The Visitor

How was your weekend friend?  Is it getting cold where you live?  My closet is slowly filling up with sweaters and leggings and mittens.  I do love this time of year!

I have been making plenty of plans for new winter paintings, but while those sketches are brewing it's been nice to work on something familiar in between all the custom work.  Butterflies!  My mother-in-law saw this gorgeous swallowtail in her yard this past summer and was quick enough to photograph it in time to capture its wings both clasped shut and wide open.  The underside of the hind wings are a gorgeous blue and orange and black and white pattern.  I had the pictures propped up against my easel, beckoning me, for the longest time.  Suddenly last week I just picked up a canvas and started painting!  So far I am loving the dark and light contrast and repetitive pattern.  I think I'll call it The Visitor.  This is the first layer.

Just thought I'd share!  Hope your week is off and running.

my misery and joy

The Singer Swan
original oil on canvas 4x5' $3000 

The Loon Song
original oil on canvas, 4x5' $3000

Precisely one month, two heavy five foot canvas frames handmade by my husband's contractor friend, a large roll of cotton canvas that barely fit in my car, a dozen tubes of Winton oil paint, five brushes, countless hours, several audio books, at least 3 seasons of Grey's Anatomy, many late nights, several quick trips for more supplies, a crap-load of pins and pictures and youtube videos, about a dozen instagram pics, and one exhausted me half high on paint fumes and lack of sleep later and what do you have (besides a run-on sentence)?  Two life-sized paintings for the gallery that were "effortless, really.  I mean, I could whip those up in my sleep."

Well, here's the truth.  There's a reason I don't typically paint this large.  It's exhausting and thrilling and intimidating and peppered with bouts of frustration and anxiety and sleeplessness and soreness.  I haven't painted this big in...well ever.  Perhaps the reason I wanted to try it might be because I don't ever want my work to be overly predictable.  I tend to fall back into the paintings "I know will work," the sizes I'm comfortable with, the colors I've already determined.

I guess what trying to say is that if you don't occasionally break out of the mold you've created for yourself, launching yourself into the "unknown" where it's scary and cold and new, you just simply won't grow as much.  If there's anything I hate more than doing something that frightens and intimidates me, it's the feeling of complacency, like I'm not challenging myself beyond my capabilities.

So, I tried something I didn't think I could do.  And the very best part about it all is knowing that I can do it and that all the sweat and worry produced confidence and joy and satisfaction that definitely makes it all worth it.  Paul was right after all.

You can read the stories for each piece here and here.

sewing and drinking tea

Tea Time
16x20 oil on canvas, $525

Sewing a Luna
16x20 oil on canvas, $525

These two paintings are for vintage lovers.  I can appreciate the modern minimalist movement, but there is just something so enticing about these heavy old sewing machines and long handled tea kettles that makes me appreciate vintage design.  So ornate and beautiful.  The balance between form and function with an emphasis on detail.

I've included the Monarch butterfly and Luna moth as a way of mimicking the delicate details of each subject- the colors and gentle curves.  It's as if the Monarch knew it was time for tea and came quickly and the Luna stretches its wings, ready to fly, breaking free from the binding string.

Now, I realize I don't typically take the "still life" path in my work.  But I'm liking more and more the idea of combining living things- butterflies, animals, people- with nonliving.  As a way of giving life and story to all things.  I hope that doesn't sound weird.  These are just some ideas I've been toying with lately.

Click here to be taken to the "oil paintings" section in my Etsy shop and to purchase.