tempted to do a street scene, but because I had recently painted one with not so good results, I decided to paint something close up this time. Since I had made up my mind that I wanted to paint under the shade of a tree, the house next door to my friend's was the best choice.

It was very interesting to see how the light changed in a period of an hour: walls that were bright with reflected light became dark an hour later. For that same reason, it was also a little bit exasperating having to change colors.

After we stopped working we proceeded to critique each other's work. Mine was basically done so their feedback was very important to me. They were very free with their suggestions and I felt I gained so much from them.

I'll let this painting sit for a while before finishing it.
This coming Monday we'll be painting in my garden.

Island Pines, 18"x24"

Good news, my piece Island Pines, which had been juried into the 5th National Northeast Pastel Competition, received an Ampersand Art Supply award! I was thrilled enough for just being accepted, so receiving an award is like the icing on the cake.

The exhibit will be open to the public from June 13th to July 12th at the Arts Center at Old Forge, NY.

The Farm, 9" x 12"

You cannot live in CNY and not like barns and cornfields! I do not remember exactly where this place is located; perhaps Rt 173 or Rt 20, but definitely in Onondaga County.

Although I've been thinking on painting this scene for a while, what decided me to do it was a frame I saw at a store! Somehow I though they would go well together. I'm hoping to have this piece ready for this coming weekend sale sponsored by the Onondaga Art Guild.

Best in Show

My painting The Stream at Leetonia (see Dec 08 blog entry) won Best in Show this past weekend at the Central New York Art Guild show and sale.
This show' sales and attendance was very good, and although I did not sell any of my paintings, several members did.

I was also happy that one of my paintings was shown in our local newspaper for promoting the show. I got a call before the show opened on Saturday from a previous customer who had seen the pic and had remembered my name. She showed at the event, and considering that the show was several miles away from the city, that left me with a gratifying feeling.

More from the Adirondacks

I cannot believe it's been almost a month since last time I posted. I was working full time for a while and found it very difficult to paint when I was so tired and there were other things to take care of. My applause to all of you women who manage to do it all! Although I had had time to paint in the last two weeks, I found it very hard to get back to it. The reason it's not because I didn't want to do it but because I needed to find something good enough to motivate me to start again, and help me break the invisible wall that prevented me to get to my easel. Somehow I got there, but with not so good results at the beginning--good thing I worked in small format!

These two pieces are both 9" x 12".
The one on top is Bald Mountain Pond. It was done from a photo that didn't have much detail. The funny thing about this painting is that I didn't know the name of the location. All I knew was that Rt 28 basically touches the edge of the pond, and that the mountain on the left had bare rock. So I checked google maps and figured it had to be near Bald Mountain. To make sure I was correct I checked in googled images and found this painting titled Adirondack Silence by Michael Ringer,
www.bigbookofyou.com/artists/thumbs/adrandacks.jpg

The bottom one I think it's from White Lake, which is close to the Adirondacks. This is based on a photo I took while we were driving on Rt 28.

It's good to feel that I'm back on track.

The View, 9" x 11" SOLD

This painting is from a reference photo from the Wet Canvas library. It's supposed to be somewhere in Vermont, where I've never been.

It has been my intention to paint only from my own photo references, but with spring around the corner, making me feel a bit antsy about painting scenes with lots of green in them, I just couldn't help it when I saw the photo. I felt an instant connection with the place because it reminded me of the mountains in my homeland (minus the tall conifers) and the great views of the Central Valley below.

Irises, 6" x 8"

Last month, I got a commission for an iris, and as often happens, once I start painting something completely different from what I was doing, I get excited and continue in that other direction until I get tired of that theme. So, the commissioned iris led me to paint three more of them, and right now, I feel I've completed my iris quota for this year.

These are not the first ones that I paint; in fact they are #7, #8, #9, and #10. The first one I painted was so awful that I only kept it as a reminder that practice makes you better. The second one was a tad better. I remember feeling happy with iris #3, and even happier with #4, both of which I had painted as gifts to my sisters. However, when irises #5 and #6 were done, I looked at the two previous ones with a little bit of contempt. This rarely happens when I look at previous landscapes I've painted. This could be a matter of how I approach the subject, because I compare flowers to portraits, thus I feel bound to be more exact painting them than when dealing with a landscape.

With these irises I took a different course in the composition. I've tried to place them in an environment, whereas all previous ones were more like a flower portrait with a single color background. So it's no surprise that in each one of these, the flower itself was the easier part, but the background and the surrounding vegetation near the plant, the areas that gave me hard time.