secret gardens

This Saturday we celebrate the Secret Gardens of Lake Forest Park!  I will be privileged to paint in the garden of Betsy and George Piano.

Meanwhile, throughout June please visit the Sunlight Cafe and consider giving a home to one of my primitavist knifepaintings of Northwest human habitat -- pruning helps us thrive, in art as in gardening!
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rail yard

A few weeks ago I sketched this scene in ink on canvas at Fishermen's terminal. It was freezing but bright! Later painted it in the studio. 4.5" x 4.5"

teresa painting, christmas 2009

This has been a season of peaceful holidays, spent painting! It's been years since I had this freedom.

On Christmas Day my friend of many decades gifted me with her presence and suggested a portrait party. We set a limit of 20 minutes but failed to set a timer, I think it was 30! This sketch is in acrylic on canvas, 8 x 8 inches.

bridge to somewhere

Here are my two newest tiny (4 inches square) paintings. I am tempted to just do these tiny little paintings forever, this is really satisfying! They begin as pen/brush drawings on gessoed canvas in airbrush-consistency acrylic (I call it ink); when that is dry, I add tiny bits of color, transparent and opaque, until they are suddenly done!

These are views of the Aurora bridge west of Gas Works Park here in Seattle.

This one, West From Gas Works II, was originally drawn in white acrylic on black gesso:

West From Gas Works III was sketched in anthraquinone blue acrylic "ink" on white gesso:

farewell

Farewell, acrylic on canvas, 30" x 40", copyright 2009 (title sort of explained below)
Well, it has been a while since I've posted all right. Have been getting outside to paint maybe once a week, working a lot in the studio. Would like to find homes for the accumulation. Fantasy is to find a corporate wormhole that will just vacuum up all my production straight into a venue where it will be loved -- no muss, no fuss, no gallery openings, no schmoozing; no hyperventilating, no angst -- no talk, basically. Aren't I terrible? It is exhausting thinking of all the things that must be done to create a dynamic opportunity for my work to go belong to someone else. I don't like talking people into buying work. Hate it, in fact. Never have done it. Yet there used to be clients in my life, back when I was a "real" painter! Some of them I knew, some of them I was never told their names by the gallerists or reps.
I have heard writer Kazuo Ishiguro quoted as saying people who choose solitary professions do so because they have something from which to heal. Whether the quote is accurate, this certainly applies to a lot of artists I know. We would rather work with our physical media than struggle with the vagaries and potential betrayals of human interaction -- at least a lot of the time! Objects can be our friends -- at least for a while.
Is there any reliable way for someone who hates to socialize to sell their art? If anyone has advice beyond "work your tail off" please share!
***
Recently learned that an iconic piece I thought I had in storage was sold at auction a year ago by a place here in Seattle called Pacific Galleries. They won't tell me who consigned it to them or anything else. Very odd. Back when it was new -- one of the times I had to drop the career and care for family, in 1998 -- I could very well have lost track of this piece. For a while it was on loan to Summit Travel and Cruises. Did someone there hang onto it and finally turn it over to the auction house, or did something else happen? I don't know. I have spent the last terrible decade not painting and believing I never would again, but have never heard from anyone regarding this piece; found this sale by accident on the internet.

Ton Plaisir II (Yellow Trees), pastel on paper, 29.75'' x 43.5'', copyright 1998

Ironically, this piece is one I reproduced for business cards I still carry.

avenging the leopard

Here is a piece that began as an experiment in layers of acrylic paint and mediums, collaging in separately created acrylic skins and painted paper. It developed organically -- a means I enjoy and will have to keep learning from; right now I think it worked well! 36" x 36" acrylic/collage on canvas.
(The leopard in question was my painted silk kimono-style fiber sculpture, stolen from Seattle Center in the early nineties. It walked off its display as I sat 20 feet away, attending to something I guess... I have mourned long enough.)

life en plein air

It has been one rousing week! I have painted happily with several terrific people, half of whom were previously strangers, out of doors this week; can't quite believe my good luck. Everyone I met was delightful, good painting in good company!
First, on Monday a few of us met at Log Boom Park on a brilliant sunny day. We snuck past the "caution" tape and worked out on the washed-out path and bridge, and met several nice folks strolling by on the safe side of the tape. 24" x 36" oil on canvas.

Then on Thursday a few others and I met at Shilshole Marina, overlooking the boats and breakwater -- another bright sunshiny day. This was knifepainted held in my arms -- without an easel! We met a lot of friendly humans and dogs! 12 x 16 oil on canvas.

Today, I met two more folks for the first time and we painted at a private pond in Juanita! It was perfect weather, just cool and grey and maybe one drop of rain.... we met some neighbors who may choose to join us next time! another 12 x 16 oil on canvas.

across green lake

This is one of my latest favorites. Having finally acquired a small studio space, one goal is to create some large works based on my tiny plein air oil sketches. Here is my first such effort, a 24 x 36 acrylic based on a little oil sketch I did last spring at Green Lake. The challenge is to retain the freshness of the original. Layering paint into wet mediums seems to give me the feeling I'm after!

Here is the original sketch:

welcome to the neighborhood!

Friend Frances and I conspired and found studio space in Wallingford, and moved in this week. She has since decided to resume looking further south, thereby avoiding a long, toxic commute, but I hope we will continue to collaborate materially and in spirit despite this distance -- as we have so far!
For me, this is the part of town that has everything -- industry, waterscape, neighborhood! I will try to make the most of it.
This is my first painting done in the new space. Acrylic on canvas, 8 x 8, from a photo taken at fishermen's terminal.

Also spent a little time at Gas Works Park ruminating. Here is yesterday's 4x6 lunchtime sketch of a tiny part of the view across Lake Union, in white ink and gouache:

the resurgence of jazz

we are going out on a limb here. tulips traditionally, of course, must be watched over if not redistributed by an animal companion; but we are just getting back into the swing of things. here are a few new little sketches in mixed media, somewhat reminiscent of a style that used to be mine.

duck island

Hey, here's a little (9 x 12) plein air oil sketch from last summer!

shrub of flame

Okay, so here's today's daily effort! If you are reading this you must be my friends, so you can see this progression. You have to start at the bottom of today's post.
Here's the current permutation. I like it to look at, but we'll see if it stops there.

Next, the first stage in today's transformation of this painting in the studio:
First, the 6 x 8 plein air oil sketch from a couple months ago that never had quite enough value differentiation to make me happy. This is how it really looked though, a red bush and yellow trees in my neighborhood on a grey day:

parking lot trees!

Here's a little (6 x 8) oil sketch I did sitting in the front seat of my car in a parking lot at Green Lake last fall, when the trees were still full of paint, I mean leaves.

the life of wine

Painted this 8 x 6 oil sketch today for Monday Artday's movie quote challenge.

From Sideways:

Maya: No, I- I like to think about the life of wine.

Miles Raymond: Yeah.

Maya: How it's a living thing. I like to think about what was going on the year the grapes were growing; how the sun was shining; if it rained. I like to think about all the people who tended and picked the grapes. And if it's an old wine, how many of them must be dead by now. I like how wine continues to evolve, like if I opened a bottle of wine today it would taste different than if I'd opened it on any other day, because a bottle of wine is actually alive. And it's constantly evolving and gaining complexity. That is, until it peaks, like your '61. And then it begins its steady, inevitable decline.

friday morning at green lake

Plein air sketch for today, oil, 8 x 10. What a way to start the day! It was cold but warmed up as the shadows receded.

let's do this together

Okay, here is a little ink drawing of my back porch from the other day when it was snowing. Print it out and color it in yourself any way you want to! If you email me a digital image I'll assume your permission to post it here.

Here is my gouache-painted version as well.

coming soon

the weekly moment, at least one new painting each week.

later to become the daily moment!

In the meantime, here is something from last fall, a little oil sketch of downtown, near the convention center

A windy day and I was visiting Utrecht

into the world

University of Washington campus, Sketchcrawl 21, January 10, 2009 --

a grey day doesn't have to be

haunting green lake

Here are my sketches from last Sunday's Seattle Plein Air outing! The first one is 4 x 6 in ink, waiting at The Urban Bakery for my fellow painters. The other two are oil sketches, first an 8 x 10 view of the Bathhouse Theatre from across the lake -- a very very cold foggy day! Later the grey lifted for just half an hour and gave me the tree above, looking almost like it's still autumn! This is a 6 x 8 oil sketch.

See another painter's gorgeous image of this same tree at Seattle Plein Air, here: http://art.meetup.com/273/photos/537846/