Bouquet of Yellow

Bouquet of Yellow

6x8in oil on canvas panel $140.

Purchase HERE

Artist Note.

It was fun to get back to the 

fracturing technique in oils.

I find that although I use the 

same technique in other mediums,

only the acrylic comes 

close to the same effect as oils.

Another from my avian show.

Waiting  13 x10"

acrylic SOLD

Quite a fun one to paint

pushing into the abstract.

I used the fracturing 

technique a lot

It doesn't really show,  

but first I wrote 

all over the white surface 

with my thoughts 

about the avian world 

and then painted over them.

Small areas of it

appear here and there.

Sunrise in New Mexico

Sunrise in New Mexico

6x6in oil on canvas panel $110. SOLD

Artist Note.

Totally done with a palette knife

this little painting came together fast.

I have to ask myself...

why do some work and not others?

Could it be because it is an abstract? 

Or could it be - it is all about 

a mood - a harmony?

Any ideas anyone?

My First Alcohol Ink Painting - Koi.

Koi.

9"x9"

alcohol ink on Yupo NFS

Artist Note
My first time with the alcohol inks.
I found the inks powerful
in saturation, luminous
and tricky to work with.
I can see the benefits of
experimenting especially on
the Yupo paper.

Last week I joined
some  painting
 buddies on a trip
to Santa Fe to paint the
aspen leaves turning gold.
Aspen???
Guess what interested me more...
remembering I have been involved
with a series from the
waterlily pond?
Yep - my mind was still
on the water reflections and fish.
Funny how I couldn't just
be attracted to anything else.
A series is a series!

For those of you who have
never been to
Santa Fe
 there is a gallery
with a magical sculpture garden.

Formally known as the Fenn Gallery
It is now the Nedra Matteucci Gallery.
I have been visiting there for many
years. Look how gorgeous it is.
(click to enlarge).

I did do a plein air of the aspens
up by the ski area.

And loved seeing all the 

Chamisa  (rabbit grass)

in full bloom.

I encourage you to treat

yourself and

explore the link

Nedra Matteucci

 Gallery

 I am going to enjoy catching up 

with everyone's blogs.

Challenge Abstract

Challenge Abstract

6x8in painted and wiped off.

The painting above represents

controlled  frustration.

Artist Note.

In the spirit of doing the collage 

of all the paintings from the challenge

I tried and totally wasted a couple of hours

trying to learn PicMonkey.

Lesson learned.

I am full of true admiration for all of you

who whipped out a collage

I do know enough about PicMonkey 

now to know I really like what it can do.

I thank Leslie Saeta for doing all the 

work to pull another successful 

challenge together.

It appeared that less than one third 

of the enrolled artists 

showed their work on her blog. 

That is good in a way because would I 

have ever been able to see ALL their work?

It was mind boggling to try and get through

the images of the 300 - 400 daily artists.

At the same time...

the best thing about the challenge was

being introduced to the work of

artists I was not familiar with ,and seeing a 

whole slew of new and fabulous paintings 

from artists

 I already admire.

See the final collages from everyone

HERE

Feather - Water-Media Workshop. Day 16

Feather and Nest
17"x13" water- media on paper
NFS

Artist Note

Another creative day.

I had a blast.

So many amazing artists are in the group 

 I can't help but be inspired 

by what they do, but the ooh and ahh moments
happened when
Nancy Frost Begin
worked on a painting to demo the
way we would be working.
I could have sat and watched her paint
all day long.
No such luck...She was very aware of
wanting her students to have time to paint.

This was another method where we painted 

on top of an old painting. No coating of acrylic
matt medium this time.
(I goofed and called it varnish yesterday.)
With this one

 white tempera paint was applied 

over the painting in different ways

and left to dry. Next, black (permanent) ink

was put on rather intuitively. 

Special instructions were given

 on the next step

of hosing the tempera off.

We did that yesterday.
See below

The resulting imagery

"spoke to me" and I saw 

the direction I wanted to go.
The underlying marks
provide some wonderful natural effects
one cannot create any other way.
I really like this painting.

What a creative and stimulating

two days they have been.
Thank you, Brilliant Nancy!

The next two days are with

Susan Hanssen.

She is fabulous painter.
I am looking forward to another
completely different approach.

See her work HERE

Organ Mountain Sunrise

Organ Mountain Sunrise

6x8in oil on canvas panel  $125. SOLD

Artist Note.

This is a "site specific" landscape.
The Rio Grande with the Organ Mountains
in the distance.
The Organ mountains are the
jewel of the southernmost part
of the Rockies and are 9,000 ft high.

I cannot fudge and be my own landscaping
company with this one.
This is the only place where the river
bends to have the mountains as a backdrop,
otherwise, it always runs parallel.
After painting the previous two landscapes
in an abstract manner, and having leeway to
place masses for design impact -
I had to stay true with this one.
Fortunately, it is a view I love to paint. 

Approaching Storm - New Mexico

Approaching Storm - New Mexico

8x8in Oil on canvas panel SOLD

Artist Note.

Mission:

Create a sense of place without detail

using simple abstract shapes, and color.

Both the previous post and this one 

were self-assigned 

exercises to help me explore the relationship

of warm color 

in both receding and frontal space.

Sunset Reflections

Sunset Reflections

 8x8in oil on canvas panel  SOLD

The Rio Grande River is the main source of water 

for the beautiful Mesilla Valley, NM, where I live.

Many irrigation ditches divert the water to

the small farms which grow

chilies, onions, cotton, pecans, 

corn and yes...even wine.

The sunsets here are gorgeous, making even the 

oldest farms beautiful in their glow.

Artist Note.

Mission:

Create a sense of place without detail.

 Simple, abstract shapes and color

were formed using palette knife and brush.

Totally Simplified

The Simplified Landscape #2

 6x8 in oil on canvas board  100

Continuing my quest of personal discovery towards abstract art.

This one was painted intuitively, using my painting memories from the previous
day's sunset landscape.

Symbols:
I took the yelow colors of a sunset, a blue horizontal line for
mountains or horizon and placed a dark shape for something growing. The layering
and overlapping visually creates perspective even though they are flat forms.

To me it is still obviously a landscape, but if I turned it like this...

... then it becomes a true abstract.


It is our ability to recognize symbols as "things" which makes our imagination fill in for us. If we tend towards enjoying realism then we will be  the type who sees faces, animals etc in the clouds.

I cropped a different area out of the same painting
and turned it upside down.

In a realistic landscape, the eye is not always comfortable with a dark top and much lighter bottom.
Is your eye comfortable with a dark top in an abstract?

Or does it prefer a lighter top area?

I find as soon as I have the lighter area at the top it became a landscape again..a drunken view maybe?










This has been a good exercise for me.  Especially after I worked on the emotionally engrossing series of my mothers pottery.

A lot of how I paint is recognizing what brings me the most pleasure and aiming for it.
I live in a world full of objects and each object has a shape or form. House, car, apple...
I love to render what I see so I would never want to be a totally non-representational painter.
Back in the day... I did for a while and found it did not hold my attention, but I do enjoy
looking at abstract art. My taste is so varied. Take a gander at this list.
Picasso, Motherwell, Vermeer, Turner, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Klee, Rothko,Twachtmann.
And many, many others.

If this your first visit because of the Liebster Blog award, please take the time to scroll back a few
days to see my regular work. Thank you.