Merry Christmas 2021!

 

In my last newsletter, I spoke about this painting. 

Poking around on the internet, 

I found that some folks call a white rose 

the Rose of Peace.

White roses also can symbolize friendship, hope, love & respect.

Whatever meaning is best for the occasion,

white roses are beautiful in a bouquet.

the sketch

Here is a photo of my set up for the still life. I forgot progress photos.

The White Rose of Peace  
oil on Arches Huile paper     8 x 6 inches (unframed)

The painting is up on my website now

and can be purchased unframed 

or my husband can make a frame for you,

and I will finish and ready it for hanging.

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas

and a hopeful, healthy

and 

Happy 2022!

🎄

Challenge

 Hi everyone. Have you done challenges with your painting practice? 

It forces you to think & react differently from your

"normal" way of painting.

Recently I did this one with these strict parameters:

Finger painting - no brushes, no knives

Palette:

Yellow Ochre

Burnt Sienna 

Cadmium Red Medium

Payne's Gray

Viridian

NO white (none showing from the canvas nor used)

Self Portrait

I chose to use a mirror to paint myself.

I covered the canvas with a layer of yellow ochre. Yes, just using my hands.

These were some of the color combo's using the palette.

This is the beginning 👆 ... i forgot to take any mid-way pics.

Red Lipstick (A trope of femininity)  oil on "canvas" paper   16 x 12

I would love to hear if you have tried

a challenge.

What were your parameters?

How did it go?

Stay safe and happy painting!

PS i am steadily adding more paintings to:

TeriRobusStudio

Come on over and sign up for my website

newsletter. In the menu click "Keep In Touch"

and I will send out some news every month or two.

🎨

Gravenstein Apples (and my first website)

 There are many who do not know about these apples.

The variety is Gravenstein, and that link will tell you

more about them.

I grew up with them - in pies, applesauce, and eating out of hand. When I found them in our local store, I had a fit and bought enough for a pie and then went back and

found more for applesauce

 (no sugar needed! no peeling either ... just blend all after cooking).

There have been a few paintings in the past of these apples. 

If you Google, you will find some.

I found this:

Gravenstein Apple Postcard. 

This Gravenstein Apple was painted in 1909 

by Amanda Almira Newton (1860-1943) in 

Albermarle County, Virginia, United States.

I don't think the owner of this site will be upset,
but I want to give acknowledgement to them.

I found it here:

Site from Pinterest  (very reasonable postcards, btw)

Of course I also had to paint them

after seeing their beauty sitting in the black wire basket. 

Here are my progress photos:

the real apples in the basket

sketch in charcoal over an old painting

This panel holder is a hack that my husband made me,
found on the interwebs. Shhhhhh ... it is really good for small paintings.

I have been taking photos outside because 
even when cloudy, the light is so much better than artificial.

Gravensteins in Wire Basket  
6 x 8 inches  oil on Arches Huile paper, with gesso underlayer

For those interested in this art journey, I do wish to tell you about my first-ever website!!

You can take a peek now.

TeriRobusStudio

I am working daily on it and it will always be

 a wip (work-in-progress) ...

Thank you, as always, for reading this blog.

🎨

Blogger Day

 Well, that's a new one. I have had this blog for 13 years
but had not heard of Blogger Day.

Hi everyone who reads this blog.

I have been painting outside mostly this summer, 

on nice days usually. This painting, though, is from a photo
I snapped while walking back from painting in the wetlands near the Juneau airport.   

The beautiful orange color of the airport doo-dads
against the blue of the big garage for airport vehicles got my attention. 

I did take a few progress shots: 

Airport Doo-dads (with Background)     oil on canvas    12 x 16 inches

(I will be adhering this to a board at some point, when finished. And framing it.)

My studio is going to be getting some TLC 

as soon as I get it emptied out so it can have a new floor, ceiling and walls!

So I have moved up to our "office" room.

I know people clean out their studios from time-to-time

but I have NEVER done it ...

so you can just imagine the STUFF I have to go through.

I have been throwing stuff away, I have! And I have a large box of paintings 

that I have deemed weak, so they will be sanded down. I have already sanded a couple and it is actually quite fun! Cathartic?

So this painting is going to sit a bit. I may thicken the paint and think of a new title. Any suggestions for a title off the top of your head?

Anyway, Happy Blogger Day!

and

Happy Painting

🎨

Note: If you receive my blog posts by email, please know that Google is taking away Feedburner, the email subscription service. I am starting a website:

TeriRobusStudio

so signing up for my newsletter there on the website will be the best way to get blog news too, and any other announcements. 

I hope you will sign up for my newsletter! It will be a journey for us both!

Thank you for reading all the way to here!

Bouquet painting ... again!

Drawing and/or painting flowers and bouquets is a love of mine. 

This is a still life, from real life, that was a fun project. 

charcoal sketch

from

 this bouquet 👇

I felt like doing another bouquet painting
and i just happened to have this little

Mother's Day one. (Thank you Matt! 💓)

I had a board already made with gesso 

and some acrylic iridescent gold

splashed on it ... I think the gold was leftover from

painting a frame ... ?

Anyway, it looked like the size i wanted,

so I began to sketch (with charcoal first). Again I didn't think to take

more progress photos ... 

This one progress shot while painting indicates where 

those funny little buds are in the bouquet. 

I don't know what they are, do you?

I love the background iridescence in certain light.

These flowers, from Mother's Day ... are still holding strong, 

with a bit of trimming. 

So, when was that? Over 2 weeks ago! 

Amazing!

👇

Dusk Was Falling      11 9/16 x 9 inches    oil on prepared panel

Thanks for checking this blogpost out! I really do appreciate it!

🎨

ps I have heard that the entity that transfers this blog to you via email (feedburner) will no longer be supporting my emails.

I am not sure what to do. I have heard of another service called "follow.it" that will send these blogposts out. I am very technically challenged so I hope I can figure it out.

Wedding Bouquet Painting (belated)

Our daughter and son-in-law 

got married a few years ago (well ... 7).

I had asked for a photo 

of their wedding bouquet and was sent it. 

I put it in my "to paint" album

and thought about it and how to do it from time to time

 ...

until I made a decision in March of this year. 

We were going to visit in April

 and I thought it would be nice 

to give the painting to them when we were there.

So here are the photos 

(none with progress with the paint ... i forgot)

 about this little sweet bouquet

 painted in acrylic!

I painted with acrylic so it would dry fast

to be able to pack it.

original photo

my set-up

my palette

Pi Day Wedding Bouquet
4 x 6 ? acrylic on prepared panel using micaceous iron oxide ground

Here is a link from Golden brand acrylics about Micaceous Iron Oxide.

I tried it out on this small panel and then put some gray gesso over;

and you can see it peeking out and in a good light

it might show some sparkle.

It is great for dry media, pastels or colored pencils

but can also be used with acrylic or oil paint.

Have you used it?

Found this vintage frame for the painting!

Thanks for looking!

I really appreciate your time.

I hope you are all well and looking forward 

to normalizing a bit as we all get vaccinated.

Get your vax! 

💓

The House Next Door

the house next door (b&w)

Hello!

I have been working on various things; 

a portrait commission, and my DOR paintings 

and just wanted a warm-up to start the day earlier this week.

This little painting was the result. 

I didn't take too many progress photos, but here are a couple.

This is the photo of my view of the house next door 

(from the sofa) ... good neighbors!

I found a nice panel already prepared and sketched the main

areas with charcoal and fixed it with the Spectrafix fixative 

for charcoal, and pastel.

This was my challenge, to see if I could do

a painting of this view, and actually

like the result.

I must say, that I think it turned out pretty well.

One happy happening, was that my plant on the sill,

a lipstick plant Aeschynanthus,

 had just popped out a quad of lipstick tube blooms!

 Here is the result of my efforts ... as you may have

noticed from the photo, 

there are many more alder branches

than what I painted in. 

Who wants to go crazy? I think it gave

the idea of alder branches with snow on them, so - 

no going batty trying to put them all (or even many) in!

The House Next Door   13.5 x 12 inches oil on prepared Masonite

Just want to mention, if you are still here, that my virtual gallery

show has a couple more days left for viewing.

Happy First Friday!

Go HERE 

to take a look at my Strong Women paintings. Please note that if you are on a cell phone or tablet, you must download the Exhibbit App but if you are on your laptop or desktop,

that link will take you right to my gallery.

Four have sold, and I am so grateful for the

people giving those paintings good homes!

Thank you so much for viewing this blogpost

and the show! 

Let me know if you have trouble with it by just responding

 to this email if you are subscribed.

Or, my email is teri.robus@gmail.com.

Happy Painting!

🎨

Oh and Happy Easter!

🐇

Teri's Virtual Art Gallery

 

Greetings dear blog readers!

It's March! Spring will be here soon!

I have decided to finally have a show of my 

Strong Women 

series of paintings, 

which I began sharing as blogposts in May 2020.

However, it will be a virtual show 

rather than a live, in-person exhibit. 😔

To enter & view, and read no more, just click here.

This body of work was begun without a series in mind, 

until I painted Ann, the companion to Nan . . .

That is when I began to think of other paintings with women featured. 

Thus began Strong Women. I feel it is fitting to share this series

in conjunction with International Women's Day,

 Monday 8 March 2021, running through April 7, 2021.

With each painting I tried to think of the woman and how this portrayal showed her strength. I worked mostly in oils (one has a bit of pastel) on a prepared ground on Masonite panel. 

I learned so much doing this series, 

and very much appreciate your attention!

Click here to enter the virtual exhibit. 

Oh by the way! I just opened my March/April 2021 Artists Magazine

and saw that Jerry Weiss wrote about 

the Artemisia Gentileschi exhibit at London's National Gallery. 

His article was a concise compilation of Artemisia's life and work; 

in conclusion he writes, 

"Artemisia formulated a new vision of woman as a heroic presence in art, both as creator and subject. In order for the artist to forge a transformative career, it was necessary for her to confront misogyny on both mundane and terrifying levels. Four hundred years later, she's an inspiration to women, who often face many of the same obstacles."

My final painting in this series addresses

this strong woman, plus another of our own time. 

See you in the (virtual) gallery!

And when you are there, be sure to click 

on the "media link" to view my blogpost

about each painting's process.

Teri's Virtual Art Gallery