Baby Was Here- original oil painting on canvas board- 8x10

"Baby was here" pretty much says it all. Peanut has been here quite a bit lately and I absolutely love it! I've been thinking a lot about what inspires me, as the hardest thing for me ( as far as painting goes) is getting started and deciding what to paint. I've always thought, "well, I don't really have anything significant to say. I don't have a story to tell". But, actually, I think what speaks to me the most clearly are the everyday things that I tend disregard, miss, pass over, etc. I always tell my students that practically everything you come into contact with on a daily basis was designed by an artist and anything found in nature is art in its purest form. So, why not celebrate those everyday things- things that you see everyday, things that you touch everyday, things that you use everyday? Sharing these things through my paintings and other work is my way of, hopefully, getting the viewer to celebrate them as well. And, for now, that's my story.

Okay, this painting took waaayy too much time. It went completely against my desire to work fast and loose.  It's really hard for me to paint this kind of subject in a really loose, impressionistic way. It's either worked too much or too little. And it's very hard to find the balance and know when to quit. So, I'll accept this as a challenge and a learning experience and throw it out there for the public to view. I don't think too many people are viewing at this point, so that's a consolation!

Organic Symmetry

Organic Symmetry, oil on canvas board, 8x10
My first attempt at plein air painting- sitting on my porch swing looking at a pot of flowers on a chair. I'm not quite sure what I think about it yet. Maybe a little too symmetrical for me. The center of interest shouldn't really be in the center, but, oh well. It was fun to try! I'm going to try to do a little more plein air painting this summer at Bennett Spring State Park while my kiddos fish. If I do, I'll post plenty of pictures. It's a beautiful place.

Epiphany

No painting today. My husband and I are headed to the Shakespeare Festival in St. Louis and won't be back until tomorrow.
My inspiration today comes from a poem that I recall on a regular basis and that I absolutely love. As with many things in my life, this poem presented itself to me at the perfect time. I found it via Jennie Sanford's website/blog http://www.jenniesandford.com/., nine days after the sudden death of someone who had been a huge part of my life for 31 years. This is for Ruben J- who "raised me" and helped me raise our three children, who inspire me beyond words.

Epiphany by Ted Hughes

London. The grimy lilac softness
Of an April evening. Me
Walking over Chalk Farm Bridge
On my way to the tube station.
A new father – slightly light-headed
With the lack of sleep and the novelty.
Next, this young fellow coming towards me.

I glanced at him for the first time as I passed him
Because I noticed (I couldn't believe it)
What I'd been ignoring.

Not the bulge of a small animal
Buttoned into the top of his jacket
The way colliers used to wear their whippets –
But its actual face. Eyes reaching out
Trying to catch my eyes – so familiar!
The huge ears, the pinched, urchin expression –
The wild confronting stare, pushed through fear,

Between the jacket lapels.
'It's a fox-cub!'
I heard my own surprise as I stopped.
He stopped. 'Where did you get it? What
Are you going to do with it?'
A fox-cub
On the hump of Chalk Farm Bridge!

'You can have him for a pound.' 'But
Where did you find it? What will you do with it?'
'Oh, somebody'll buy him. Cheap enough
At a pound.' And a grin.
What I was thinking
Was – what would you think? How would we fit it
Into our crate of space? With the baby?
What would you make of its old smell
And its mannerless energy?
And as it grew up and began to enjoy itself
What would we do with an unpredictable,
Powerful, bounding fox?
The long-mouthed, flashing temperament?
That necessary nightly twenty miles
And that vast hunger for everything beyond us?
How would we cope with its cosmic derangements
Whenever we moved?

The little fox peered past me at other folks,
At this one and at that one, then at me.
Good luck was all it needed.
Already past the kittenish
But the eyes still small,
Round, orphaned-looking, woebegone
As if with weeping. Bereft
Of the blue milk, the toys of feather and fur,
The den life's happy dark. And the huge whisper
Of the constellations
Out of which Mother had always returned.
My thoughts felt like big, ignorant hounds
Circling and sniffing around him.
Then I walked on
As if out of my own life.
I let that fox-cub go. I tossed it back
Into the future
Of a fox-cub in London and I hurried
Straight on and dived as if escaping
Into the Underground. If I had paid,
If I had paid that pound and turned back
To you, with that armful of fox –

If I had grasped that whatever comes with a fox
Is what tests a marriage and proves it a marriage –
I would not have failed the test. Would you have failed it?
But I failed. Our marriage had failed.

Perfume Bottle

 

                                                    

Daily painting #2- perfume bottle. Creative title, huh?!I have to be honest, I wasn't feeling inspired today. Coming up with painting subjects is going to be the hardest part of this. Anyway, I grabbed a perfume bottle from my dresser because I liked the lines and the color. I put it on the table in front of my easel and painted what I saw. The diagonal lines on the left are a little glimpse of the porch floor visible from my front door.
This is another experiment with style and technique. I used only one brush (a fairly large one relative to the canvas) and I tried to keep it very soft and blurry. We'll see where these experiments take me. Hopefully to a cohesive, unique style- every artist's ultimate goal :)
Still life, oil on canvas board, 8x10  Available for sale at  http://www.etsy.com/shop/OliveandAsh

White Rose, Wilting- still life, oil on canvas board, 8x10

My first daily painting. It took me a few days to get started. Of course, I had a lot of excuses- the light isn't right, I need to do the laundry, I don't know what to paint- and the list goes on! What I finally decided on as a subject is a drying, wilting white rose on my windowsill. There is a long story behind white roses that I might share in a later post, but for now- just know that I think it was a fitting and appropriate subject for my first painting posted on this blog. Still life, oil, 8 x 10. Go to   http://www.etsy.com/shop/OliveandAsh  to purchase.

I finally found a spot in my house with great light. It's just a corner of my living room and I hate that it is right by the front door, but when you have a small house, sometimes you just have to compromise. As soon as I sat down, I knew it felt right. So, it's going to stay put!
I'm really trying to stay loose, paint quickly and play with the color. Now, to start thinking about tomorrow's subject.