vezinart at Bluecanvas: The Artist Network

vezinart at Bluecanvas: The Artist Network

Just Right Jeans

I was curious about Bluecanvas Magazine which is a major sponsor of a TV series on Bravo called "Next Great Artist."   The second season of this art competition just finished before Christmas.  One of the grand prizes was a cover feature on Bluecanvas.  I haven't seen the paper magazine around so I viewed their information online.

In order to fully explore the Bluecanvas website, I joined their "artist network."   It seems really interesting in that you can post your own work in a personal gallery page, award "stars" to other works that you like, and also even be a virtual "collector" which allows you to select other people's works as part of your virtual collection.

Along the way, I spotted a contest which challenged painters to create a painting that captured the theme of "classic."   I decided to immortalize my husband's Levi's in this "larger than life" 24X20 in painting and submitted the following required text explanation - limit 50 words.


Description:
"We need more pants, not tents!"

And with that, the California Gold Rush era produced the apparel item with universal appeal, classic blue jeans. Worldwide, people rich and poor, young and old, likely have jeans that are broken in - just right - like this old pair.

Christmas Still Life Complete

A sprig of holly is now included in the still life I shared a few days ago.  The little bit of green leaves and red berries add some color to the lower part of the painting, balancing the red of Santa's hat.   The low angle of the light fully illuminates the bottom leaf and catches just the tips of the top leaves.   I can see in this photo that the fully illuminated leaf needs a cast shadow.   So I'll add that with a deep value, sign it then hang it in the living room for the rest of the Christmas season.    In Mid-January it will be dry enough to pack away with the rest of the trimmings.   If, next Thanksgiving it needs nothing radical, I'll frame it and declare it a family heirloom. 

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Still Life

We always decorate for Christmas on Thanksgiving weekend.   In one of the boxes was a still life that I did in December of last year.      Now the fact that this painting got packed into the decorations last year means that I thought it didn't need any more work.     It was a red poinsetta to the left and a white tea pot in front on the right.   I stared at it in amazement.   The muddy pink/red petals were too uniform, lacking shadows and variety.   The green leaves and green ornaments competed with each other and were too light.   Rather than the spout and the handle of the teapot being aligned at 180 degrees, the spout looked like it came out awkwardly at about 157 degrees.

I grabbed it, marched to my studio and leaned it on the ledge over my palette.   Once a canvas makes its way to this spot, it is about to become a subsurface for a new painting.   Within a day the awful Christmas still life became a red, gold and green swirl of color.  It actually makes a very attractive abstract.   I wish I had taken a picture of it prior to putting the swirls on it so I could remember what it was that so disliked. Why didn't my eyes see the flaws last year when I first painted it?    You really do become blind to the distortion somehow.     So now I had a nice colorful ground for a new painting, but no longer had a Christmas still life.    Which brings me to the painting I did today.

Three of my favorite Christmas decorations are included.  They include a ceramic Santa moon wall hanging, a weathered looking French horn and a jingle bell instrument.   I like rustic looking items over glittery ones, and I chose to use a piece of black foamcore for the background.   My husband is a composition expert and he actually arranged the items for me.  Getting the Santa moon to be suspended against the background took some ingenuity.  (Fishing line, tape, spotlight, knot tying and a jar candle to be exact.)  

Placing the spotlight at a low angle produced some nice background shadows, especially of Santa's profile.  I like how there are three tangent circles in the Santa, the bells, and the horn.   There is too much wet paint right now to finish the bells, but I will be using my silver cup experience to improve those - hopefully.     I am also thinking about adding a sprig of holly that sort of sits on the back of the horn.    Comments?

Like last year's still life painting, this one will get packed away with the decorations.   It will be interesting to see what my impartial, fresh artist eye thinks of it next year.   Will it too become a ghost for a painting future?

Gate of Heaven Church

By 1890, Gate of Heaven Parish in South Boston, Massachusetts was well established. Even though the City Point area was growing more slowly than the westerly parish of the peninsula, by 1890 the congregation at Gate of Heaven numbered about 10,000 with about 600 girls registered in the academy and parochial school. The existing church was insufficient for the needs of so large a parish. In order to get ample room for a new church, it was necessary for the parish to buy several lots adjoining the church's land holdings at that time.  A hill that stood on this land was removed, and the grounds were graded. The cornerstone of today's church was laid in the fall of 1896 by His Grace, Archbishop Williams, with about one hundred clergymen assisting at the ceremony.

The designs furnished by P.W. Ford, the Boston Architect provided a building worthy of a cathedral. During construction, it was necessary to build St. Eulalia’s Chapel (today's St. Brigid Church), which was opened for services on May 6th, 1900 for the people of the City Point,  The following month the new lower Gate of Heaven church was finished, and the first services were held there June 17th, 1900.

With the lower church occupied, the work of completing the upper church was begun. The stained glass windows were designed by N.H.J. Weslake, Esq. of London, whose work, “The History of Design in Painted Glass” is recognized as an authority on the subject. The work of completing the church progressed steadily, and the upper church was ready for services and dedicated by His Eminence, Cardinal O’Connell, on May 12th, 1912.

The church was constructed in the Gothic style of architecture, of buff Roman brick, with brownstone trimmings. It has a frontage on East Fourth Street of 106 feet and depth of 184 feet. The interior itself is magnificent in its arrangement of fittings – the woodwork of oak, alters of sandstone and marble, the blue and gold tinted walls, the beautiful organ and magnificent stations, made it one of the most elaborate houses of worship in or about Boston. The Gate of Heaven Church is recognized by leading authorities as one of the most beautiful churches in the Archdiocese of Boston.

There really is no better way to become familiar with all the beauty and intricacies of such a majestic example of architecture than to paint it. Seeing my childhood church as an adult - an adult with an artist's eye - resulted in a strong desire to capture how striking it is.   As an adult, typically upon returning to those familiar places frequented as a child, the reaction is, "I remember it being so much bigger!"   Gate of Heaven Church is one of the few places that seems just as enormous and impressive today as it did all those years ago.   I remember feeling so small as my eight year old eyes looked up to see the chandelier lights that made my mother's diamond ring sparkle as in no other place.  

This week, the Gate of Heaven convent which stands on the same block, not 10 feet away from the church, is being torn down.   The Gate of Heaven rectory has already been torn down.  Being 30 miles removed, I'm not sure what the whole plan is for these properties, but it startled me into creating this painting, one I've been thinking about starting for a while.  This is not complete so comments are welcome.  Also, look for a religious symbol somewhere on the canvas...

Cranberry Worker

 I have been working on a series of cranberry bog paintings.  Cranberries are native to our Southeastern Massachusetts area and the bogs are one of North America's most distinctive types of wetlands.  Bogs are strange ecosystems characterized by thick sphagnum moss, acidic waters, peat deposits and a spongy, mat-like substance on the water's surface. Cranberries thrive best in beds within the bog, which consist of alternating layers of sand, peat, gravel and clay.  

Few nature lovers with a camera can resist pulling over to take pictures of the brilliant magenta of a flooded bog in the Fall.  Likewise, I can't resist painting them.  For those who aren't familiar with the cranberry harvest, here is a summary.  Each cranberry has a pocket of air inside of it, and back in the 1960's someone came up with the idea to flood the bogs with water to float the berries to the surface. The wet harvest has become the predominant method of cranberry harvesting used today.  The dry bogs are flooded with up to 18 inches (45.7 centimeters) of water the night before the harvest. The following day, the farmers use water reels nicknamed egg beaters to dislodge the berries from the vines so they'll float to the water's surface. The farmers then wade through the bog and round up the fruit with large wooden or plastic brooms. This process is called corralling. Once the bobbing berries are gathered together, they're transferred to a loading area where they're lifted by conveyor belts. (Sometimes, a pump truck will suck the berries right off the bog.) The berries are then cleaned before processing. More than 85 percent of the crop is harvested in this manner; however, the use of the water reel to beat the berries off the vines is relatively harsh on the delicate fruit. Therefore, wet harvested cranberries are used mostly for juice drinks, sauces, or as ingredients in other products.  

 

Although I have worked on several cranberry landscape paintings recently, I have been wanting to work on some that include the cranberry farmers at work.   I selected a photo that I took in Wareham a few weeks ago of a cranberry farmer waist deep in amid a bright pink flood of cranberries.   I placed my small plein air cranberry landscapes in view around this canvas so that I could accurately match the cranberry flood colors to my reference paintings rather than the photo.  I know my photo is more washed out than the cranberries are in person.

I have been "preparing" this canvas for a few weeks now.  I think that this underpainting will provide an interesting ghost because of the texture of the cranberries and the variation of the streaks of white, pink, red, and crimson berries.   

I drew my grid of thirds and sketched in the farmer so that his face was at the northeast sweetspot and his brightly lit hand was on the southeast sweet spot.   The worker is corralling the cranberries by pulling the rope with his right hand while detangling weeds with his left.  Next I fill in his overalls and made drawing corrections.  

I usually use a wildly colorful canvas like this and when I get to this point, I often look at the painting and think that I like it just like it is and that I ought to stop.  I like the darkest dark silhouetted against the colorful ground.   Of course if I was radical enough to do it, I would get rid of the grid lines, then call it done!

I press ahead by grabbing a big brush and filling in the background, letting some of the undercolor show through.   I started at the top using a mixture of permanent rose and naples yellow, gradually converting the pink to cad red and the naples yellow to cad yellow for the foreground.  I mixed flesh tones for his face, arms and hands.

I returned to the background because I wanted to make sure that the distant cranberries were receding.   I think it looks too whitish, so I'll come back to it another day - after Thanksgiving.   I'll be serving up cranberry sauce and a story about the cranberry wet harvest for my guests.

Reflections to the Nth

In a recent painting class, Jody Regan challenged us to explore reflections.   What happens to lines, colors and light when reflected by a mirror, water or some other surface with glass type properties.   I just happen to be working on several cranberry bog paintings, all of which contain water of some sort.    What I learned from the class exercise is that water reflections are a bit more forgiving than a mirror and shiny object.  

I selected a silver creamer and a flashy striped fabric.   As if the reflections on the creamer weren't challenging enough, I hiked up the difficulty by setting the creamer on a square mirror.    So now, the creamer reflected the stripes, and the mirror reflected the creamer with the reflected stripes. Picture it? 

One other challenge was that this fabric had a myriad of multicolored stripes.  I didn't want to paint every stripe for sure.  I designed a new fabric in the painting - which then had to be reflected correctly in the silver.

Remember yesterday's hommage to subtlety?  Subtle this is not.  It's fun to blast out straight tube color once in a while, especially after the grey painting day yesterday.

I have a new technique for optical blending.   I think I invented it, but it's probably been around for centuries.  Instead of placing colors next to each other with a brush (that the viewer's eye will mix), I put narrow skim-coat stripes of the blending colors on my palette, then scrape up perpendicularly with a palette knife, then draw the strips of color out with one slow and steady stroke.  That's how I did my red-yellow-red stripes (after having done it the hard way first).   It does skip in places, but I like the painterly effect that has.   I think the fact that the creamer is not so painterly, but more realistic is a style I like.         I learned quite a bit about reflections in the last couple of weeks.  I  learned that a silver creamer is not silver.  It's a muted version of every color around it with a touch of white at the end for the illusion of shine.                                                                           

Noone is going to want to hang this in their house being as garish as it is.   That's okay.  I really like it for what it is. 

************

Thank you to my teacher, Jody Regan for sending me this picture. She took it at the beginning of class.  It is my brush drawing of this painting.  I was recycling an old canvas that had been a color exercise.

It's Raining, I'm Outside Painting

I just finished reading "Richard Schmid Paints Landscapes."   He is such a master.  Not only are his paintings stunning, but as a teacher he also has a flair for keeping the message simple.   The book is rich with information and examples.  Fresh in my mind are two segments that were most meaningful at this point in my art.

The three basic compositional qualities that Schmid thinks are evident in his work are simplicity, harmony and subtlety.  He says that regardless of the size or complexity of his paintings, he strives for simplicity.  Easy to say, but so hard to do.  By harmony, he refers to the presence of a single pictorial element that unifies the painting, such as lighting, colors, edges, etc..  I had never heard anyone state that subtlety was desireable.  If anything, I have learned to emphasize the focal point using as many compositional elements as possible, providing a dramatic center of interest.   I'd like to consider what Schmid is saying.  A pictorial composition that is obvious defeats is purpose.  Schmid's paintings have an understated beauty that transforms it to another level.

The second topic that I found interesting relates to the benefits of painting overcast weather.  Schmid prefers a high, bright overcast stating that he finds it the most stable.  This kind of diffused daytime lighting is slow to change and is predictable providing a longer stretch of painting time.  Schmid states that a painting done in overcast will look "right" under most indoor lighting conditions. 

I was up for testing these principles today, given it was cloudy and a mild 55 degrees with no wind.   The weather radar indicated that I had a couple of hours before the rain really started.  I returned to the Jones River site in Kingston and set up under the open wooden shelter that covers the picnic tables.  Did I say before that I love this spot?

It's mid-November so the oak trees have their burnt, reddish leaves, but the rest of the deciduous trees are bare.   This photo looks pretty barren, but it really was a subtle beauty. 

I mixed up some pinkish and yellowish soft grays for the sky.   After the sky, I worked the dark pier pilings, progressing then from darks to lights.  The oaks were burnt sienna.  Grasses were raw sienna with some cad yellow deep. 

Initial block in was fun and the colors seemed good.   The tide was coming in, so the shiny, silver mud in the foreground quickly transformed into a mirror reflection of the pier.  What had been dark river water started moving and became white ripples.  So maybe the sky and shadows were not changing but, as usual, the water was.  

Below is the point at which I stopped.  The question is, did I hit the Schmid takeaways? Somewhat.  It's hard to be objective this late.

Simplicity- fair, the far horizon is accurate with cedars, but does it pull to much because they are dark?  Harmony? Yes, I think - through color palette. As for subtlety - yes, I think because the overall greyness of the day comes through.  What do you think?

Oh, and it was overcast and even raining by the end.



Jones River Rainy Day



Painting What You Love

It is natural to want to paint those people, places and things that you love.   If you know the person, place or thing intimately, this knowledge helps immensely as you get into the painting process itself.   You could argue that this knowledge makes the painting easier and more true.  You can also argue that if you paint what you see with a true artist's eye, you can paint anything.

What if you don't love the subject?

I found out first hand that I didn't need to love the two stars of a recent painting class in order to enjoy the experience and have a decent outcome.   Enter "Dolly" and "Pretty Boy," Solomon Island parrots.   For my whole life it was reinforced that birds inside a dwelling are a sign of an impending death (source...Irish superstition). Not only that, but I was nervous about having to paint these two birds because at any minute they might lunge off their perches and claw at me.  Well, there was no drama whatsoever. 

Why by the end of the 2 hours, I was thinking they were actually pretty cute.   In fact, they started saying words - unintelligible to me - but I started repeating to them what I thought they had said.   My lesson learned was to not have such a closed mind on painting subject matter. 

Paint what you love - or don't love.  Just paint.

One Painting Day in November

 Jones River Kingston

I discovered a beautiful painting location today in Kingston at the Jones River.   This picture shows the gorgeous spot I spent the morning.  I arrived at 8:00 and set up facing south to take advantage of the morning sun on the South Duxbury shore that could be seen in the distance.   

My first painting was to feature old sailboat which you can see in the middle of this photo.  It was the focal point, with the embankment on the right as a counterbalance.    The temperature was about 45 at first, warming to around 60 by 1:00.   It felt like a real treat to enjoy a November morning capturing the shimmery light.   Analyzing the color in the shoreline, I saw reddish, greenish gold, gradually changing to pinkish, blueish green from left to right, as that was a receding shoreline.   The right riverbank was entirely in shadow at first.   Once the sun started rising, there were stripes of light cast on the grasses which was when I intended to "snap" the light as my finished light on that side.  However, as you can see, I fell into the trap of continuing to repaint and lighten the right side grasses as the sun came up.   I don't like how this ended up so light and will go back and darken the right riverbank, restoring it to shadow.   The water still needs work.   The rapid current made for interesting shades of lighter and darker areas of ultramarine.   I will be using my photo as the definitive pattern, once I finish it up in the studio.  What a treat this morning was!

For my second painting, I turned to the east.   By now the sun was more to the south, which was my right. I saw a little blue sunsplashed sailboat that looked just stunning against the dark shadows on the far shore.

In a long painting session like today, the first painting really feels like the warm up.   I think it has to to with already having brushes commited to light and dark, a variety of local colors mixed and ready to go, and that a personal painting rhythm established.   This painting took very little time.   The reflections of the shaded trees in the background looked violet in the river.   A strip of river mud, revealed itself on my side of the river which was reflecting the deep blue November sky overhead. I really like this composition.   In the studio, my plan is to fix the blue reflections in the mud and gradually darken the downriver and underside of the boat, as it was further away from the light.

There are several compositions just waiting to be painted at this spot on future dates....really nice light, and so convenient.  I shall return!


After dropping off wet paintings at the house, I set up again...a location shift...

Atlantic Ave Rexhame

In the afternoon, I painted at the end of Atlantic Ave in the Rexhame section of Marshfield.   The ocean is always a challenge.   Since the Nor'easter last weekend, the surf has been pretty high.   I estimate that the waves are about eight feet.   Large swells with uniform patterns may seem easier to paint than choppiness.  However, I find that trying to capture the uniformity makes the painting look too stiff and contrived.   I must paint what I see, so I dive in.  The colors are fascinating.  It is about 2:20 and the horizon line looks purplish, and the mid-distance somewhat pink which obviously is a reflection of the colors in the sky.  The large waves are so greenish before they break... I think that I let green take over and believe this first painting overall looks way too greenish.

I turned the easel 45 degrees to the south and painted the following...

I like the values in this one as well as the portrait aspect for the vertical flag.   I'm thinking the flagpole is too close to the center...comments??

I saw some beautiful vistas today.   I felt lucky to be able to enjoy and I think that November with its deep blue sky and long golden shadows may be my favorite.  

I got to paint all day...what a gift.

Cranberry Bogs

Pumphouse and Trailer

 BUY GICLEE NOW

Original:  SOLD

I have been working on several cranberry bog paintings, most of them started out at the bog.   I have completed 2 of the 3 that I described a week ago.   When the third one is done, I will post all three together.

I have been working on small canvases since Spring because when the weather is good - and this has been a great year weatherwise - I feel obligated to paint outside.   I have been itching to start something bigger and have been "toning" a 24X36" canvas with leftover paint for weeks now.     I was ready now to start a large cranberry bog painting.   All these smaller paintings have given me the color studies I need to get onto a big
 painting.



24X36 inch canvas with Vezina toning looked like this at the start

The undertones were filled with texture and color, perfect for an autumn scene like a cranberry harvest.

Starting photo

Next I worked on my composition.   I have several photos of bogs from Duxbury and Wareham.   I used a viewfinder with a proportion of 2:3 and reviewed my photos until I found a composition I liked.    Here is the original photo.

I decided on the cropping on the paper photo, then I returned to my computer and created a cropped version for my painting reference.     at this point, I was not sure what the foremost center of interest will be.   It could have been the electric meter on the shack or the wheel of the trailer.   The decision was delayed at that point. 

Pumphouse and Trailer in Progress

Plein Air from Anywhere

I have spent a fair amount of time searching for great locations to paint.  In the past few weeks, I have tried to resist the urge to wander around in the car, wasting precious painting time and just park.  

I was heading back from Boston on scenic Route 3A.   My thinking was to stop somewhere in Hingham or Cohasset.   Before I knew it, I was in Scituate - next town - Marshfield.   I circled around the rotary at the start of the Driftway and pulled into the parking lot for what looked like a public works building.   Beyond the parking lot was a beautiful pond with box turtles sunning themselves and plenty of gold and orange reflecting across the water.   I didn't even know this spot existed.   I set up and got to work.  What a spot - beautiful and right on a rotary of all places.



Scituate Rotary Pond



This next one is of the rotary itself.  It felt a little crazy at first as I was composing because of my usual quest for a perfect location.   Here is Rotary Motif #1. 





Studio Photo of Scituate Rotary

Cranberry Bogs

Roughing in color on first painting

I find cranberry bogs fascinating.   At this time of year, they are especially glorious.   I spent time painting this week at the bog in Duxbury on Route 14.   Warm October days may be my favorite.
I did three paintings from the same spot, the first one facing west, second facing south and the third facing south east.   Naples yellow and cadmium red, scooped onto my palette knife and spread onto the canvas seems to achieve the most accurate depiction of the floating cranberry harvest.



Second paintinglooking south across the bog.  Wind was blowing toward me and pushing cranberries toward closer bog bank.







Third paintinglooking southeast into the sun.  Working on a bright ochre toned canvas.


I have some decent photos for reference so that I can finish these off in my studio today, since it is pouring outside.