"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.

Paintings in Place

Lemons, apples, and onions

Winter Garden by the tree

 A few of my paintings hanging in their new-ish homes.  Nice to see them together here again.  I keep a database of all my paintings, who owns them, and when and where they have been exhibited.  It's an interesting history of my journey through painting so far. There are a few that have gotten away, either through a gallery, or an "art in the barn" sale, and the one small boat that I placed on the roof of my car for just a minute.  I imagine it now lives on the wall of someone's happy home, though in reality, it may have disintegrated in a ditch not far from my home. Sigh.

"Garlic and Oil" over the mantle

Do you have an organized,  efficient way to keep track of your work?  I'd be interested to know about it.

Thanks in advance for sharing.

Painting You Painting Me - watercolor 9 x 12

A few weeks ago, one of the art teachers at school sent out an e-mail asking for any interest in tempera paint pans that her kindergarteners couldn't use anymore because the white was gone.  Woot!  I was thrilled to have them for the art class I teach a couple of times each week.  We don't need white, and are using the paints as transparent watercolor.  In fact, the lids of the paint pans are great mixing trays.  My students are always dismayed when I tell them they can't use black.  "What will we do?" We had a great conversation about the color wheel, and whether you want to make a blue black, yellow black, etc.  We're getting there, and I'm always interested to see what they see.  

"Painting You Painting Me" is a little study I did across the table from one of my girls as she concentrated on the objects in front of her.  Fun!

"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.