"Glorious May" oil 14" x 7 1/2"

$200 & $10 s&h

We celebrated the 36th annual North River Arts Festival this weekend, Friday night through Sunday afternoon. I have been involved in the last twenty or so, and have been painting out in the crowd for perhaps a dozen.  Each year, including this one,  feels fresh, exciting, what I call "the good kind of exhausting".  

This morning we attended the Memorial Day parade, gathering to honor men and women who gave their lives for our country.  As the high school marching band passed, I reminded my daughter (for the umpteenth time) that I love the sound of a marching band.  I love parades, and their pageantry.  Our arts festival is its own type of parade, combining music, people watching, color, vignettes, charm, variety, laughter, and the joy of the culmination of months of intensive labor ... all while I'm working at my easel.  Glorious May!

"His and Hers" oil 9" x 6"

$125 and $10 S&H

My painting class met at a local home with lovely barn, gardens, antiques, and details.  It was a  feast for the eye.  Every place my eye stopped I found a vignette to paint.  A few of my students were new to painting outside so we worked on taking the infinite and narrowing it down to a manageable piece.  Outside is filled with texture, shifting light, undefined boundaries, and a myriad of colors.  It can be overwhelming. I showed them how to simplify the subject into a light and shadow pattern.  "His and Hers" is a demo where I began with two accurately drawn shapes - you can see them when you squint.  The light of the column, the porch and part of the rockers was one shape.  The other shape was the rest of the painting, and began as an averaged dark yellow/orange/green  into which I built the details of window, chairs, and wall.   I'm planning to return to this bucolic spot time and time again. It is a smorgasbord!

"Orange and Green", 8 x 6 inches, oil painting

                                                                     

 

$100 & $10 S&H

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I love the glow of honey on my spoon, in a lovely crystal honey pot, in a beautiful bottle or jar, or in a bear.  Seems the grocery stores now carry a lot of honey bears with flat tops.. certainly not the same as the iconic pointy shape, though I shouldn't discriminate against the flat top altogether... perhaps a painting for another time.  For now, I'm enjoying this quiet guy against his green backdrop. 

 I've contemplated painting him as the honey is used, a series of paintings with a horizontal line descending with each painting.  Somehow it strikes me as a bit macabre, a la Vincent Price as Dr. Phibes, but it might be interesting to line a few of the bears up with honey at differing levels, like musical water glasses.   Thanks for looking.