Norfolk Botanical Plein Air with Adele

Today was just too full of mishaps and hilarity when Adele and I went to paint outside at the Norfolk Botanical Gardens. First, we had to load up, get there, get coffee, make a trip to the bathroom and then scout for a spot to paint. This all takes forever...all the while we both are thinking...the light, the light...it's going to change...hurry. So, finally we found a spot.
Adele set up quickly and for some unknown reason, I couldn't get one of the legs on my French easel to unscrew. I mean that I literally ripped my fingertips trying to get this sucker to work. No dice. Finally Adele came over...she couldn't do it either. I eventually gave up and decided to paint with the easel cocked down it the front.  It looked and felt like a sinking ship. Strike one.
Adele, it her very calm voice, then tells me that there is a cute "little snake" swimming merrily across the pond. Great...I HATE snakes. Strike two.
We paint some more and fall into the place where many artists go when working furiously. You know...that coma place when time stops and you forget where you are and then suddenly you realize that 2 hours has passed and it seemed like ten minutes. Loosely, in the back of my mind, I heard the tram operator speaking over her microphone, "and see the artists over there painting our lovely flowers..."
I felt like a monkey in a zoo.
When we took a break from all of this we laughed and cackled about how horrible our paintings were, how it just wasn't working, how difficult it was to work here, how messed up our values were, how wrong the colors were...terrible paintings.
Strike 3, 4 and 5.
We ate lunch and said that we would wipe the paint from the canvas, pack  up and try to salvage the day and take some decent photographs. Which is what we ended up doing.
So- I have nothing to show you for my day's work!
The sad thing is that a lovely woman with several children stopped and raved in front of her kids about my lovely painting. She went on and on and the fact that I had already wiped all of the paint off was lost on her.
I am sure that it all looked better "fuzzy" and "wiped" rather than how I had originally painted it.

More Content, Less Fluff

A friend of mine, who is an excellent writer and on top of all things in the artistic world, has advised me to write more about my process rather than mere statements of facts about painting. He's probably right. I could write pages about what I was thinking, what problems arose in a particular design, etc. I will try hard to move into these areas he has suggested, but it's not without a downside. The internet is a large, open, free for all, and I have also been advised to never write anything that you wouldn't want to see on the front page of the New York Times. A balance will be hard to maintain. I don't know how many others will be interested in what was floating around in my head while I was painting...a bit ego oriented, I think. Again another balancing problem. Maybe some feedback on how I'm doing would be good. In the meantime, I reshot some photos of  my work because I wasn't happy with the original ones. The three above are from paintings I did for 10-10-10. I had photos I had taken in Maryland and in Europe to use as my reference. The waiter in white was from Switzerland, I believe.

It's hard to capture photos of people without them knowing you are zoning in on them. Once they realize they are being watched or photographed, their posture changes and a slightly unnatural tenseness seems to overtake them. I have to be sneaky and pretend that I am snapping things behind them or other interests. I love painting people doing ordinary things and being able to translate our human existance into something, well, that is just...more. These paintings are each 12x24 and sold together for 675. plus shipping.

Picasso Exhibit at the Virginia Fine Arts Museum

 I have just returned from Richmond and having seen the exhibit at the VFMA that features well over 100 pieces of Picasso's artwork on loan from Paris. It was alot to take in with the crowds, the paintings, photographs, sculptures and prints.

I knew that Picasso was prolific, but when you have the opportunity to look at so much of it at one time (outside of a glossy book) you understand just how driven and bold this man was.
And might I add...what is with his shirt always being off for photographs? Perhaps just another statement from the artist about the artist?  I wonder and wander...

The exhibit itself was well done and except for a too narrow hallway where one didn't know whether to look at all the paintings on the right and then come back down the hall, or to dodge left then right.  It was all beautifully managed; from the darling docent that told me I couldn't use an ink pen in the gallery for taking notes, then providing me with a lovely, complimentary pencil- to the flawless lighting and placement of the paintings and sculputes, I say, bravo to the VFAM.

The admiration I now have for Picasso and his tenacity and daring in pursuing his work has surely increased. As my husband puts it, "He certainly  blazed his own trail..." and I agree. I love the fact that you can see his desire to push his work, discover new stuff, drive himself and all the while with what seems to be courage and fearlessness and belief in his own goals and purpose, well...it's just amazing!

Picasso- the man, the husband, father, womanizer, I'm not too crazy about. He went through women as if they were disposable products there only for his use to be eventually discarded. And discard them he did. 
But...I have always thought that the work should speak for itself and in spite of the fact that he was such an egotistical man, the work still is so strong, so unusual, and so historic in breaking new ground that one can only marvel at the man in spite of his behavior.
There is much more to say but I leave that up to the visitor to the VFAM. I am grateful for the opportunity to see his work, as I am not  planning a trip to Paris anytime soon. The paintings will eventually go to San Francisco and the left coasters will get their chance. It is not to be missed.

Pair of Apples Oil Painting

One of the artists at the studio said that she read a quote somewhere about how a famous art teacher told his students to paint an apple a day for a year. His contention was that once you have mastered all that is involved in this simple/complicated fruit, then you were ready to get serious and become a painter of note. Apples are never simple, just look at what happened in the Garden of Eden. This painting is 5 x 7, framed in a wide gold plein air frame  and is priced at 200.00 without shipping charges.

Spring Brights

I painted this a couple of weeks ago and while working kept trying to keep things more angular and squarish. I am happy with the result and the colors which are very clean and pop well. It is going into the Norfolk Academy Art Show, which opens on the 30th of April. Lots to do to get ready. I have promised several people that I will start posting prices and sizes. This is 18x24, in a wide, gold, plein aire frame and will sell for 475.00. Once I am through with this show stuff I will get back to my Palette of Places and will be working on Lexington, Virginia.