Candy Day - one day art workshop

This past Monday I went to a one-day workshop in Talking Rock, GA at the Chateau Meichtry Vineyard and Winery, taught by Candy Crawford Day.  It was a great day.  Candy is good teacher, and I FINALLY understood about how to use a paintbrush to "measure" to get proportions right.  There were only four students in the class (or was it five?) and I was definitely not in the upper 3 or 4 as far as skill level.

The first part of the day, Candy did a demo using a model.  We were inside, and the model sat on the hearth with her black and white dog at her feet.  Candy did a great job.  After lunch we went outside, and the model sat on a rock wall - this time with the dog by her side.

Now, at this point, I STILL did not understand about how to get proportions right.  Candy showed me, but it didn't make sense to me.  I THOUGHT it made sense at the time, but it didn't work for me (because I was doing it wrong). But I tried. The model put on a hat because the sun was so hot.  My photo is dark - I think because my setup was in the shade, and the sun was so bright outside the shade.  So my proportions aren't right. And you will notice that I didn't even attempt the dog!  LOL! 

Before I left, I walked around looking at the other artists' paintings, and their's were SO much better.  As I drove home (almost 4 hours), I was mulling over the whole proportion thing - thinking about the painting above, thinking about the painting of Sophie on the beach - and Ron and Bradley hand-in-hand on the beach - and how all my figures are too short and stubby looking.  Then suddenly a lightbulb went off in my head and I understood what Candy had described - how using the paintbrush to measure would help me keep the proportions right.  So I'm anxious to try another figure soon and try out my paintbrush measuring skills.  

Meanwhile, my painting from this class will remain in my ever-growing "too bad to be seen" stack in my studio. :-) It's so bad, I don't want to even try to make it better - just start over on something else.

Plein Air Painters of the Southeast (PAP-SE)

Back in September, the Plein Air Painters of the Southeast had a paintout and art show in Leiper's Fork.  I WISH I were a good enough painter to be a member, but that is currently way out of the realm of possibility. However, I am a member of the Chestnut Group, and the Chestnut Group acted as hosts for the PAP-SE group.  We were asked if we would be willing to host some of the painters in our homes.  After talking it over with Ron last spring, I said, "sure."  So three artists spent a week with us - Perry Austin, Jim Carson, and MaryO Smith.  MaryO is the artist I worked with when Ron and I went to Sea Island last winter. We had never met Perry or Jim before.  And Perry's wife, Carol, was here with him - and we loved getting to know her, too. It was a fun group of people.

I was a little nervous about having three strangers spend a week with us, but it turned out great, and all my concerns were laid to rest within a few minutes of the artists' arrival.  By the time they all left on Saturday, we hugged like old friends.  It was a most enjoyable week!  We sat out on the deck and had drinks and appetizers in the evenings, ate breakfast around the kitchen table in the mornings, and just did a lot of talking.  They painted much of the day - and were in and out.  There were a couple of evening activities that Ron and I were invited to since we hosted some of the artists, and that was so much fun. We got to know many of the artists, and when they had their "wet paint" sale on that Friday and Saturday, I could have easily spent many thousands of dollars on paintings.  Perry, especially, had one I really loved of the chicken house behind our house - and another one of the farm behind us on Carters Creek Pike.  And my friend, Sheryl, beat me to a gorgeous painting by Kathie Odom. My goal for the next year or two is to buy a Kathie Odom painting - but I want to wait until I find one the "speaks" to me.

The artists that stayed at our house each gave us an original oil painting as a gift for our hospitality - which, if you think about it, is a pretty amazing and valuable gift!  Perry painted "Gnarly Oak" for us - and I will treasure that painting always. Ron and I have loved that tree since we first saw it when were walking on our land.  It was "Gnarly Elm" for awhile until we figured out it was an oak instead of an elm.  Here is his painting.  I love it!

 Jim gave us a painting he had done previously - a house with a dirt road leading up to it - really beautiful. I love his loose and impressionistic style.  

 Then MaryO painted Ron's John Deere tractor - and she gave that painting to us.We both love the painting, but Ron, especially, does since it's his tractor and he has so many memories of working with and on that tractor! MaryO also did a couple other paintings from around our house - of the wildflowers at the front of the driveway, and of a tree near the front.  Both beautiful paintings.  

I loved having the artists here.  It was a great week.

While the PAP-SE artists were in town, I signed up for two mentoring sessions. The first mentoring session was with Dawn Whitelaw - a wonderful artist that I had heard about and had seen when I've taken classes at On Track Studios where she has a studio.  She, another mentee, and I went to Justin Timberlake's farm here in Leiper's Fork, and painted a barn there. Dawn was very helpful, and although she did her own painting, she kept a careful watch on her mentees, and came over to me often giving suggestions for improving my painting.  Here is an "in-progress" photo that shows the actual barn in the background - and then the finished painting.

My second mentoring session was with MaryO, but I didn't end up with a painting from that one.  She did, though.  LOL! So, alas, I don't have a painting or even part of one to show for that experience.

All in all, it was a great week. We made new friends, I learned so much about painting, and it was simply fun. If PAP-SE ever comes back to Nashville, I will be volunteering immediately to host some artists again - especially if "our" artists return.  

Paintings around our Farm

Here are a couple of paintings I've done around Dogwood Trace Farm - our farm.  The first one is from a photo I took at the bottom of the hill looking up at that distinct tree that is on the right of the path.  Ron says this is his favorite painting of mine because he goes to "the bottom" (the area behind out house at the bottom of the hill next to the West Harpeth River) all the time with the dogs.  So he always sees this tree as he starts back up the hill.

This past summer, Ron planted a lot of wildflowers above the rock wall at the entrance to our driveway.  Butterflies - especially lots of small yellow ones - flew all around the flowers, along with bees.  The mixture of colors was bright and striking. Here is my painting of the rock wall and wildflowers.  It's the largest painting I've done yet - 30 x 40, oil on cradled gessobord.

Long time - new paintings from Gatlinburg and Arrowmont

It has been awhile since I last posted.  I had my cataract surgery and was proud that I did every single eye drop recommended - which was four weeks of eye drops for each eye.  That's behind me now, and honestly, I can't tell a whole lot of difference. My distance vision is better - no more double vision.  However, I STILL need reading glasses, and I STILL have trouble seeing things in less that perfect lighting.

However, I have been painting. I completed several paintings at the week-long workshop in Gatlinburg at the Arrowmont School of Arts and crafts.  I'm particularly happy with the first one - of the Little Pigeon River. I wanted to capture the essence of those roots that were exposed and twisting all over the place.  I'm really pleased with this painting.

This next one was of an old farm up in the mountains - very rocky and rustic.  When we got there early in the morning, it was misty with the fog covering everything.  Really beautiful!  When I showed the painting to my mother (a photo of the painting), she asked, "What are those things in front?"  Guess I need to work on those rocks more.  LOL!

After I got home, I tried to paint the cabin from a different angle - but I didn't like the way it turned out - and I don't like it enough to work on it anymore.  I like the first one - so I will keep that one. I will probably toss or paint over the one below.

One day we went up in the mountains to a beautiful home right at the top of the mountain. Amazing place.  Along the road up the mountain, they had four different guest houses!  The driveway was 4 miles long.  The painting below was a "quick study" of the mountains in the distance. We used very thin oil paint to paint this - to give it a watercolor-esque look.  This was done on paper - with blue tape around the edges.  I finished the painting, peeled the tape off, and voila! it has a border. LOL!

I really loved the week at Arrowmont.

Painting at the Beach - some plein air, some not

We spent a week at the beach at the end of July.  We were there with our children and grandchildren - all 11 of us.  It was an absolutely wonderful week of family time.  So many special moments.  We rented a house right on the beach in Seaside.  It's the first time we've stayed in Seaside, and it was wonderful especially for the teen girls.  They could walk right into downtown Seaside (two houses down from where we were staying) to get food or to shop.

I took my rolling backpack with my painting supplies, and I set it up on the 3rd floor covered porch which provided a beautiful panoramic view of the ocean and beach. I have to mention that having the rolling backpack is a great idea!  I know that everything I need to paint is in that backpack. I have to make sure the panels I want are in there - but everything else is ready to go. With my compulsive personality, I have doubles of everything so I don't have to unpack paints or brushes or other supplies in between use.  I have all I need in it - and I have all I need in my studio as well.

Here are my two paintings for the week.  Both have figures in them - and that is definitely not my strong suit.  This first one is Sophie. She ASKED me to paint this for her. I captured the basic scene, but I'm not pleased with the figure. If I'm going to continue painting figures, I need to take a figure painting class and see if I can learn some tips to make my figures better. The painting is based on a photo that Sophie Grace took of Sophie earlier in the week.

Then the second painting is of Ron and Bradley.  I did a plain air painting of the ocean view from our balcony/porch, and then I used a photo of Ron and Bradley at one of Evey's soccer games a couple years ago, and painted them into the beach scene.  I'm not pleased with the figures on this one either. While I feel I did the shadowing and highlighting all right, the figures just don't look authentic to me. I don't know how to fix it, though.  

All in all, while I'm glad I completed two paintings during our week at the beach, I'm not particularly pleased with either one.  

I've got "bless your heart cataracts"

I'm almost 69 years old.  Sometimes I'm in awe of being (what seems to me) so old.  In my mind's eye, I'm in my thirties or forties, at the most. But no, I'm nearly the 7-0, and it feels really strange.  One of the things about getting older is that our bodies do what bodies do when they get older - they start deteriorating.  Life is hard on bodies.  My eyes are developing cataracts, and glasses don't help with cataracts.

At an art class I was taking last month, I kept looking at my palette, and I honestly could not clearly distinguish the different values/shades of green. Things were too blurry.  I'd blink a few times, and things would clear up somewhat. Finally, as I was driving along the expressway a few weeks ago and realized that while I was perfectly safe to drive, there WERE double lines in my vision along the side of the road instead of the single line I knew was actually there. When I'd try to read a road sign, I needed to be right at it in order to read it. Thank goodness for GPS making it unnecessary for me to read street signs before I got to them.

So I called my optometrist who happens to have been my son's best friend in high school and college.  He's a wonderful eye doctor.  My cataracts had grown significantly from my last eye checkup seven months ago.  So his receptionist made an appointment for me with the doctor who does cataract surgery.  I met with him today.

I went to the appointment expecting to be in and out in 30 - 45 minutes.  I was there for over two hours.  So many machines - two different eye drops - so many tests with blinking lights and flashes of bright light.  One nurse, while looking at my eyes via one of the machines, remarked that my cataracts were quite bad, and then she added, "Bless your heart."  So I've officially named my cataracts the "Bless your heart cataracts."

Surgery on the right eye is scheduled for August 14th.  They had ONE sooner date, but it was while we are scheduled to be at the beach.  The left eye will be done on August 28th.  So I still have another 7 or so weeks of fuzzy vision.

I've put painting on hold for awhile because I feel my colors are not as good as they should be.  Jarrod (my optometrist) said his father-in-law had the surgery not too long ago, and while his vision was wonderfully better, he told Jarrod that the best thing was how much clearer the colors are now.  So I have that to look forward to, although I admit I'm very nervous about the actual surgery.  It's disconcerting, though, how fuzzy things are at times.

Art classes with Kevin Menck

Over the past few weeks I've been taking a Monday afternoon art class (oil landscapes) from Kevin Menck.  The classes have been held at Warehouse 521 - which is a studio in the Hundred Oaks area of south Nashville.  Kevin is fascinating in that he paints almost entirely with a #1 round brush - usually on a 9 x 12 linen panel.  He does a lot of plein air painting - although he admits that in hot weather like this, he likes to stick with the studio in the heat of the day.

The things he keeps emphasizing are (1) find the big shapes, (2) value (light, dark) , and (3) temperature (coolness, warmth)

My first painting in the class - a wooded scene with sun and shadows

Kevin painting a field with hay bales.  I missed the class in which we students painted this scene.

This is my second painting from the class - looking down on water with a rocky bank.

This was Kevin's painting from last week - a mountain and tree scene with snow.  This was probably the painting from the class that I was most frustrated with - I was just "done" with that particular painting -and painting in general before I finished.  It was one of those days.  

This is Kevin demo-ing in class yesterday (6/18/2018)  We students will paint this scene in class next week.  It's a field with a small pond and grass in the foreground.

It's been a good class.  It has been good to watch how Kevin paints.  He paints quickly and doesn't get bogged down with details - big shapes, value, and temperature.  To cool down colors, add blue or white.  To warm up colors, add yellow or red.  He paints with a limited palette of 4 colors: titanium white, cad scarlet, ultramarine blue, cad lemon.