Workshop - Natural Object Still Life Painting

Nest, oil on panel, 8" x 8"

Natural Object Still Life Painting Workshop

at Townsend Atelier

June 8, 9, 10th 2012

9-5pm

$350

with Special Demonstration & Gallery Talk at  

The Hunter Museum of American Art 

Thursday June 7th 5-8pm

I am so stoked to be headed to lovely Chattanooga, TN in June to teach a wonderful painting workshop.  I hope you will be able to join me.  I also have the great honor of being invited to give a demonstration at the Hunter Museum of American Art.  If you can't make the whole workshop, I hope you will at least be able to enjoy the evening demonstration and gallery talk.  Here is the official description and a few links.  Please contact the lovely, helpful folks at Townsend Atelier if you want to sign up or need help finding accommodations. 

This course will cover the essentials of oil painting from proper surface preparation to color mixing, with a primarily earth tone palette.  Using direct observation, students will learn about composition, color theory and paint application as well as gain skills and confidence in representing what they see.   Students will be encouraged to select their own items that will enable them to develop personal narratives or meanings within a still life painting.  This three day oil painting class will start with an optional walk to experience and connect with nature, as well as to collect the natural found objects that the student will bring back to the studio to paint.   Students who choose to skip the morning walk will be encouraged to bring their own natural form discoveries such as various botanical items, seed pods, skulls, feathers, bugs – whatever it is from nature that you are inspired by!  The teacher will also bring such items from her own collection to share.

Townsend Atelier

201 West Main Street Suite 107
Chattanooga, TN

423-266-2712
or toll free: 1-877-903-1488
www.townsendatelier.com

info@townsendatelier.com

The Hunter Museum of American Art

10 Bluff View

Chattanooga, TN 37403 

(423) 267-0968

www.huntermuseum.org

Southern Weeds - Opening

 

Last night was the Opening Reception for my Southern Weeds exhibition at Artspace in Raleigh NC.  It was a fun night seeing old friends and meeting new ones.  Here are a few shots from the evening.  

 

Friends Sue Lyon and Scott Burdick drove all the way from 

Winston-Salem area just to see my weeds!  Thanks :)

Winding down the evening.

Southern Weeds 

is on exhibition thru May 28th

Artspace

210 E. Davie St.

Raleigh, NC 27601

www.artspacenc.org

My artist statement can be read by clicking here or by clicking on the "botanical" label.

Thank you to everyone who came to show love and support, especially to the very special family members who traveled some distance.  It means a great deal that you were there.  And a very Happy Birthday to my favorite 7 year old.  Thank you for sharing your special day with me.  

Invitation

Woohoo the invitations are in!

Please join me at the Opening Reception on First Friday, May 6th from 6-10pm.

Artspace -201 E. Davie St. Raleigh, NC 27601

(...psst, I'm still painting.  Images of all 10 weeds coming soon :))

Plein Air in Spring

These last few weeks, I have been pushing hard to finish up a few more Southern Weed paintings for my show coming up in May at Artspace.  I am getting anxious and tired, and still have far to go to be "finished" (and then framing and photography needs to miraculously happen).  This push is an exciting time though.  And I think the body of work is slowly growing into something lovely as a whole.  For awhile, I was cursing plants and my initial attraction to them, but I've come again to a spot of appreciation and admiration.  I think now, weeds will find their way into all of my work. 

In the meantime, I have also been trying my hand at plein air landscape painting. Since the Women Painting Women group painting trip to Charleston, SC in November last year, I have been inspired to get more proficient at Plein Air painting.  In a setting, responding to changing light, and conditions is so thrilling and yes, sometimes frustrating as well.  This past weekend, I had the chance to go out and paint some local scenes.  I am lucky to live in an area with these spots of splendor just minutes away.  Take a look.  Thoughts are always welcome.  Happy Painting folks! 

Jenks Farm, oil on panel, 8" x 10"

Jordan Lake, oil on panel, 10" x 12"

Southern Weeds continued

Well, nothing gets you moving on a project like a pressing deadline.  Such is the case with my Southern Weeds series.  This series will be exhibited in May for a solo exhibition at ArtSpace in Raleigh, NC (in the upfront gallery).  It has been a while since I've mentioned these botanical paintings - so as a refresher feel free to revisit a few thoughts and images by clicking HERE and HERE.

I am anxiously awaiting the re-growth of the blackberry bush in my back yard so that I can paint the first sprigs for this blackberry triptych.

Blackberry, oil on panel, 8" x 18" (Center and left panels)

In the meantime, we have been enjoying some very lovely weather.  It is just starting to feel like spring here in North Carolina.  I found these tiny blue flowers happily sprouting under a water spout, near the foundation of our home.  

 Brick and Speedwell, oil on panel, 8" x 8"

I may do one more pass on this painting, if the weather continues to hold out.  It has been so wonderful to sit on the (weedy) lawn to paint this from life.  I hope where ever you may be reading this, that you are starting to feel the warmth of spring.

In Progress: Southern Weeds

These two paintings are still in progress. They are two of a triptych which shows three different stages of the blackberry bush in my back yard. The weather here has scorched the bush, so unfortunately, now I will have to finish these up from photos. It is not an easy thing for me to switch from working from life to using photos, especially on this newer subject matter. With the figure, I have had enough time painting in front of the real thing, so that I know what information I need to ignore in photos. But, with the botanicals, I become overwhelmed with so much information and details within the photos which aren't as apparent to the naked eye. Also, colorwise, I need to find a way to tie these two (and then the third) together a bit more.

 Blackberry Blossom, (In Progress), oil on panel, 8" x 10"

Blackberry Fruit, (In Progress), oil on panel, 8" x 8"

Southern Weeds

Poke Berries, oil on panel, 8" x 8"

I've been working on a little something...  Here's my Artist Statement for this new series.

Southern Weeds

As a recent transplant to the South, I have been struggling to find how I belong here, especially as an artist.  I grew up in New England, just south of Boston yet, I have spent the last thirteen years in California.  Our recent relocation to North Carolina has markedly skewed my sense of identity.  I am now acutely aware of how foreign I am in this place where terms like Yankee still mingle freely in conversation; where even still, segregation is a reoccurring and prominent subject.  It is through the nature of my new home state, that I have been able to find peace and a sense of place. 

While in California I studied and developed my career as a fine artist.  I received wonderful classical figurative painting training from Laguna College of Art and Design.  There, I focused on representing the figure and still life in paint.  In retrospect, it seems odd that I never was interested in painting that Western landscape.  It is such an iconic setting for plein air work, and yet I never felt connected enough to want to represent it.  Over the years, I slowly became less aware of my desire for a more familiar landscape.  This desire wasn’t re-ignited until I took a quick trip to visit Chapel Hill, NC which reminded me of the rich greens, dark woods and rolling pastures that I craved from my youth.

The natural surroundings of my new backyard are at once familiar and shockingly different than that of my childhood.  There are of course, many familiar plants that flourish in both areas, but then there are also some species that are unique to the South.  It is these new to me, but common to the South plants that I find so interesting.  As a continuation of previous bodies of work that explored the idea of representing the mundane as extraordinary, I hope to share the beauty that I find in these common, and often overlooked, southern weeds.  Through my research and painting of these specimens, I’ve also learned some of the history of the area.  As I’ve discovered how these plants were used as medicine or ink or even in Anti Slavery protests, I have found a deeper connection to my new setting.  It’s a connection safely explored through beauty and history, beyond any stigmas or political agendas.   It is an artistic connection rooted to the natural history here that has helped me find my place.

Water Oak, oil on panel, 8" x 10" 

 Persimmon, oil on panel, 8" x 8"