Here's a pup I've been working on last week~ sweet face! Huge eyes! Which reminds me to let you know that I am always happy to help you with a personal painting of your beloved four-legged friend too~
Just send me an image and check out my sizes and prices on my list here~
Wahoo!
Okay, not the greatest title ever, but I thought this one kinda looked like a potato, and I'm not sure that Otter Tater would work.... though maybe Tater Otter?
Hmmm....
I had a much more mentally pleasant day today. I wasn't terrified about the drive home for one thing, since it seemed to be much more seasonal and not the freezing rain we usually have in March which makes stopping not so much of a sure thing as a wish~ so I was able to get home safely and then walk the dogs and paint and make a giant snowball in the front yard with the kid and other neighbors~
Lovely!
I haven't painted the otters in a while, and the last time we went to the zoo they were napping. I guess it's time to take another trip there! I've painted from this photo before, but its interesting to do it again because you see different things each time. It's like that saying, you never step in the same river twice. I've had clients ask me to repaint a sold painting and it always turns out slightly different each time. I'm not a photocopier, thank goodness!
And I just needed a little otter-ness today~ I do love snow, the light of it, the change in the landscape. But I wasn't expecting it until closer to Thanksgiving, to be honest, and it feels like a bit of a time warp to have it now. We haven't raked our leaves yet. They aren't done falling off the trees.
But Otters are just the thing- I need a reminder every so often (which is more often these days) that life is meant to be enjoyed and experienced and relished, all the bits of it you can touch and reach, like the water around an otter. We are in it, like it or not, and this is what we got, so love it while you can! It's worth loving, this life~
Yes, another buck... this one is more velvety~ and I wanted to play with the background a bit too... I'd been reading and thinking about the idea of playing with areas for a bit of spark, trying something a little different. It doesn't actually look that different, I don't think~
I'm also playing with the idea of doing another Daily Painting Project in November for "Homevember", painting people's homes with most of the proceeds for any sales going to the homeless here in Minneapolis. Because there is a huge need... and driving home today through the snow at 4pm, heavy as it was, and slick, and scary, I was worried about the encampments at area lakes, and people attempting to live in tents in this kind of Minnesota weather. We have never had snow this early, in my experience as a living Minnesotan! I think most of us were expecting a little more warm weather. Lots of leaves hidden under the snow...
It is nice to see it though!
Have you ever seen the animated version of Watership Down? And they have that song, Bright Eyes? It's pretty short, and Art Garfunkel sings it in the 1978 version... its one of those songs that yanked my heart into my throat when I first heard it at age 11 in 1978... And this was before Youtube, or Prime Music, or Apple Music, or any of these things where you could find it and hear it over and over. You had to REMEMBER it and listen closely, and then sing it to yourself as often as you could.
Anyway, that song makes me think of this deer... or maybe it's the other way around~
Here's a link to the song for you~
Your welcome!
The water was steaming yesterday as we crossed the bridge over the lake- snow was falling and the water was warmer than the air. I painted this from a photo I took in late August while standing in the lake~ I wasn't sure I could get that repeated pattern feel of the waves, and I believe I managed it!
I'm really pleased with the pink...
I was able to do some plain air painting last weekend, and this is another one from then. I do find that once I'm back inside, I touch up some areas that I wasn't able to get to outside. The time spent out painting goes really fast! And there's also the quality of the light- it's often crazy bright, especially right now in the fall, at that wonderful crazy angle, getting in windows and under canopies! So once I'm back indoors, some of the parts I thought I'd painted really bright aren't showing up that way and so I need to pop them again.
This patch of the creek had tons of fall leaves in it, under and on top of the water. Since I'm more of an impressionist than a realist, I wasn't trying to get the individual leaves but more the sense of the variety of colors and values I was seeing.
I do love the movement in this one!
This is one that I've been wanting to get to for a while... that face and those little nubby bits!
I hope you were able to get out and enjoy the incredible gift that was yesterday! It's not hard to feel good on a day like that- with the sun blasting at such a dramatic low angle and the trees tossing off fireworks of leaves overhead~ dang! I spent as much of it outside as I could, and my painting crew and I enjoyed the sun angling in under the tent in the backyard during our morning class. SO great!
I had to get out and paint more, so I ran some stuff over to the Goodwill on Nicollet and came back along the parkway, scanning for a likely spot to get close to the water and have some light. There were SOOOO many people out! On bikes and walking dogs and wandering around in the sun, so great!
I found this spot on Minnehaha and 16th Ave which is the bridge I painted here- I've included a shot of my easel. I'm getting really fast at setting that up and taking it down again!
The reflections in the water are just amazing.
And I'm offering this one at half price~
This one is from a few days ago, and I think it is more iconic than realistic. This wolf lives at the MN Zoo, and there was snow on the ground but I chose to make it a bit pinker than it was in reality... I like that face and those eyes~ intent, focussed...
Just like me today, right? Intent, focussed...
Yup.
I'm so glad it's Thursday!
Funny how it can never be so hard that it can't get harder, right?
I suppose it's also true that it can never be so beautiful that it can't get even more gorgeous?
I'm really working to keep my mind on those things I am so grateful for. Smiles and laughter, kindness. An unexpected pile of art magazines and blank panels~ your kid expressing how much he likes spending time with you.
It's that key to shifting your perspective. Dark to light. Heavy to light~ bring it all to the light~
I kinda like this one- they feel a bit more abstract to me, more the way the water felt when I was there painting it~
I'm so lucky!
I did head back to Moir Park, but I was really late today and didn't get to do any painting. This is from last week, and I just had a little bit more I wanted to do to it. So it is done now.
It was lovely to be there, even briefly. Last Monday I had about 40 minutes to paint, and I plopped myself down as close to the creek as possible, scrambling down a bank to set up the easel. And it was a wonderful fall day, with wind and intermittent showers, clouds and sunshine. Love it!
I needed to paint some more water and am revisiting this series of photos from Duane and Max's trip to Grand Marais this spring. I was hoping we might take a trip next week over MEA, but I can't find anywhere to stay up north... I think more people are staying close to home instead of flying for this break. And we really need a break too.
Whew!
So here is a bit of a mental break for you, water and rocks and sky~
I took this photo a month or so ago, while swimming just off the dock on the north end of Lake Nokomis with my family and our lovely neighbors- I think I want to try more versions of it because I am entranced by the shapes in the water and how to properly suggest them... so liquid!
It was an overcast day and the water was warmer than the air- can you tell?
This painting will be at our Pop-Up Art Sale this Saturday, Oct 3 from 1-5! Come on by and pick it up!
Love to see you there!
I love the shapes of animals.
Those angles and bends, the curves and shifts from ear to head to shoulder. And the way light hits and reflects and shows near and far...
And the color!
This is a tiny island just past Grand Marais on a little road, Croftville Road, maybe- I think it was Elsie's cabins... and there's a little cabin just in front of this place. It is seriously a giant rock with a rickety wood bridge from just behind the cabin, and I felt like I was in a magical place when I stood there in the rain. Grey days can do that.
And the colors of fall always look more intense against the grey. That is part of why I love painting on black, because it just sets the colors off more. There's more power in the color because of having to contend against the dark.
Hmmm...
I've been teaching in my alley driveway for this fall's session of Paint Love, and I am so glad I decided to give it a go. I need to have these mature, creative, fun-loving, kind and generous adults to hang out with and talk art with at least once a week. And all the struggles to figure out technology to include my Zoom people is hard and brain-busting, but their patience and their paintings are so rewarding. I look forward to our classes all week!
Today we painted tomatoes because there were some lovely ripe ones in the garden, and we talked about and practiced the concept of One-Color-Per-Stroke, which is a way to make sure you are looking closely at what you are doing, paying attention to every stroke and how you are placing it onto the panel.
This was NOT my demo, because I don't like that one. I did this one later as everyone else was working and I like it!
This is another photo from Gina Easley in Oregon (https://www.instagram.com/ginaeasleyphoto/?hl=en) who has an incredible eye and has kindly given me permission to paint her deer! This young buck has velvet on his new antlers, and I hoped to paint them so they look velvety and soft...
Somehow, Gina's photos look magical and like a fairy-land, though the smoke from the wildfires caused a lot of darkness. I do wonder how the animals make it through such an experience...
I just needed a little deer today~
Another painting from my adventure yesterday~ yes, that water is so necessary!
I couldn't get to Moir Park tonight, and it was a brain busting kind of day (having a lot of those lately) and I needed to sit by some water so I ran to Minnehaha Creek and sat painting for about an hour.
I'm much better now.
Whew. Thank goodness for painting!
