"The Corner" pen & ink 6 x 3 Daily Drawing #66

Long day... took the car in to the shop early after a hairy ride home last night.  Good half day with students, followed by parent teacher conferences this afternoon.  I had a pretty full dance card, and spent the afternoon talking with interesting, interested parents.  Then, dinner with my daughter and friend and friend's mother in Boston.... then a quick drawing of the corner of the kitchen to close out the day.
This is my sixty-sixth daily drawing.  Thank for you continuing to check out my view of the world.

"Steve Makes Dinner" pen & ink 6 x 9 #Dailydrawing #urbansketchers

I love a sleepy Saturday or Sunday when we have time to shop and cook and take care of errands and paperwork and puttering about.  Steve cooked up a crockpot stew tonight and we roasted a great pan of Brussels sprouts for the week.  Great smells emanating from the kitchen on this early cold afternoon. 
This is my forty-second daily drawing.   Thank you for taking the time to look.  I appreciate your time.

Day 10 "Kitchen Gadgets" pen & ink 3 x 4

Busy, busy day... managed a quick sketch of the kitchen gadgets on our counter.  We keep them next to an antique ironstone pitcher in which I keep paintbrushes, of course.  This is my 10th entry in the #Inktober challenge.
Thank you for looking.

"Kitchen Ledge" oil 11 x 14 Evolution of a painting

"Kitchen Ledge"  11 x 14  oil 

Several years ago, I spent a week in a lovely old Victorian house in South Bristol, Maine with several of my artist friends.  I love the feel of the house, well worn, with a variety of comfy chairs, a wrap-around porch, plethora of cups, plates, and glasses, old linoleum and bathroom tiles from the 1960s.  I painted this still life on the window ledge, looking out into the yard.  The painting in the middle is my first go at it, and I was pleased with the backlit lemons, and the interior vignette against the outside.  When I brought it home from Maine, I made some alterations, adding another porch column and a railing.  I described the specifics of the changes in a blog post you can read about here.  

The house had a pencil sharpener on its door frame, which I liked, probably because we had one attached to the door frame in our kitchen growing up.  But, it never added anything to the painting, and was somewhat incongruous, and confusing. So, I excised the sharpener.  I like the painting much better now.  My painting group, Girls Just Wanna Paint, each interpreted the Golden Mean last month.  "Kitchen Ledge" is a good example of the Golden Mean, or Golden Section, in action.  

Thanks for looking.

"Kitchen Ledge" or "one of these things is not like the other" oil 12 x 14

 We continue to explore color in my oil painting class.  Yesterday's lesson was about painting through colored glass.  We looked at examples of the "in, on, through" of glass, and the influence of the color in single and double layers as  you look through it.  I encouraged my students to begin with several large shapes determined by color and value rather than by objects.  Wow!  Great results, including some harmonies that reminded me of Thomas Dewing's turquoise tonal paintings.  

I was looking in my files for a painting that would support the lesson, and was happy to discover two versions of  "Kitchen Ledge", painted in Maine alongside my friend Kelley MacDonald, in the coastal victorian house we rented with several artist friends.
I wanted the painting to give a sense of welcome, and the period of the graceful house.  When I brought it home, the porch column (in the top photo) seemed incongruous with the simple pine shelf and window trim.  I decided to add another column and an indication of the porch railing which I had originally added going all the way across the painting, and through the bottle.  However, it created an awkward tangent with the top of the lemon, so I removed a third of the railing.  My motivation was removing unintended geometry, but the result had an added bonus of implied stairs below the window where I could imagine a guest stepping up, onto the porch and into the rustic kitchen to share a cup of tea (with lemon?).  Will be back in this lovely spot for a week in June.  Lucky me.