It really is the contrast of the dark and light that draws me to paint. This is one of those wolves that live at the Minnesota Zoo, and it is the side view of his face and the lifted paw and the stark shadows that I'm hoping I've managed to convey~
So love this! I painted it as a demo for my last six week Paint Love session- the next one will be in September. And I'll have some one-day two-to-three hour workshops at my studio coming up in June!
Stay tuned!
So yesterday evening in the drizzle, I asked my husband and son to come along with me to pick up trash at Lake Hiawatha. I love walking to the lake from our house with the dogs in the morning, and I try to do it every morning. I started taking little videos and posting them to Instagram during the lockdown of Covid in 2020, and when I'm able to do it, I like to keep taking those little videos. The other morning, the one I took ended with my scanning the ground around me because I was so frustrated with how much garbage was lying there. Some of it was left by people and a lot of it gets washed up onto the shore. I just want to pick up as much as we can.
So Duane and Max helped me clear up this little area. We timed it to 30 minutes, because I knew we could spend hours there. And I know local artist Sean Connaughty does a lot to clean up Lake Hiawatha~ I've run into him there picking it up~ all it takes is a couple minutes here and there. Pick it up if you see it!
It keeps all our lakes clean~ including Lake Superior...
I did this painting of my parents' Dog Star sitting on my dad's lap in 2016 after my dad had died suddenly. It felt right to paint it, and to get his hands so correct, it felt like he was there.
We had to say goodbye to Star yesterday. He'd been living with us in Minneapolis because he was having seizures and would collapse because of his heart if he got too excited or ran up or down stairs, and his legs were painful for him too. He handled life better at our house with just two steps to go up or down, and mom came up often to just sit and hold him in her lap. She was up last Friday, and we brought Star to see her on Sunday when we went down to help around the house. And yesterday morning when I got downstairs to let the dogs out, Star was collapsed, unmoving, in a puddle of his own mess. He slowly came back, and I cleaned him up and tried to get him outside but he wasn't moving on his own a lot, and Duane said we should call mom to come hang out with him today, so she came up and we impressed on her the importance of making a call to her vet. And her vet was able to take Star yesterday at 2:40, so Duane drove the two of them there, and brought mom back on her own.
My shamanistic brother said during a prayer session, he was able to see my dad come down to meet Star, and that Star was so happy to see him, he was dancing around~
I know you know this, but it is seriously amazing how quickly time passes. As a painter, as a person who tries to keep a daily journal, I know this too, but when I'm caught up in the daily craziness of life in Minneapolis, in Minnesota, in the United States, on this planet, I forget to look around and pay attention. Especially to those amazing people who share my daily life, my husband and son. Which is why I love to paint my son- and sometimes my husband! But I love painting my kid more, because he is so constantly changing.
I have all of his school photos taped to the wall by my desk (except for 6th grade because we were distance learning and didn't do school photos that year during Covid) and I love every kid he's been, in every photo. I can see the change in his eyes in second grade, when his gramps (my dad) died suddenly and we were all shocked, and I see the confident trickster in his seventh grade photo at the top.
I can't believe how lucky I am to have him in my life!
I did paint a few paintings up there, didn't I? I was afraid I was running out, and I'm seeing that I actually posted the same painting twice under two different names. I'm trying to be more organized and better about this!
And THIS is one of the only ones I did of the rocks- it's relatively small, would fit nicely on a wall framed or unframed, and you can come pick it up right from me this Saturday at Diamonds during Art A Whirl! I'll be there from 2-4!
And here's another one from that miraculous place, Grand Marais... mornings are some of my favorite times. It seems such a quiet, private time, the holding of breath for the day to start. Not many people are up yet, those few who are either share eye contact and a smile, or are moving too quickly to get where they're going~
It's that time just before the light spills over...
I had a busier than usual weekend! Sorry about not posting sooner- I was able to take down the 30 Cats at Diamond's and hang a new show of all new landscape paintings- though maybe they are actually LAKEscape paintings... what do you call those? Waterscapes? Hmmm...
The new pieces are all from my work at the Art Colony in Grand Marais, this past March and earlier this May, and I hope you are able to come take a look at them! I'll be sitting with them at Diamonds this coming Saturday during Art A Whirl from 2 to 4pm, with some of my postcards and books from my "30 in 30" projects! I'd love to see you!
And this piece is hanging there right now~ I'm really in love with it~ it's another morning piece from March, with the wonderful contrast of light and dark in the morning, as everything changes...
Don't worry, there will be more of these! I can't stop painting them! I think this one may be my fav- the light seems right in it somehow, and Max's crazy hair seems perhaps a bit more real...
I also like the vibrating green background~
And the pup's wrinkled face, falling over her eyes...
And that's a darn nice elbow too, if I do say so myself!
It is just amazing what colors show up in the sky... and the reflections of them in the water- can you tell I'm a little obsessed?
It's those small angles of black, that far shore reaching out and the near beach at your feet... and the contrast between the darker water and those high light yellows and pinks...
Having just way too much fun! I'll be hanging some of these at Diamond's this weekend, and they'll be up through the second week of June~
I'll have a little Opening Party on Saturday May 21st from 2 to 4 in the back room of Diamonds (1618 Central Ave NE, Mpls)~
I think it was last Friday evening, I was walking along the shoreline with the sun setting behind me, and the sky and the water were merging into this incredible blue! It was gentle, soft, delicately colored. I wasn't sure my camera would be able to catch the colors I was seeing, and I hoped I'd be able to reproduce what I felt I was seeing...
It's just always so amazing how it never looks the same twice...
This is part of a series of boy paintings I did this past week. I am working at being better at painting humans, and my current favorite human to paint is Max, my son. We were at our friends' house in the backyard having a pug party and Max was being delighted by Bubbins here~
I think it's pretty close- his hair is so curly and crazy right now! and that smile is genuine as heck!
When I'm painting and teaching like this, it is often a struggle to get into the groove. You know you have to paint the first ones in order to get to the ending paintings, which are usually better informed because of that struggle! I remember being told in college in my painting class at St John's that it was impressive how I just jumped right in and started. I think the other students were more hesitant, and I remember appreciating the compliment because that is how I tend to approach my work and my life. I might as well jump in and get started! Why wait?
This is one of the last waterscape paintings I did this weekend and its the biggest. I am really loving playing with all that water and all that color!
SO it's Mother's Day, and I'm in Grand Marais yet, with my mom, at the East Bay. We just cleaned up the studio and are settled in for the evening, and we head home tomorrow.
I never know what I'm going to paint when I come up here, though I do often have an idea. I didn't paint any otters this time, though... I got up every morning (except this morning) and went out to get the sunset, which was earlier this week than when I was up here in March- go figure! So I knew I'd have some landscapes, but the surprise was wanting to paint Max so badly.
As a mom, well and as a human, I know time passes faster than we ever really understand. I love the paintings I've done of Max as a baby and as a kid, and he is changing so fast physically right now, as a new teenager, that I knew I wanted to catch some of the HIM he is now too~ and one of his most important relationships is with Bunny, his pug.
This is one of the very first photos I ever took of him with her. I love her sleepy, floppy little melty face...
It is now May! We had a fantastic Mayday on Sunday, in the rain and cold and damp, waiting to paddle the sun across Powderhorn Lake. It is hard that the parade itself and all the making and creating that happen prior to it isn't happening anymore. Though I'm imagining that things will be popping up as the years proceed. I need to have my April be more full of creativity!
I'm heading back up to Grand Marais again today- so there will be more morning sunrise paintings coming! I'm so happy that I get this chance again. This is the last May Art As Journey Workshop we'll be doing. We'll see what happens next year, and this has been a spring ritual for my mom and me for several decades. Did I really say DECADES?!? Dang! It's just gotten to be so difficult right now, to even be gone from school for this long. I'm not sure whose gonna cover my classes, and the kids are just so wacky at the end of the year.
Ah well!
Life is about change, and moving forward. Every day is a new sunrise!
I'm really looking forward to getting back up to Grand Marais next week! It'll be the last May Art As Journey workshop we schedule. Mom and I have been going up every spring for over 30 years (!!!!!) to paint for a week at the Art Colony, an old church rethought into a beautiful art space. Its where I spent my Residency back in March, and this time there will be four of us, I think. I have several upcoming shows that I'm excited to be creating work for!
I'm getting a little newsletter ready to send out, about May events because I'm suddenly realizing I have a bunch of those!
And this is another little gem- I really love these rectangular formats! and on WOOD too!
And wow, it is seriously difficult to get a post every day on here. That's why doing those "30 in 30" projects are so great for me. Speaking of which, I'm trying to see if I can get Diamonds to stay open til 6 on Thursday May 12th so I can have a closing party and get those lovely cats back to everyone! I have the BOOKS now too, and should have postcards of almost every cat by then too! Wahoo!
Sorry this took me so long! A few other projects got in the way~ and that trip to Orchestra Hall on Saturday to see the Minnesota Orchestra play the soundtrack to "Return of the Jedi" was SO phenomenal!
Max said on Sunday that days like that are the ones you want to live over again~ I loved hearing that! He said "you know, like that Dance Party night at Camp Mishawaka!" SO cute, from a 13 year old...
This one is varnished and ready to go! I'll be hanging it at Diamond's for a month starting May 15th, unless you want it now.
It's from my Residency at the Art Colony in March, and I could hear the ice chiming as I stood there on top of the frozen beach, watching the sun begin its bursting forth....
Happy Earth Day, all my fellow earthlings! We've been going on really slow family walks around our neighborhood with grabbers and garbage bags, plucking trash out of the gutters and from the piles of winter squashed leaves. It feels good to do a little bit of cleaning up for Mother Nature. It is our house too!
So here is an early spring morning painting, from my time at the Art Colony in March. Dang. I just love that lake, and that land~
I'm trying to figure out how to have a private or public showing of the most recent series of paintings I did up in Grand Marais, and what might just happen is that I have a brief showing of them at Diamonds during Art A Whirl in Northeast Minneapolis, May 20-22... I just don't have time otherwise! It's a beautiful, bountiful, busy-full life right now!
So I'm showing you these kinda one by one... and I'll let you know about Art A Whirl!
This was the morning of Friday, March 25th, and the sky was seriously crazy rainbow colors, to the point where painting them felt strange! But this is what it looked like!
You can see the breakwater wall along to the left there- it was wicked cold, the wind was blowing and it was just before 7 am... the ice was crackling...
It was really cold on the morning of March 27th when I took the photos that led to this painting. From my bedroom window at the top of the art colony's offices I could see the sun was starting to arrive at just after 6 and I got myself together and got down there, parked my car around behind the gigantic snow hill in the middle of the parking lot by the coast guard station, and stumbled over the frozen ruts of the path to get to the breakwater. There was a trodden path over the snow covered bushes to the rocky beach where I waited for the sun to arrive.
And it did!
Noses up, my friends!
Smell that breeze?
Dirt, rotting vegetation, mud, leaves that have slept under the snow since December... ahhhh!
It makes my blood run warmer through my veins.
