A visit to my Mother in Georgia results in two new paintings!

I got home yesterday after spending a few days with my mother in Georgia.  On the drive to my mother's house, I passed many scenes that I could have photographed and possibly painted.  However, one barn in particular was so pretty with the sun shining on it that I pulled over to the side of the road and took a few photos. After I got to my mother's house, I set up my easel in her breakfast room and started painting.

You might wonder why I would paint at my mother's house.  It's because it's a very tender experience! She always comes in and sits next to me and watches me as I paint - asking questions and making comments. To her, I'm a magnificent artist, and she's interested in how I create paintings. It is a pure blessing for me - just a couple months away from the big 7-0 birthday - to have my mother (who is 96) still here to cheer me on as an artist. So whenever I visit my mother - I paint, and I treasure every second of that special time with my mother.

Here is the painting of the barn in Alabama. Since I wasn't very far from Fort Payne, I named it "Sweet Barn Alabama."

"Sweet Barn Alabama" Oil on 11x14 canvas panel  

After I finished the barn painting, I asked my mother what she would like for me to paint. I've already painted a vase of yellow silk roses that she has on a long "camp meeting" table in her family room. And I also painted some of her miniature church collection.  Those two painting are below.

My mother said she'd like to have a painting of a basket that she'd bought for 15 cents when we lived in Kentucky in the early 1950s. That basket has been on display in every single house she has lived in since then. She also mentioned some fresh hydrangeas that one of my sisters had brought her earlier that day. They were a pretty pink color, and my mother loves pink. The next day when my niece was visiting, I asked her to help me set up a still life with the basket and hydrangeas. We set out the basket, put three hydrangeas in the basket, and then, since it needed something more, we added a wooden book stand that my mother's brother had made for her, and on the book stand we put a Greek Bible that belonged to my father, along with a cross-stitched book mark that another sister had made for my mother. We put the whole thing on a table with a blue tablecloth. Here is the painting of that still life. What I like best about this painting is that the basket is immediately recognizable as the basket I've seen all my life.

"The Kentucky Basket"  16x20 oil on linen panel

The background is a pale blue - which doesn't show up well in the above photograph. My mother is already planning where she will put this painting.  I brought it home to let it dry, to varnish it and frame it. Then I will give it to her.

So a few days at my mother's - and two new paintings.

Sunset in Alabama

A high school friend of mine posted a photo the other night of the sunset where she was.  The photo was beautiful with the oranges and yellows of the sunset reflected so beautifully in the lake below.  It reminded me of the trip to Alaska that Ron and I took with Lily and Sophie three years ago. We saw ponds and lakes so still that the snow-capped mountains beyond them were perfectly reflected in the water.

So I messaged my friend and asked if I could use her photo as a reference to paint the scene. She agreed, and I immediately started painting. I finished it earlier today.  Last night, after I'd blocked it in, I went online and researched information about painting water reflections.

At an art show I attended last month, I saw a painting with an interesting textural component that really appealed to me. It wasn't "dotting" with the paintbrush, but it was similar to that - building up the paint by dabbing it onto the canvas.  So I experimented with that technique in the trees for this painting and achieved a similar texture. Not exactly the same, but it created an effect I really like.  This is oil on 9 x 12 linen. And I have to say that I actually like my trees in this painting.  So maybe that new technique will be my lifesaver when it comes to trees!

I haven't given this painting a title yet. I need to ask my friend where she took the photo.  I plan to send the painting to her after it dries and I get it varnished.  

My Monday Plein Air Painting Group

My friend, Sheryl, and I have started plein air painting together every Monday. Each week we've gone to different places and painted. It's great practice, and it gets me actually painting.  

On our first week, we went to the farm of Roy, a friend of ours.  He has a lake in front of his house - with a little covered walking bridge, and then a barn. The location was beautiful, but I am not pleased with this effort at all. I will probably paint over it at some point, or maybe I will try to salvage it. The walking bridge is leaning - and so is the barn. (Carol, get the perspective and basic outlines right before starting to paint!!!!) The banks of the pond are way too "perfect," and don't even get me started on the pitiful trees. However, still it was great practice.

Then we went to the farm of a well known ball player. Ron had met him, and so he gave us permission to paint this log cabin on his farm. He, his wife and kids came by while we were painting and chatted with us for awhile - such nice people!  I like this painting. I would've liked it better if I'd put the house on the other side of the painting or at least not in the bottom corner.  Sheryl was painting the same scene, and I wanted to make mine different. Lesson learned - Paint what you want to paint - two people can paint the same scene from the same perspective - and the results will be different.

The next week we went to Radnor Lake in Nashville.  Several other artists from The Chestnut Group went with us. I had painted this scene last year, but I still painted it again but from a different perspective.  My trees are awful. I'm not happy with this painting at all.  Not sure what I'll do with it.

 After we got home from Radnor, I looked at some of the other photos I'd taken, and I painted this next painting from one of those photos. It's one of the walking trails there, and I like this painting much better. I still need lots of practice painting trees.

Our Monday painting group is growing. It started out as just Sheryl and me. However other people are joining us, and it's a lot of fun.  It's invaluable practice.

At the End of a Road in Tuscany

I've been painting a good bit so far in June. We started off June at Disney World in Orlando. June 1st was our "day off" after visiting all the parks the previous five days. So part of my family spent the day at Universal Studios, another part played Frisbee golf, another part went to shoot sporting clays at a local gun club, and I stayed at the condo and painted.

As I looked through the photographs that I'd printed out to use as references, I decided to paint a scene from our trip to Italy in March. I wanted to paint the little church out in the country with the overgrown steps going up the side, and with a forsythia in full bloom behind a tree. I remember when Ron and I drove down that little road, we saw the old church, and we drove past it, we saw the steps - vines and moss growing over the steps - and the top was obscured.  Then, from the side of the steps, peeping out from behind a tree, was the forsythia. Forsythia has always been one of my favorite flowers. It seemed to be a metaphor for new birth amidst the old and neglected.

Here is the finished painting, and I have the say, this painting is near the top of my all-time favorite paintings that I've done. When I was adding the lighter yellows to the forsythia bush, I realized that the bush is right smack in the middle of the painting - a big no-no in the art world . . . except I like it in this painting. I know the rule - I broke the rule.  When I started painting the scene, I thought of the steps as the focal point - and I had them exactly where I wanted them - off center.  However, as I painted the forsythia bush, I realized that it had become the true focal point rather than the steps. So I'm pleased as I can be with this painting - and I'm happy I broke that rule.  :-)

At the End of a Road in Tuscany, oil on 12x16 linen

And, of course, since I loved this scene so much and since it means so much to me, I wrote a poem to go with it:

 At the End of a Road in Tuscany

At the end of a road in Tuscany

Beside a neglected church made of stone

We found steps leading to an upper room

With tangled vines and moss overgrown

At first they appeared alone and forgotten

Abandoned - as seems often with the old

Yet peeking out from a tree at its side

Forsythia bloomed in yellows and gold

Such is this life as our years increase

We often grow weary and battle worn

But off to the side, we look and we find

A new springtime waiting to be born

~Mary Carol, June 2019~

Being My Own Art Teacher

At one of the demos I attended during the Plein Air Convention in San Francisco in April, the presenter/artist (can't recall her name) talked about how painting the same scene several times can help you become a better painter.  So I chose this photo that I took on the way to the Viansa Winery outside of San Francisco. It was an old boat sitting in a field of flowers. Who knows why it was there.  It was pretty, though, and so I took a bunch of photos of it.

The first photo below was my first attempt. My goal was to paint quickly and without getting bogged down withe details. I had difficulty getting the boat right, and the flowers look exactly like what I did - just dabbed an orangey-white color all over the grass. 

The second try was better.  I actually got the boat name (Edith) on the boat.  The boat shape STILL isn't right, though - although it's not bad.  The flowers look a little better. Still not happy with it - although this is my favorite of the three paintings I eventually did.

After painting the scene twice, I thought I'd do something different - I'd do it entirely with a palette knife. Hmmmmm. Some people can make gorgeous paints using only a palette knife. I don't know if I even want to develop that particular skill. Palette knives use a LOT of paint - and I have a LONG way to go to make it look right. I got this far with it and decided that palette knife painting isn't for me. So I stopped.  It is interesting that the color didn't look right with the palette knife, and I have no idea why since the tool used shouldn't affect the color - and I was using the same palette of colors as I did with the other two paintings.

Looking at these paintings, I know I need to make the boat a little smaller to make it appear further back in the scene. Most of all, it doesn't LOOK like I want my art to look. I am being too literal in some ways and not literal enough in other ways. I'm still working to develop Mary Carol's art.

I decided to stop after these three tries.  I threw away the palette knife version and will probably throw away the first version as well and only keep the second one. I don't have the stamina or desire to paint the scene a fourth time.  LOL!  I don't think painting the same thing more than a couple times is appealing at all to me. It was a helpful practice, though, and I kinda/sorta like the second painting.

Back to the demo from the PACE19 class. The point was that by painting the same scene repeatedly one, in effect, becomes one's own art teacher - seeing more clearly what needs to be worked on and improved.  I probably should paint this scene a fourth time and follow Kevin Menck's mantra of painting the big shapes and values and see how the scene will emerge. 

PACE19 in San Francisco is a wrap, too!

I attended my second Plein Air Convention and Expo last week.  It was held in San Francisco.  I considered canceling the trip because there has been so much negative press about San Francisco lately - trash everywhere, human feces in the streets, hordes of homeless people. I didn't see all of San Francisco - and there WERE lots of homeless people. However, I didn't see piles of trash - and no feces of any kind on the streets. What I saw of San Francisco is beautiful, and the convention was much better than last year.  Last year everything was so crowded that I couldn't see speakers or the huge monitors.  This year the rooms were bigger - and I could always get a good seat - even for the most popular speakers.

Before heading to San Francisco, I had to select the paintings I would take for the Gallery -  a place right inside the expo area where attendees could pay for an easel and display a painting for sale.  Below are the three paintings that I selected to take. I could only display one at a time, but I decided to take three in case one sold. IF one sold, I would have another one to put on the easel in its place.

What I learned is that the Gallery, for me, is a waste of time and money.  I only saw one painting with a sold sign on it.  I saw a couple paintings that I would have liked to buy, but I couldn't justify buying any paintings when I spent so much to ship my paintings there. None of mine sold. So the last night we were there, I boxed them back up and shipped them back home. Thus I spent several hundred dollars in shipping there and back and learned that I won't waste money on renting easel space at PACE again. I didn't expect to sell any paintings, though. I AM a beginner - but I'm glad I at least tried and took that chance.

Ron and I flew to San Francisco - a direct flight from Nashville - on Tuesday,  April 23rd, and we had a direct flight home on Monday, April 29th.  We spent six really wonderful days there! Lots of great food - great scenery - beautiful city.

Although we got there on Tuesday afternoon, the conference didn't officially begin until Wednesday afternoon.  So we had time to do other things.

As soon as we landed that first afternoon, we explored San Francisco a little bit. We headed to Fisherman's Wharf. I loved that area. Had delicious fish and chips, and then we just walked around the area.

We heard a lot of "barking" and walked over to where there was a floating platform covered with seals. They were huge! A lot of people were on the walkway above the platform looking at them. Look closely at the photo below and you'll see dozens (a hundred, at least) of seals flopped out on the platform. Periodically, they'd all start barking, and that was an impressive sound! It was such fun to watch them swim around and then maneuver their big bodies up and onto the platform. 

From Fisherman's Wharf, we could see Alcatraz Island across the water.  We had signed up for a tour on Wednesday morning (the next day).  So Wednesday we went on the Alcatraz tour, which was fascinating. We got lots of pictures, and we ended up buying several books about the different prisoners and different perspectives of Alcatraz. Here are Ron and me with Alcatraz as the backdrop.

The view of Alcatraz Island from the tour boat.

The view from the boat heading back to San Francisco from Alcatraz.  Love the streets going uphill!

 Our hotel was the Hilton San Francisco Union Square.  This was the view from our room.  Just spectacular.  We were on the 37th floor. We kept the curtains open the whole time because the view - morning, day, night - was beautiful.

On the top floor of the hotel (46th floor, I think) was the Cityscape bar - which served drinks and snacks, and it had the following view.  We went up there several times during the week. They made a pretty good Cosmo, which I enjoyed several times during the week.  We also went out to eat each evening - each time selecting a restaurant that was recommended to us.

A restaurant right across the street from our hotel - the Taylor Street Cafe - had a great breakfast that we tried once - and Ron tried a second time later in the week. I, of course, took the opportunity for Eggs Benedict. I took a photo of this sign that was on the wall, which I thought was cute - and true.

Once the conference began, I attended a bunch of painting demos - but only took a few photos here and there. There was a wealth of information available - and great learning from accomplished artists. Some of the artists were better at painting than talking about painting, but, for the most part, the demos were helpful. I learned a lot, and I have a lot to study and practice now that I'm home again. One of the best was about how to be your own art instructor.  Can't remember who led it, but it was super helpful. I feel that I've attended so many workshops, but haven't had the time/motivation afterwards to implement what I learned. That changes now. Two days ago I started a "paint every day" challenge - painting the same scene five days in a row. That was one of the suggestions in the demo.

Eric Rhoads - the "founder" of PACE and Plein Air Magazine was everywhere. I attended all three days of his Marketing Boot Camp - which means I was up, dressed, and in the main conference room by 6:30 three of the mornings. Eric was well prepared - had good interaction and engagement with the audience. I took many pages of notes, and I learned so very much! I'm not really much interested in marketing my painting at this point.  I'm still a novice artist. However, the information was valuable as I improve my art and work towards someday being able to sell my art.

The paintouts were great.  Imagine HUNDREDS of artists set up in the same general area painting. It was inspiring and fun. First Day of painting (Thursday) - the Golden Gate Bridge as seen from Crissy Field.  I brought my painting home to finish. The shipped paintings were delivered late yesterday.  So tonight or tomorrow I will try to finish it. That was the coldest day during the conference. When I was packing, at the last minute I packed a jacket, and I'm so glad I did. The day at Crissy field, I needed that jacket! The fog covered the top of the Golden Gate Bridge - which gave it a dreamy look. I hope I can make my painting convey that look well.

Second paint-out day (Friday) - Golden Gate Park.  I chose one of the garden areas.  Again, the painting is unfinished.  I will finish it within the next few days.  This photo shows the scene I painted.

Our third paint-out day (Saturday) - the Golden Gate Bridge as seen from Land's End. This was the place that as I walked back to the bus after painting for several hours, I thought to myself, "I LOVE this!"  It was fun!  It was invigorating! I was fascinated walking around and looking at what some of the other artists were painting. Everyone had their own style and way of painting. Truly amazing!  I am really pleased with my work on this one. It will be the first one I finish tonight or tomorrow.  Painting it en plein air, I found that some of the details looked skewed from the photograph.  So I'll work on that, too.

On the final day of the convention (Sunday) - after the expo and gallery and everything else was closed, PACE19 spent the day at the Viansa Vineyard and Winery in Sonoma. Ron spent the day with me, and so I decided not to paint but to sightsee with him. We crossed the Golden Gate Bridge twice, and I enjoyed seeing it from this perspective.  

We went by Viansa Vineyard and Winery and took some photos of the other PACE folks painting there. In reviewing the convention, I will make the decision next year to stick with the PACE group on the last day of painting. At the time, there was nothing at the vineyard that really inspired me to paint. However, I missed an opportunity to paint and connect with other painters, and I won't do that again. There were buses to take us to and from the paint-out locations.  I had signed up and paid to ride the bus to all four paint-outs, but when Ron decided not to go out on his own that day, I skipped the bus and rode in the rental car with him instead. We had a good day - sightseeing and seeing some things I wouldn't have seen if I had taken the bus and painted all day at Viansa. So it all balanced out in the end. Here's a photo of some of the PACE19'ers painting at Viansa.

All in all, it was a great six days. Next year's convention is in Colorado - outside of Denver. I've already signed up for it, and I'm looking forward to it. Ron can probably fly his plane to Denver. It will be a long flight in his small Bonanza plane, but do-able in one day. That means I don't have to worry about packing light or shipping things ahead. I can take whatever I want to take without worrying about weight and shipping prices. Plus, in Colorado there will be plenty of things that Ron will enjoy doing on his own while I'm at the convention. It will be fun.

Speaking of Ron - on the days that I was attending demos and riding the bus to paint-outs, he was having a good time on his own.  He spent one day learning to fly a float plane at a place a couple hours outside of San Francisco. He spent another couple days at a gun club about an hour outside of San Francisco. He spent time in China Town with friends he made at the gun club. So he was able to do things he really enjoyed doing while I was "art-ing".  He's been wanting to learn to fly a float plane for years. I was so happy he finally was able to do that.  It was a good mix of each of us spending time doing what we enjoyed during the day - and then being together in the evenings to eat dinner and talk. Good time all around.

And . . . The Trip to Italy is a Wrap!

Done and done!  We went to Italy. We drank lots of cappuchino and ate lots of pasta and did lots of sightseeing and lots of driving around the Tuscan countryside. We came home and experienced jetlag, and now things are back to normal again.

Italy!  One of my life dreams was to visit Italy, and the visit couldn't have been more phenomenal. I loved it, although I was very happy to come back home where people can understand me when I speak and where I understand others, too.  The language barrier was probably the biggest issue we faced. I made a pledge that I will seriously study the language more and have at least a beginning vocabulary and basic knowledge before visiting another country again. The only day that language wasn't a barrier was the day we spent in Florence where there were so many other tourists. The day in Sienna was probably the next one - and both those cities are larger with many more tourists - and thus more English-speaking people.

First - our trip to Italy started off with a 6-hour delay in Chicago. We had SIX HOURS on the plane before it finally took off. Twice the plane taxied out to the runway, and twice it had to return to the gate because of issues with the GPS. They finally decided that instead of trying to repair the GPS, they'd just replace it. So we waited while they did that - and finally we left for our flight to Frankfurt, Germany. Of course all connecting flights were missed and had to be rescheduled. So we ended up spending a few hours waiting at the Frankfurt airport before getting a late afternoon flight to Florence - not getting to our villa in Italy until around 10:00 p.m. Tuesday night - so we traveled & "waited" all day Monday and Tuesday. The first thing I did once we got to the villa was to take a hot shower, wash my hair and put on clean clothes.

I learned quickly that first class/business class seats are worth every penny (if you have the pennies to spend on it) on an overnight or extended length flight. I had NO IDEA that it's like having your own little micro-mini room (well - sort of) and a seat that reclines into a bed. The "room" feeling came from the privacy walls build around each seat.  Although Ron and I sat in adjoining seats on the flight from Germany to Chicago on the way home, we could not see each other without standing up. Ten days earlier, on the flight TO Frankfurt, we also had adjoining seats that obviously made for two people traveling together, and we could talk and interact but still fully recline and sleep when desired. I actually slept well on the flight from Chicago to Frankfurt.  And I got in some good dozing ten days later on the way home on the flight from Frankfurt to Chicago.

I also learned that after driving and sightseeing all over the countryside during the day, I'm usually too tired to paint in the evening.  One day I painted part of one painting - and that was it.  And I really wasn't "into" it that day. I'm glad I had pared down all my painting supplies to pack for the trip because I could easily have left it all at home. I took some great photos, and I have at least two or three that I want to paint - and I will work on those in the coming weeks. Lesson learned: unless I'm traveling to an art class or event, I will leave my painting supplies at home and stick to photographing scenes to paint later - or maybe bring a sketchbook if I want to plan out drawings while on the trip.

Here's a photo of our little rental car - a Fiat Panda.  That names cracks me up, but that car got us safely all around our little area of Tuscany. Our daughter had told us to be sure and get as small as car as we could since many of the streets are narrow. We enjoyed our little blue Panda.

The next two photos are of our villa. The weather was wonderful except for that one day - sunny and in the upper 60s. We had to wear our heavier coats on that particular day - and that was mostly for wind and not temperature. That wind was fierce!

I had to get a photo of our villa with the forsythia in the foreground.  I loved the forsythia and the daffodils that were blooming all over the area of Tuscany that we visited.

We saw a church down a little side road out in the countryside near Siena.  We traveled down the road and looked at the church. This stairway was beside it - almost overgrown with these bushes, and behind the stairway was a forsythia bush in bloom. This is one photograph that I want to paint.

In a small town between our villa and Siena was this church. The display on the altar area was breathtaking with the crockery pots "pouring" out the white and red fabric. I assume the red is for Christ's blood. I will have to look up what the white cloth symbolizes. Beautiful display, though.

One thing we learned about Italy is that there are lots of cats there.  Truly, we saw cats all over the place, and they looked to be mostly wild - but healthy - not necessarily pets (although some most certainly were) - but cats just staying around fields and vineyards, homes and roads. We thought that maybe with so many vineyards, the Italians keep lots of cats to control mice, moles and other rodents from eating all the grapes. I don't know. The cat in the photo was at the entrance to the long driveway leading to our villa. We saw it (and two others) several times over the course of our stay there. If I could paint a cat, I'd want to paint that one.

This was a scene from San Quirico d'Orcia which we visited on March 25th. The fact that there were clotheslines outside every house and apartment - with clothes usually hanging out to dry - fascinated me. Italians can afford clothes dryers, but instead, most of them choose to dry their clothes on lines. This was an old village on a hill with cobblestone streets - and yet people still live there, have plants on their stairways - and a clothesline right outside the door - along with a well. Beautiful!

One of the few food photos I made.  This was ravioli I bought at the Bar I1 Palio  restaurant in the Plaza Del Campo in Siena. We ended up eating both lunch and dinner on March 23rd. The food was delicious - and they even made a Cosmo for me. That was the day we walked over 16K steps - and 19 flights of stairs.  It was actually more than 19 flights - but my Apple watch only recorded 19. Scenery, architecture, art work (statuary and paintings), and food were all magnificent.

I wanted to get this photo of one of the vineyards to show how severely they prune the vines. They prune them right down to the nubs!  I'd love to see the vineyards again in a month or two when the new growth has filled in all the spaces.

We visited Brolio Castle - Ricasoli on March 22nd.  It was amazing!  It was the home of one family - and that family has owned the castle (still does) for a long, long time. This was in Gaiole in Chianti. But within the very tall fortress-like walls of this castle, there was still a church. Very simple and yet beautiful. We couldn't go inside. However, we brought home some olive oil from their olive groves.