A few Januarys ago in Vermont, we saw something I had only read about. Ice shacks and pickup trucks were scattered across the frozen lake, and people were sitting in lawn chairs, chatting and monitoring the fishing lines in holes they had drilled in the 22″ thick ice.
Isn’t it funny how a few simple shapes can evoke a scene?
Please vote: would you rather get these weekly posts on Mondays, Wednesdays, or Fridays at 5? If you have a preference, click “reply” to let me know. I’ll go with the majority vote starting next week.
Last weekend we finalized the sale of our beloved house, 227 Islington Road in Newton, Massachusetts, where we have lived for 43 years and raised all three of our children. We miss our old neighborhood and our wonderful friends of so many years. But we love our new home in North Carolina and being near family. A bittersweet passage!
An original portrait of your house , matted 16″ x 20″, $395. Information here.
We have some startling news. After living in the same house in Newton, Massachusetts for 43 years, where we have so many beloved friends, we have moved to North Carolina. All three of our adult children, and their families, now live in the South, and we were lonely for them. So this fall we made the bittersweet decision, quite abruptly, to move near Chapel Hill, where our daughter Kate lives with her family, including our 15-year-old granddaughter Lila — shown here last night blowing out the Advent candles at our new house. We look forward to visiting our dear friends in Massachusetts as soon as traveling is easier.
Seeing a painting of this scene on a friend’s wall, I was fascinated by the rhythm of the receding hills and trees, and the way the sheep were suggested with simple shapes. I took a photo and tried to reproduce it with pencil, pen and watercolor.
Yupo paper is made of plastic, so it doesn’t absorb water, making it hard to control. This started as a loose abstract watercolor, but when I added watersoluble crayons it became an ode to the colors of the beautiful leaves that have finally blown off the trees. With Yupo there’s no choice but to “go with the flow.”
This holiday season isn’t all we had hoped. But there is still much to be grateful for. And science shows that an “attitude of gratitude” improves health and resilience.
The Serenity Prayer is always in season, but during this divisive election, with fear, anger and anxiety on both sides, it seems particularly important.
As some of you know, our daughter Kate published her second book this summer, Their Faces Shone: A Foster Parent’s Lessons on Loving and Letting Go, about her family’s experience fostering a two-year-old girl. In the book, Kate explores the question of where family begins and ends, and how things change when we invite strangers–with complicated stories and baggage–into our lives. Kate is currently giving away ten signed copies of the book! You can find out more about the book and the giveaway here.
PS – I love the colors in the book cover – don’t you? A good example of making it “pop” by using opposites on the color wheel, in this case the cool colors (blue/green/purple) opposite warm orange.
When painting, especially abstractly, it’s helpful to think about the color wheel. If you want a vibrant image, a surefire formula is to use opposites, with one side dominant. Here orange, sliding toward red and yellow, is dominant, with a touch of the opposite turquoise.
Watercolor, water-soluble crayon, 5″ x 5 21/2″, $45.
It’s really fun to sit and sketch. Since people are usually moving, snapping a photo to freeze them in one position helps. Drawing figures from the back avoids facial features. Once you’re happy with the figure, you can sketch the background with no time pressure.
As we look forward to November, let’s partner together to make sure everyone has the right to vote. For the next six weeks (get a headstart on Christmas!), if you hire me to paint your house or pet or any subject, the price will be $100 less than usual and 100% of the proceeds will go to organizations that help ensure that everyone who is legally able can register, vote, and have their vote counted. Here are two such commissions I have recently completed. Info here.
Labor Day weekend seems a bittersweet time. The echoes of childhood when the warm carefree days of summer were coming to an end. And we will miss the flowers!
I painted this a couple of years ago after a performance of Circus Smirkus. Obviously this is more abstract than most of my paintings, but it was inspired by the incredible energy and the variety of acts, like the jugglers.
My mother was always in heaven (now, literally) when local tomatoes turned ripe. Every day, she would cut a red, juicy tomato into slices, and put it between bread with mayonnaise, salt and pepper. I add avocado and a little red onion. Happy summer, Mom!
People seem to be divided into two groups: those who daydream of sitting in a beach chair by the ocean, and those who prefer lakes and hills like these.
Order a painting on any subject of your choice, and your money will help ensure that everyone can register, vote in person or by mail, and have their vote counted in November.
Any subject of your choice including pet portrait: matted 11″ x 14″ original painting $195. ($100 off!)
House portrait matted original painting 16″ x 20″ $395. ($100 off!)
Painting is based on your photo. Ordering information here.
In this time of cancelled vacations, we have been so blessed to meet our three kids and their families in Vermont. Our two-year-old granddaughter Maggie is showing great promise as a painter, don’t you think?
Our 14-year-old granddaughter Lila is visiting from North Carolina. Yesterday we went kayaking on the Charles River, both taking sketchbooks and a little paintbox. We didn’t need take water, because we just dipped our brushes in the river. We floated next to each other and painted for awhile. Heaven!
Generous neighbors across the river, the Ryans, put out bottled waters for boaters.
This summer I’m going to take a partial break and only post once a week. Instead of Monday and Friday, you’ll receive one painting Friday at 5.
Please remember that at least 50% of my art sales (for paintings or commissions) in the next four months will be donated to the election, to increase voter turnout in swing states. Info here.
Watercolor & water-soluble pastels on cold-pressed paper, 12″ x 16″, $195, click here.
Juneteenth is the celebration of the end of slavery. 155 years ago, on June 19, 1865, Union troops led by General Granger reached Galveston, Texas and announced that the war was over and the enslaved were now free. Although Lincoln had signed the Emancipation Proclamation 2 1/2 years before, this was the last place in the country to hear this news.
Last week, a new book, How Seniors are Saving the World: Retirement to the Rescue, was published, with a chapter in it about me. In this time of uncertainty and fear, I hope the stories in this book can help provide inspiration as well as concrete examples of how a person can help work toward peace, justice and equity.
Ever since college when civil rights and the Vietnam War were raging, I have been a social justice activist. I have volunteered on a range of issues, from reducing the risk of nuclear war to economic inequality. For 15 years I devoted myself to criminal justice reform. Our prisons currently hold 2.3 million people, far more than any other nation on earth, and those imprisoned are disproportionately black and brown. In 2005, I created UU Mass Action, a statewide Unitarian Universalist social justice network, and was President for ten years; it’s still going strong. As well as co-chairing Social Action at my UU church, I have also taught art in prison for 19 years, linking my art and social justice work.
This book has 24 chapters, each about a different person. These people have found meaning in life, and in retirement, by working for the greater good in a wide variety of ways. The chapter about my friend Peggy Ellertsen, for instance, spotlights her work to educate the public about the isolating effects of hearing loss. A link to the book is here.
Watching a raccoon amble across the front yard as it did yesterday, followed by a skunk a couple of hours later, is a good reminder that we are far from alone in our neighborhoods. Every morning before meditating in the front yard, I put out two little piles of birdseed, and the chipmunks keep me company. Who’s training who?
After an unusually mild winter and a cool wet spring, the warm weather has unleashed incredible growth in the plants and trees. One of the hidden blessings of the pandemic is that we have been forced to slow down, which gives us the chance to appreciate the nature around us.
Counting our blessings, especially in distressing times, improves our mood, heart rate and more. “Research suggests that gratitude may be associated with many benefits for individuals, including better physical and psychological health, increased happiness and life satisfaction, decreased materialism, and more.” article here.
Yesterday I kayaked on the Charles River for the first time this year. It’s tricky to paint in a boat, a little tippy and the paint is bound to run. But fun. I put a little ink on top of the paint when I got home.
This commissioned painting, based on a photo, was a real challenge. The woman who hired me wanted a birthday present for her sister Kara, whose beloved cat Tonka recently died. Skin tones are always tough, and portraying an animal who was mostly one color, while giving the illusion of three-dimensionality, is another challenge. It was fun though.
Please know that I make commissioned paintings, and 50% of everything I earn this year will support voter registration efforts in swing states. Information here.
My friend Betsy is a landscape designer. Sitting in her gorgeous garden last week, I tried more watercolor painting on Yupo paper, which produces interesting textures. Fun!
The Newton Watercolor Society is learning together via Zoom every week, and last week Chetana taught us about painting on Yupo paper. Yupo is not absorbent, and it produces a lot of different textures you can’t achieve on absorbent cotton watercolor paper. Painting on Yupo (this scene was out of my imagination) was fun, different, and required giving up some control. What do you think of this approach?
Faces are so interesting, aren’t they? We spend our lives looking at them, interpreting them, reacting to them. This drawing was inspired by a photo I found on Flickr. Fun to translate it from a photo to pencil, pen and ink.
Finally! New England is really coming into its own this week. Soon the southern part of the country, of which we have been jealous for a couple of months, will start to envy us; we will be spending all our time outdoors, not stuck in air conditioning. The warblers are flying through, the orioles are singing, and the trees and flowers are bursting after the cool wet spring. Gorgeous weather at last!
We’re all spending a lot of time at home, and sketching is a fun thing to do. Try it! I draw first with pen or pencil, and then apply watercolors; you could use crayons, markers, whatever you have. Take the pressure off and don’t worry if it’s messy or the lines are wrong — so what? It’s just a piece of paper, not an SAT test. Here’s my sketch of our family room, and the real thing.
Can you tell where this cluster of flowers ends and where its shadow begins? Choosing to paint the shadow in green, rather than gray, makes it hard to tell. It was fun painting it though.
Last week I discovered Flickr as a source of photos to draw from. I started a new sketchbook, planning to fill it up with faces and people, using only black, white and gray from pencils, pens and waterbrushes. Fun and challenging!
I am grateful to those who generously donated to my (virtual this year) 40th Walk for Hunger, enabling me to raise over $8,000! Many of you have supported me for years, and this year, you helped me set a new record, making me the seventh highest Walker! Thank you!
Your donations will fill the shelves of the 400 food pantries and soup kitchens supported by the Walk, providing groceries for the 38% of Massachusetts residents who are now “food insecure” (up from 8% just two months ago). If you haven’t had a chance to donate and would like to, here is the link to my personal Walk page. Here’s my sketch, which the Walk is using as its logo.
Meditation is a great way to stay centered, especially in anxious times. Apps really help, and over the last five years I’ve used Headspace, Calm and Insight Timer. My new favorite mediation app is Balance. (The people who make Balance also have a great brain-training app called Elevate, which I have used every day for six months.) Often after mediation, I notice more of what I see.
Every spring, artists dust off their greens. There are dozens, hundreds of shades of green in nature. Painters can start off with a green like sap green or viridian, and modify it with a touch of yellow and red. Or mix various blues and yellows (I have three of each on my palette, there are dozen more). Then decide how much water to add to make it lighter or darker. Myriad choices to evoke the unfolding colors of the world around us.
This year is my 40th annual Walk for Hunger, to raise money for 400 food pantries and soup kitchens across Massachusetts. Food pantries are now besieged by 24 million newly unemployed people looking for emergency groceries for their families, so those who contribute to my Walk are more appreciated than ever. Because of social distancing, the Walk is forced to be virtual, and I can’t approach people personally to ask for pledges. If you are willing to sponsor me, you can donate to my personal Walk page by clicking here. Thank you so much!
