"Elements" - Juneau/Douglas City Museum fundraiser

$12.12

This was the fee to enter the JDCM annual fundraiser.

Opening night was last night -

1 March - First Friday.

Their rules stipulate that your creation be

12 x 12 inches

... and if you are doing 3D

12 x 12 x 12 inches.

The theme this year was

ELEMENTS

I thought about the word  

and its meaning.

Elements

The Merriam-Webster dictionary

first definition speaks

of the substances 

that were once thought to be

what the universe was made of:

Air

Fire

Water

Earth

My thought was to paint

a few of the elements

of 

my painting practice.

Here is the sequence of my process:

I laid out some stuff and took a photo
(but mostly looked down at my set-up while painting)

made a grid and a sketch

On a 12 x 12 prepared canvas
(from Joann's)
I first put a Gold acrylic base
 then began to sketch with charcoal

Then began to paint ... oh, and I gooped on some more of that gold acrylic
(because it was pretty!) and after looking at it, decided more paint tubes were needed

 

Elements      acrylic and oil on gallery-wrapped canvas, 12 x 12 inches

I have not been to the exhibit yet,

but will go soon.

Juneau peeps, you should go soon too.

Thanks so very much for checking in

and viewing my art and process.

(and happy March!)

teri's art blogiversary & GiveAway!

Hello dear blog readers!

Central Park Zoom-In  oil on canvas   8 x 8 inches

In honor of my 11th ( ! ) year of blogging, I am giving away 

my little Zoom-In painting from Hugo Robus'

Central Park from 1919 - that he painted 100 years ago!

(to see a photo of that painting, please click HERE (1/24/19)

to go to my blog post about Hugo.

All you have to do for your chance to win

 is leave me a comment here on this post at the blog, please, 

and not on my email 

(for those who get this in an email, you must go to the actual blog address).

Your comment can even be ONE word!

I will put the names of the people who comment into a hat and pick a winner 

at the end of this month 

I will send or deliver the painting to the winner - no strings attached 😃

... 

and that is it!

Best of luck, and thank you so much for following this

"dear to my heart" art journal.

🎨

Winner update: I forgot to update this post and let you know that Shirley Baldwin's name was drawn to be the winner of my Zoom-In!
(Thank you for subscribing, Shirley!)

My portrait of Hugo

My grandfather-in-law, or, my husband's paternal Grandad
was Hugo Robus. 
That link will take you to the Smithsonian American Art Museum
and
a brief biography of Hugo.

And here is another link for a blog post on
this blog about Hugo ... from August 2012.

As you see, I have been thinking about 
this for a long time.

Notably, Hugo Robus was first a 2D artist who became
interested in "pure form" and 
in particular,
the human body.


The photos below lead through my process
of making this painting that I have thought about 
for years.

We have this black & white photo of him
and I keep it in my studio (with permission from my husband).

I used some bits of Hugo's artworks in my painting to showcase
his styles and range ...

Hugo's painting of "After Rain" Noank, Conn 1916

"After Rain" Noank   by Hugo Robus     oil on board    8 x 10.5 inches

The little bronze sculpture, Paean

Paean   bronze reduction cast by Hugo Robus  10 inches

His sculpture Girl Washing Her Hair (cast stone)

Girl Washing Her Hair   by Hugo Robus   
1959 cast stone reproduction from half-scale
plaster reduction of the 1933 original

And, the last bit of a painting I include here is
a painting I did, called a "Zoom-In" of Hugo's painting
Central Park.

Below are also links in the blog about my
#8 Zoom-In of Hugo's painting Central Park
from June 2012.

Zoom-In Central Park - Start

Zoom-In Central Park - Day 2

Zoom-In Central Park - Fini

And finally, below is a photo of the original Central Park by Hugo Robus.

Central Park  by Hugo Robus   oil on canvas      26 x 32 inches

So if you look closely at my painting below, 
 you will see bits and pieces of those creations by 
Hugo Robus. 

Hugo      oil on Arches Huile paper     16 x 12 inches

I am fairly pleased with this painting to honor
this amazing artist who my husband remembers
as a serious artist, both austere and kind.



Thank you for checking in!
In two days it will be my blog's 11th birthday. 
I actually missed the big 10th one.
I started this thing on January 26, 2008.

I believe "they" call that a blogiversary.

In honor of that date,
I am gonna do a special thing so please
stay tuned!

Happy Painting!

😊

A pop-up Art Exhibit happened

For those in Juneau who may be perusing this blog, or anyone else for that matter ...

and perhaps didn't get to see my little pop-up art exhibit at our local distillery, 

I am posting about it today. This is how it looked on the wall.

Amalga Distillery wall, hung like a January 2016 calendar page! (Jan 31st is a collage.)

Opening night of my show was First Friday, January 4, 2019. 

It hung for that night and Saturday the 5th and ended at 7pm on Sunday, the 6th.

It was really fun to talk to everyone about my purpose for doing the paintings, 

which was to challenge myself to painting every day in January. 

It was a good thing, and if you have never done

anything like it, you should. It gets you painting 

whether you feel like 

it or not! Or you could do the drawing challenge to wet your feet so to speak.

THIS is a link to the day in this blog when I began the challenge and 

it is explained as the days went by ... I am pretty sure I posted each day,
but the main interesting fact was that I didn't move around.
I painted from the same vantage point in my living room each day.

This is a public thank you to everyone who bought paintings (18 sold) 

and who came by to take a look ... I loved seeing you!

Thank you so much! 💓

Happy New Year!

Fireweed & Shadows (Morning on Eagle Beach) 
12 x 16 inches
Oil on canvas

I was so happy to see the first Plein Rein Calendar page

 - January 2019 - 

is my own painting!

Of course I had forgotten,

so when I opened the calendar for today

1 January 2019

This painting popped up and surprised me.

Juneau people who have not gotten the calendar yet,

there are still a few available at the Juneau-Douglas City Museum!

(I think maybe at the JAHC, as well??)

... anyway, thank you so much for 

following this blog. I wish everyone a prolific painting year!

Be sure to show your work!

Happppppy Painnnnnting!

🎨

Peace for the season and the New Year

May the year ahead bring light and peace and joy to all🎄

Thank you so much for checking in 

now and then to this blog.

Happy Painting or Drawing or Sculpting or 

creating however you like ... 

OR

even dreaming of these things!

See you in 2019!

Persimmons (Fuyu)

Persimmons (Fuyu)     6 x 8 inch    Oil on Arches Huile Paper

So I just posted this on IG and forgot how it doesn't get the whole picture

 unless you fix it before you share, but I also wanted to post here anyway ...

I had the idea to make the frame a jazzy orange/red

and just gave it a try, thinking

I could always paint over it.

I like it! 

🎄

Consider it more holiday cheer. 

... and yeah, I wrote right on the painting because

I didn't want anyone to think they are 

tomatoes 😄

I already varnished with CWM and love the way it polishes 

but isn't glossy.

Thank you for checking in (to Instagram, and here)!

Winter Solstice 2018

Happy Winter Solstice!

Evening Sky - oil on canvas panel   8 x 10 inches

december 21

shortest day and longest night

patiently we wait

keeping candles burning bright

I hope everyone is managing their holiday(s) and getting out for exercise and social fun!

Here are a couple of photos of a bunch of us

 having a Christmas get together with our ugly dresses/ugly sweaters/ ugly shirts !

Wishing you holiday cheer 

and

Happy Painting! 

(does anyone have time to paint?)

One more post about the JMS Workshop

Vineyard at the feet of Mont Ventoux (Provence, France)   
6 x 8 inches   oil on panel 
I was working on this just before the rain poured down;
I thought I may need to finish under cover,
but I liked it like this and thinking about how we had to quickly pack up
 and zoom away before getting soaked.

Old Stone Steps   6 x 8 inches    oil on panel   
While the rain was pouring down,
Matt found a covered open-sided shed to carve under;
I joined him and painted these old stone steps as we listened to the birds chirping
and the rain dripping.

A beautiful salad for lunch by Chef Angelique and crew.

By JMS (sigh ...)

These are table grapes, carefully picked over and sent to the local markets.

View across the vineyard of those table grapes. Oh have no fear,
there are wine vineyards around as well!

The market in Bedoin was so colorful!

Piments rouges et ail tressés  (braided red chili's & garlic)

 This is Nick Whitworth, zipping along on the tippy streets of Gordes ...
getting ready to capture some video about Julian's workshop.
(I still cannot believe he looked up as I snapped the photo! and I was in the van!)

Here is Nick's video is about 3 minutes long and captures the essence of our workshop.

Ruth Phillips, Julian's wife, is a wonderful musician
who plays the cello
SO beautifully! 
She gave us a mini concert.
Here is a sketch I made while she was practicing.

Ruth wrote a book about the beginnings of 
Julian and Ruth's life in Provence
called
Cherries from Chauvet's Orchard.

I am reading it right now and it is, of course, since I have met them, 
a fun and fascinating read.

Nick made another beautiful video for Ruth's Breathing Bow workshop 
which was right after ours,
about playing the cello, breathing, yoga 
and all that makes playing your instrument
work with your body.

Here is that video - so beautifully done!


Nick also made a video of  Le Domaine Saint Jacques.
Click HERE 
for that link, very short (~ 1 min).

Oh, my!  Links all over the place ... mark them,
take your time and watch at your leisure
... it is worth it ...


I hope it is also worth your time to read this little blog - thank you so much for doing that!
I love blogging, but it does take time so I do it just every so often.

Tomorrow is December, I wish everyone safe and happy holidays and, 
of course!

Happy Painting!

Julian Merrow-Smith Workshop

Road along the vineyard in the Vaucluse

From Oct 7 thru Oct 15 

I attended Julian Merrow-Smith's painting workshop 

in Provence, France. 

I can't even believe it - but it is true, it wasn't a dream.

As many of you bloggers know, blogging is hard. 
I think it is harder than painting ... 
and
painting is hard!

Anyway, finally getting around to posting about Julian's
workshop in his beautiful corner of the Vaucluse in Provence. 

It will be short (well, I guess not too short because of all the photos) but sweet,
as I like to see paintings and such much more than read text.
I am assuming many of you feel the same
 (but I actually am not sure of this - do you like to read long blog text?).

We were about 13 painters with a couple of non-painting partners, 
so there were a bunch of us to be housed and fed. 
Most were from the USA, one from Australia, 
and two people from England. It was such fun to meet them all.

Matt and I stayed in the 14th century chateau 
 le Devencet, along with about half the group.

The other half stayed in another chateau called
Grange Nueve, up the hill from ours. 
These chateaus are part of Domaine Saint Jacques, 
a private, small vineyard - far out in rural Vaucluse 
with the closest "larger town" about 20-30 minutes away, Carpentras. 
Avignon was the train station we arrived at from Paris, 
and the drive to our venue was at least an hour!

We were very well fed, indeed, at noon and night, 
by the wonderful chef, Angelique, her daughter 
and daughter's boyfriend, Bram (I think that is the correct spelling). 
Angelique and crew are from the Netherlands and live in Nice.
ALL of our meals were exquisite! 

Julian's first demo was a still life 

 I work on my first painting at the workshop

Julian teaches us some plein air techniques 

Julian's painting of the chateau - le Devencet

Trying my hand at the door to the courtyard at le Devencet

That distant mountain is Mt Ventoux and this road leads to le Devencet, behind me.
I am trying to capture the light with paint.

Before the rain I did get a fairly finished painting! But it was quick. I will try to find a photo of the finished painting for my next blogpost.

le Devencet

le Devencet by me

Julian painting a demo at Venasque, a village way up on a hill.

Julian's painting demo

I went out on a very windy "petit mistral" and
set up to paint the distant town Méthamis.
Things began blowing away so I had to find some rocks
to weigh the pochade box down.
Pictured is the plein air box Julian had for us to use while there!
All the supplies were given to us at the workshop.
We just had to take our paintings home
and they were mostly 6 x 8's, so they were easy to pack.

Méthamis

 Here is actual proof I went to Julian's workshop!

Julian and me ... being photo-bombed by Miranda,
who is a wonderful artist from Australia. The link is her Instagram page - go visit!

Sam Rachamin is another fab artist who was Julian's main workshop assistant/driver.
That is a link to his website and you must check it out ... beautiful, compelling paintings!

My funny and talented friend Miranda.

It was just amazing to be there in Provence taking Julian's workshop. 

I want to take this time to thank Julian and Ruth for an informative, fun and valuable workshop experience, my first in another country.

Thank you, dear blog reader, for visiting and letting me share this experience with you. 
I hope to blog maybe one more time about this workshop, what I took away in terms of
 painting technique and how to see (always striving for that).
so stayed tuned ...

and, as always ...

Happy Painting!