I recently completed an excellent 10-week class called “Painting in Series,” taught by Chetana Keltcher, about painting the same image over and over using different techniques. For my weekly posts in April, each Monday at 5 I will send you one or two paintings I made for this class.
This photo is of our daughter-in-law Eva, holding our granddaughter Maggie when she was six months old; Maggie will be three this week. The painting below is on rice paper, using ink applied with both a pen and a brush.
Spring is officially here, and in North Carolina the daffodils, especially in sheltered sunny spots, are in full bloom. Here’s a casual painting of a clump of them near our new house.
After several years of low-level pain which has reduced my exercise (walking, yoga), I had my right hip replaced last Tuesday. I’m closer to pain-free every day! Kate and Lila, our daughter and granddaughter, came last weekend and painted my toes. Then it seemed time for a rehab sketch.
We are so incredibly blessed by modern medicine. Do you know the average life expectancy of people in 1900? 49.
The beginning of Daylight Savings Time is the best time of the year — eight months of longer, warmer days stretching ahead of us. Birds migrating north, flowers poking out, winter coats stowed in the closet. Blessings await.
Painting faces is tough. “A portrait is a painting with something wrong with the mouth,” wrote John Singer Sargent. I don’t know this woman — whose photo I found on the internet — so she won’t be offended if it doesn’t look quite like her.
After reading an article about the mental and physical health benefits of counting our blessings, I glued this heart together from thread, yarn, a button and various bits and pieces.
It’s been eleven months since most of us have travelled, so it’s fun to think about past vacations. My most exotic trip ever was to Thailand in 2014 with our son Andrew. We rode elephants in the jungle, and I sketched this at lunch to thank the mahout (elephant trainer). Later we made this astonishing stop at a family-run tiger zoo. The trainers hovered close by as Andrew and I each fed the six-month-old tiger a baby bottle of milk.
Orange and blue, opposites on the color wheel, make each other sing. This painting is based on a photo by our dear friend Ned Schofield, who sadly died three years ago. He was an amazing photographer.
Crows, chickens and other birds are much smarter than we used to think. Crows can even use tools. Our son Chris loves crows, so I painted this for his birthday.
Yupo does not absorb paint so the effects are unexpected and fun. I am sending you this on Monday at 5, since that was the preferred day of the majority who voted.
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.
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.”
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.
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?
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.
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.
The Serenity Prayer has guided me through personal and political distress, and now it is guiding me through an epidemic. “Stay home, wash your hands, maintain healthy habits, and release the rest,” seems like the current version of this prayer.
Continuing my remembrances of warm and exotic places I am not visiting this winter, this is San Miguel de Allende. Three years ago, I visited my friend Linda, who was renting a house there. Here are sketches from the roof of the house Linda rented, and a scene from a local market.
After 20 years painting in watercolor, learning acrylics continues to amaze me because you can change things over and over.
Here is the evolution of one painting of a red onion I worked on this weekend. After I finished the second version (on right), I wondered if I should have stopped at the first. Which do you prefer?
This painting is a complement of my last post — cool colors with a warm accent of the opposite color. (Blue and orange are opposite on the color wheel.) These paintings were made with a different kind of watercolor — Dr. Ph. Martin’s Hydrus Watercolor Inks. They are applied with a dropper and are especially vibrant.
The basic principle of color is that red, yellow and blue are the three primaries that can’t be mixed from anything else. The secondary colors are made up of two primaries each: red + yellow = orange, yellow+ blue = green, blue + red = purple. Red, orange and yellow are considered the warm colors (think fire), while blue, purple and green are cool. A classic color combination is predominantly warm (or cool) with a touch of the opposite. Like this one.
May you and yours have a healthy, happy 2020! And thanks to all of you who have written to me over the last year. I love painting and sharing with you, and you are a major motivator in my artistic journey.
In honor of the 2020 election year, 50% of the proceeds from the art I sell this year will be donated to register voters in swing states. So if, during 2020, you are interested in an original, a print, or a commissioned painting (like a house or pet portrait), and you’d also like to help make sure everyone votes in November, just let me know. Best, Lynn
Some sketches are valuable because they bring back memories.
My mother died in 2008. For the last few years of her life, she was bedridden in this room. I recently unearthed this sketch, and it all came flooding back.
House portraits make great gift for yourself, or a birthday, anniversary or holiday present for others. They are a good memento of a past or current house, or a holiday cottage. Prints and notecards can be made for others in the family. Thank you, Amy, for letting me post my painting of your house. For more information, click here.
Every year since our children were small we have been blessed to spend the last week of each summer at Sandy Island, a YMCA Family Camp which occupies an entire small island in the middle of Lake Winnipesaukee, N.H. The same people return the same week each year, and there are lots of wonderful activities in a beautiful natural setting. We love it, and this week has been great. Here is my painting of the dining hall, where meals are served family style.
Channeling my Mom (may she rest in peace) who loved nothing more in life than a summer tomato sandwich with mayonnaise, salt and pepper. I had to paint this one before I allowed myself to eat it.
The animal most tourists want to see in national parks is the grizzly bear, and we were lucky enough to see them twice in our July trip. The first time was in Grand Teton, where a herd of elk were grazing in a meadow a half mile from our lodge. One evening, two grizzlies came out of the woods and began chasing the elk. The chase went back and forth across the meadow for nearly an hour before the grizzlies, winded, gave up.
The second glimpse was in Yellowstone and is captured in this brief video (click here) of a mother and two cubs in the woods, causing a line of cars to stop. If you watch it carefully, you will see the motionless mother, the cub on the left, and at the last second, another cub moving in from the right. At that point, I stopped filming because a tourist (in search of the perfect photo) moved down the embankment toward the bears, and the mother got nervous and began moving toward the tourists. Luckily, at that moment, the park rangers, lights flashing, pulled up to save the tourists from themselves, no doubt for the umpteenth time.
This is my last sketch from this trip, I hope you have enjoyed them.
This little guy, found throughout Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks, is misleadingly named a “ground squirrel,” when he’s actually not a squirrel at all, but rather a smaller relation of a prairie dog. He has to keep on his toes (literally), as he’s the number one prey of the rough-legged hawks who soar above the sagebrush where he builds his (or her) extensive burrows.
We have returned from our 10 day trip to Grand Teton and Yellowstone, but I am still painting from my photos and memories, and look forward to sharing them with you over the coming couple of weeks. This sketch was done sitting on the rocks overlooking “Artist’s Point” at Yellowstone’s Grand Canyon. Click here for a quick video that Bruce took of the actual scene. You can see I’ve taken some artistic license.
Just as we entered Grand Teton National Park, we were greeted by this furry fellow. We stayed inside our car, as everyone has been warned to do, and as he got closer he lowered his head, not to charge us, but to rub it in a clump of sagebrush. Click here to see my 30 second video of our encounter.
Orange and blue are opposites on the color wheel. They make each other sing. This watercolor is wet-on-wet, wet paint on wet paper so the colors bleed into each other. If you want a precise and controlled painting, you work on dry paper and don’t let wet colors touch.
We have two grandchildren, Maggie, age 1, who is trying hard to master the art of walking, and Lila, age 13, who visited us last week (by herself for the first time) from Chapel Hill. It was magical to paint together — Lila painted this lovely abstract — and reading together — the same book!
Esplanade is a tree-lined boulevard in New Orleans that leads to City Park. Here are two sketches I did in different seasons. I am sad to leave New Orleans today, and granddaughter Maggie who just turned 14 months old.
We are in New Orleans visiting our son Andrew, daughter-in-law Eva and year-old granddaughter Maggie. They moved from Brooklyn to New Orleans in April. Here’s a quick sketch at a nearby cafe. And Maggie’s solution to beating the 90 degree heat is to sit in her kiddie pool, drinking smoothies.
People say to me, “Isn’t watercolor the hardest medium? Acrylics and oil are so much more forgiving.“ My response was always that for me watercolor was like being an only child. It’s all I’ve ever known, and so I it feels normal to me. But as I’m learning to paint with acrylics, I’m starting to see what people mean. It’s crazy how with acrylics you can change things over and over. This little painting went through many stages.
A black and white postcard with this photo caught my eye. I loved it, so I translated it into paint, using just two colors, French ultramarine blue and burnt sienna. Together they make varied shades of gray and beige.
These Muscat grapes are a delicate pale color. It’s so much easier with acrylics to paint a dramatic background, so I tried it here with red and green. Red is the opposite for green, which makes it more exciting; a similar background, green on green, is more restful. I prefer the red; which one do you like better? The drip was an accident, but I like it.
