MARIAN DIOGUARDI COLOR-LIGHT-LIFE

Sunny Side start

2012-02-01T09:15:00.001-05:00

This is a painting in process titled "The Sunny Side of the Street" but it's really all about this glowing laundry line in the alley on Burano, Venice.

The glowing laundry and the red reflected light bouncing throughout the entire alley emanating from the red house made this memorable for me. (You all know by now I like red.) My reference photo only reminds me of the painting I wanted to paint. The photo is jumbled and confused and as always, doesn't show me the light or the colors that made me want to paint the painting. For that I have to use my memories of the moment and the painting that I saw in my mind's eye when I stepped around the corner and look into the alley.

Some problems with using photographs are: It might be good photograph but a good photograph does not make a good painting. The colors are always what the camera sees and not what I see. The view is distorted by virtue of getting everything into a lens of a camera and not through my eyes. A photo has much information that doesn't support my objective. So I make changes to paint the painting I see.

Using a photo reference involves color changes, compositional changes, perspective changes, value changes, design changes, scale changes. I am sure that I left something out. So when I have to use my photo as a reference, it's all work and problem solving to bring it to life.

I hope that it goes without saying that this is my photo. I NEVER use a photo taken by anyone else. Not because it is a copyright violation but that I just can never see things the way other people see things.

Off the Easel

2012-01-25T10:32:00.003-05:00

It can get difficult to keep a blog up and keep up with painting. I can let the blogging slip, not so easy with painting. As a consolation prize for not having such an active blog here are two new paintings off the easel which will debut at my next show, opening in March at Athan's European Bakery in Brookline, MA, curated by John Quatrale. He is calling the show "La Dolce Vita" and it's oh so fitting a tile when combined with Athan's suberb cookies, dreamy pastries and outrageous chocolates.

When artists get together, often the topic arises on how to keep up with our painting and the other activities that support our paintings, such as shows, blogs, websites. Then there are the activities that sustain our bodies, such as exercise, cooking and cleaning. And last but not least are the activities that sustain our relationships with family & friends. I manage to carve out the time by giving up TV. I have not owned a TV since 1988. That is my secret.

Thank goodness I have an iPad and can watch the Three Stooges in times of need need. That is my other secret.

Concord Art Association's Shows this Weekend

2012-01-11T08:25:00.005-05:00

Please come to see " The Color and Lightness of Being " by Marian Dioguardi this Saturday, January 14th from 2 to 4 pm. Presented by the Concord Art Association in their historic Members’ Gallery thru January 30th. Located at 37 Lexington Road, Concord, MA 01742. 978-369-2578 - gallery@concordart.org

My solo exhibit is concurrently showing with the Members Juried Show I, juried by Kathleen O'Hara. Join us all for the public reception on January 14th from 2 - 4 PM
CAA is open Tuesday - Saturday 10 AM - 4:30 PM and Sunday Noon - 4:00 PM.

Backwards and Forwards 2011-2012

2012-01-09T12:51:00.022-05:00

To follow on my earlier post on November...more rectangles! Here is a painting that I actually tried NOT to paint. It wouldn't let me go. It just kept calling to me and so I am bringing it into being so I can get on with other ideas (maybe). It's very strange how some pieces have a voice of a Muse whether you want to hear it or not. It's a voice that is as persistent as a cat at 4 AM who wants something "Me-Now".

Thank you all for a very successful year. It was a pleasure to paint and see my paintings become yours. I feel very appreciated. It's the energy that I need to go on to another year of following the Muse down the unknown path. I am hoping that it's not a Siren I am following to the rocks.

Christmas has ended with the twelfth day of Christmas, the Epiphany or Befana . So now it's forward into 2012 starting off with my solo show "The Color and Lightness of Being" at the Concord Art Association January 4 thru 31st running concurrently with their Juried Member's Show I. The reception is this Saturday, January 14 from 2-4 PM. I'll be there.All are invited.

February the 3rd, First Friday, much of my work will be in my studio for that month.

From March - April, I will be showing selected works at Athan's European Bakery, Brooline,MA in an Italian themed show curated by my friend John Quatrale. Athan's has a special spot in my heart won over by their cookies.Their beautiful wedding cakes make me want to get married again. No wedding reception but I will be having an artist reception to be announced!

Then May brings Newton Open studios, May 19 and 20th. I am bringing back a very special event by hanging the art throughout the first floor of my historic Arts and Crafts home so that you can experience art the way I want it to be....on a wall, in a home.

I am booked for shows throughout the year. Stay tuned for more details and surprises.

Oh For The Love of Rectangles

2011-11-27T11:19:00.004-05:00

One of my teachers, Barney Rubenstein, once told our painting class "There are some of us who will leave children behind and then there are those of us who will leave rectangles behind when we die."
I am in the rectangle camp. I love rectangles particularly those rectangles that represent windows, doors and laundry. And like Hopper, I especially love rectangles made from cast light on walls. Why? It's because rectangles are the landscape of my life. It began with looking through the bars of my crib out the window covered in frost to the neighbor's window beyond. There was no great out doors in East Boston. There were empty rectangular lots where buildings once stood. There were triple decker homes with doors and windows that led to places unknown and unseen. Some were safe and some were threatening. They all effected me and left a lasting imprint of rectangles in my psyche and in my art.

Now, my landscape artist friends find this all mystifying. What could be more beautiful than nature? My answer is "finding a rectangle there." I am incurable. And so my love affair with the rectangle is a love story that will end with leaving rectangles behind painted with rectangles.

(Que Bella - Cagnoli, Italy)

The Three Graces - Three Paintings - Brickbottom Open Studios

2011-11-14T16:02:00.009-05:00

I painted these paintings in a series starting with my new favorite green color. That painting led me to explore all sorts of interesting ideas such as different colors and reflections. The series culminated with the turquoise painting. Over the last six months they have been separated to appear in different shows and galleries at different times. They are back together again and I will be showing them at Brickbottom Open Studios this Saturday and Sunday from 12 to 6 PM.
Since they have been reunited I have begun to think of them collectively as "The Three Graces" (Yes, I have been reading classical mythology). I am going to change the titles to reflect my associations with them. Sometimes paintings take on a life of their own. Each of The Three Graces, often referred to collectively, has a name and attributions.

The Grace known as Aglaia means Splendor. She represents beauty, giving and charity. The painting in turquoise, reminds me of Aglaia.

The Grace known as Thalia means Sumptuous Feast. She represents charm and acceptance. Thalia encompasses a most generous hostess. The painting in red reminds me of Thalia.

The Grace known as Euphrosyne means Joy (Mirth). She represents merriment, good cheer and "returning". I think of her attribution "returning" as "giving back". She is the ideal guest, giving back her appreciation in good cheer, mirth and joy.

It's no surprise that it is believed that the Graces have an association with the arts and the Muses.

At Home With Art - a different kind of art show

2011-10-19T13:08:00.005-04:00

This painting, 6 X 8 inches is from my "Small but Mighty" series of small work with a punch. And appropriately enough, the title is: "It's Good To Be Different". Which leads nicely into a different kind of art show I am doing this weekend in Will Kirkpatrick' beautiful historic New England farm home in apple picking land, Hudson, Massachusetts.

Have you ever wondered whether you are going to love that painting that you saw in a gallery when you get it home? Then this is your show.

On this beautiful fall weekend,(Sat & Sun., Oct. 22 & 23, details at the end ) Will and Anne Kirkpatrick have invited three artists, me, Pamela Esty and Carolyn Letvin into their home to decorate the first floor of their house with art for the walls. The public is invited to wander through the rooms and explore the spaces and choices of art we have made for their home. It was Will's idea that people should see art for sale in environments other than sterile galleries or studios.Our art should be seen in the environment for which it is intended; the walls of your home. Every piece will be available for sale and every piece is available for you to try in your home without any obligation on your part.

Should you see a piece of art that you want to see what it looks like on anther wall...we will switch it for you to look at. It's all about learning about how, where, why and art can hang in your home. Its a fun and dynamic process.

And something my customers may not be aware of: If you have bought a piece of mine and then, later within two years, you see a more expensive piece of mine that you like better - I will allow you to turn your first piece back to me for full credit of what you paid towards the new piece. Why? because I want you to have the piece you love best.

Art at Home
124 Forest Ave
Hudson, MA
978-618-4234

Furious and Fast SoWa First Fridays

2011-10-07T14:15:00.005-04:00

It's First Fridays at SoWa (South of Washington Street, Boston). I will be there. I am just back from Maine and feeling a little dissipated but very cheered up about hosting another Happy Post Project mural. Tonight's mural is installed by Percy Fortini-Wright and his students from AIB and we will be collecting more Post-It notes from our visitors. To participate, all you have to do in write the words of something that makes you happy and you will become part of an international movement. These simple messages have been internationally collected and shown. And anyone who knows my work and my studio knows that it is about the little things make you happy. No need to analyze..just time to feel...happy and alive. So come on by and share our vision.

The painting above is 12 X 6 inches and part of my "small but mighty" series.. It's the tallest stack I have ever built and in a bow to colors that are often criticized in art schools for being "too sweet" I have called this "Candied Cups".

SOUTH END OPEN STUDIO 25th Anniversary

2011-09-13T08:47:00.005-04:00

This Saturday and Sunday is the 25th South End Open Studios from 11 to 6 PM. I will be participating in my studio #223B at 450 Harrison Ave, Boston with new works which I call "small but mighty".

I love to paint large but sometimes I can say it all in a small. The painting here is 8 X 6 inches. I promise that this painting will be finished in time . The title is "Homage to Necco Wafers". There are so many things to do with Necco Wafers. I collected stacks of colors! And for those who follow my work, this painting is my delve into soft pastel colors. I wanted to paint something sweet and so this painting and another I call "Candy Cups" will be shown. But not to be forgotten...the bold colors of cups will also be represented in my small but mighty new works ($325- $550).

So please come on by and enjoy my new paintings as well as John Borchard's serene photographs. The South End Open Studios is the largest of the Boston open studios and the first of the season. Wonderful artists to buy from, galleries to see and places to eat. Seeya! A presto!

Summer Studio Happenings

2011-08-26T08:26:00.004-04:00

Summer has gone by so fast. One reason it seemed to fly by was that I have been very busy and happy to be busy. The painting above is one of two commissions which I delivered this month. The client titled it One Cup, Two Cup, Red Cup, Blue Cup after Dr. Seuss books. I love that title because The Cat in the Hat was and still might be my favorite book of all times. (I am not kidding!)Tippy, precariously balanced stacks? Some might say they see that in my work.

My painting also took an unexpected and unplanned turn this summer. I am waiting to see what develops. Do the hands follow the heart or does the heart follow the hands? For some reason, maybe because it was a very hot summer, I became very interested in cooler light and colors. It did occur to me that I do paint my hottest colors in mid winter when I need to feel the light. so I am waiting to see how these cooler feelings incorporate into the body of my work or will I have to wait to next summer for the coolness to reappear.

Life size works! It occurred to me that I have NEVER done a stack of cups in life size rather than iconic size. I was looking at some small panels that I had in my studio and I put one and one together. I am working on a series of life size Not So Still Lifes. I do like the way the compositions are working out on a 12 X 6 inch vertical and the colors...well you will have to just see what happens. It's a mix. Stay tuned. I am hoping to have at least three completed by the South End Studio dates; September 16 & 17.

And last but not least I am headed out to Swan's Island on Monday, weather permitting, to "paint up a storm" with my landscape painting friends Will Kirkpatrick and Gene Mackles. I have no idea what I will come back with. Stay Tuned.

More favorite things

2011-08-11T15:30:00.004-04:00

I love to draw and when I am drawing I like to think about what I am drawing. What I don't like to think about is sharpening a pencil. So a mechanical pencil with a 2mm graphite (lead) in varying hardness is one of my favorite things. I like the Sanford Turquoise Mechanical Pencil, the Staedtler Mechanical Pencil but my favorite of favorites is the Koh_I Noor made in Italy. I find it very helpful to draw with a pencil when I have to get a drawing accurate. It's that somatic memory, using a pencil for tests and math problems that make me get very serious about getting the drawing correct. Charcoal is for fun. Pencils are for work.

Here is the progress on my ongoing painting. It's on my easel now. It's not done yet but it is further along from last week's post. I have long since left my photo reference and so figuring out lighting options, colors and such is taking a little longer than I thought. The painting is not wonky ... my photo is here.

FIRST FRIDAY!

2011-08-05T11:07:00.002-04:00

I love First Friday! I get to meet the most interesting people and we talk about art and they find the painting that is "the one" for them. It's so much fun. Come on by
SoWa First Friday at 450 Harrison Ave Studio 223B and see what we (me and my husband-JB) have been doing.

Less is More?

2011-08-05T10:51:00.002-04:00

Here is a quick post about the painting that I am working on. Now that I am interested in back lit situations and neutrals...this is what I have been doing. This painting not finished; I need a better sense of glancing light from the right and some details are not in there nor are the windows entirely done.

I was going to put in a little laundry line somewhere and or the venetian alley signs that were right above her but now I am looking at this thinking "less is more".

Painting Knives

2011-07-28T10:29:00.005-04:00

I believe I use painting knives 94.99% of the time. Why? Well simply because in 1996 my teacher, Ed Stitt, assigned students to do an all pallet knife painting exercise . It was during that exercise that I felt for the first time that I knew how to paint. I never went back to a brush except for the occasional study to keep my brush skills limber. Since then, on thinking back on why it felt so natural and familiar I realized that I was at home with the pallet knife because it was so like frosting a cake. As a child, I would always frost my mother's cakes and cup cakes.

The painting knife also suits my painting temperament. I like to think, mix a color and then just get the paint on there. It's a rhythm that feels right. It's direct and keeps the color clean. I don't have to stop to clean brushes or add medium. The instrument that you respond to will suit your characteristics too whether it be brush, knife or fingers.

Pallet knives are big and flat and usually have an elbow to keep your knuckles out of the paint when mixing and scraping paint. Painting knives also have elbows but they come in all sizes and shapes. They should be very flexible so that they can be used on both sides like buttering bread. That is not the way I use painting knives but that is the theory.

I use the edge and I use the back only on my painting knives. I own almost every size there is but there are four favorite sizes that I keep returning to depending on the size of the painting and the shape and area that needs to be laid in.

Painting knife strokes are like hand writing, they become yours, idiosyncratic and identifiable. In fact, when I have let other painters borrow my painting knives, I usually have to throw them when I get them back. Other painters always handle painting knives in a way that make it unusable for my idiosyncratic paint handling.There is no right way or wrong way to use a painting knife. There is only your way.

I love pallet knives because the color I want and mix stay clean and gets into the painting fast. Painting knives are easy to clean. Over the years I have developed techniques for blending colors and for "glazing' over colors without medium. As one brush painter said after watching me work with a painting knife :"There isn't anything that I can do with a brush that you can't do with a knife." ( But I didn't add..except for drawing.)

Old Holland Paint and Some of My Favorite Things - PART 1

2011-07-19T12:12:00.004-04:00

Curious about the materials I choose to use? I hope so because these next few blogs will be little art material geeky.
Old Holland Paint . Old Holland is my favorite paint. It's very expensive but that is OK because it does the job I want done, the way I want it. The paint is made in Drieburgen, Netherlands and it is a very old brand.It is has been in production for over 300 hundred years.There was a guild system back then and every apprenticed began by learning to make paint. Old Holland's has the very best and highest concentration of pigments mixed only with cold-pressed extra virgin linseed oil. Simple. Two ingredients;pigment and oil. Pure and simple.

Each tube of paint has a strip of paint painted from the paint in that tube. It shows you what is in there. Old Holland paint batches do vary. I don't mind working with that variation. I know what I am working with and it's honest to what I see on the tube.

Because the paint has a high concentration of pigments, it is a very stiff and thick paint. For my painting knife handling i want this characteristic. But brush painters may find themselves needing to add a medium. Old Holland paint, after it dried in the test of my teacher Ed Stitt from ten years ago, appeared to be somewhat brittle on canvas without medium. That rigidity is a characteristic that works for me because I paint primarily on painting panel.

I do use other paint manufacturers such as Gamblin, always the Windsor Newton Sap Green, RGH, Rembrandt, Williamsburg Oils. Which manufacturer I use sometimes depends on my budget or a particular color availability. I am now trying a Vasari paint that I bought on sale. It's rich and smooth but that is not a characteristic that I need with a painting knife on panel so I don't think I will be buying more unless I become a brush painter. I may stray every once and a while on the recommendation of another artist but I always come back home to Old Holland. It's thick and rich. It's heavily pigmented with the best color. It's honest and simple and reliable. I get great coverage with this paint and so it lasts me a very long time and it's performance pays it's way.

Let it all hang out! My opinion about photos and painting.

2011-07-07T07:55:00.008-04:00

I have noticed this trend since digital cameras, Photpshop and digital manipulation has become ubiquitous. Digital cameras have given many people easy access to "making art". Their are people who use Photoshop to make their photographs look like paintings and people use photographs to make their paintings look like photographs. Their are even people who paint other peoples photographs and claim it as their own!This trend really struck me back in 2007 at an art show and seems to be growing.

It's a trend that I am not fond of because I want to see the painter's eye and hand in their work. The soul of a computer program leaves me cold. Likewise, my early experience with picture making was black and white photography. I am still a fan of using photons (light parcels)to make photographs. The purity speaks to me. I like to see the eye, the moment and the judgment of the photographer in the photograph.

I am bored with all the derivative art that is speaking in the voice of a computer program. Now, in the spirit of FULL disclosure, I do use photo references. I use them as a reference, sketch or reminder of something I want to incorporate into a painting. I take a photo to remind me of the painting I want to paint. There are ways to use digital images for painting. For me an interesting painting has paint on it. It shows the artists hand (drawing , brush strokes and texture), mind (decisions about composition,form and color) and heart (undefinable).

So above you see how I use my digital reference to make art. My painting is not a photo. What would Magritte say?

First Friday on the First!

2011-07-01T09:51:00.006-04:00

STUDIO 223B Open Studio
Come to the July First First Friday Open Studios here in the SoWa Art District, 450 Harrison Ave, Boston, MA. There is art for everyone: contemporary realism, painting, pottery, sculpture,photography, jewelry and abstract work. In all about 45 studios will be open.

NEWS! Some of my cup paintings (Sitting Pretty in Turquoise 24" X 36') have come back from a gallery show and will be there for you along with two new mysterious laundry line paintings.

Fleeting Light, 29 X 21 inches

Chain Letter 2011! or Flash Mob Art Show

2011-06-29T10:46:00.005-04:00

ONE DAY and a possible 10,000 pieces on exhibit in one location in Boston alone. WHAT will happen?

On Saturday July 16th 5-8 PM, 2011, Samson Gallery is the Boston location for the Global Chain Letter Exhibit (happening at the same time in London, New York, Johannesburg, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Zurich, Paris, Seoul and BOSTON!

""Chain Letter" is a global group show wherein 10 artists 'we" admire are invited to participate. Each invited artist invites 10 other artists that they admire. Those artists then invite 10 more and so on." The cycle has now come to a close and ........

the result is an exponentially massive artist_curated show based entirely on admiration.My work will be there.I'll be there because I'll have to see this to believe it. Oh what fun!

"Culling" Paintings - It's tough but it's for your own good.

2011-06-20T09:35:00.004-04:00

I LIKE this painting; it shows my intention...the beauty of Jell-O in frosted glasses, looking like jewels and gems . Having been a gem buyer, I can assure you of the similarities (and the differences-gems don't melt under light). I have two Jell-O paintings hanging now. One is in my Boston studio and this one, Broken Jewel Jell-O,is at the Copley Society through June 28th. It was juried into the show by George Nick, a much admired, respected teacher and master painter.It's a wonderful show!

But what you won't see anywhere are the three Jell-O paintings that I did before this. I decided those paintings failed me in my intentions and executions. I destroyed them and threw them out. I "culled" my paintings. Culling work is difficult for many artists to do. You can observe this in their body of work because certain pieces stand out as perfection while others may swim in the sea of mediocrity (or worse).

Most fine painters will do this and each of those painters have their own reasons for doing so. For me I prefer to look at the best of my paintings showing me what I did right. The mediocre paintings only tell me what I did wrong. And so I learn from those, throw them out and move along to painting what I feel is right and successful.
And yes, sometimes it's very tough to do.I see something in the painting that I liked very much and think "that can work". But in the end I know in my heart that it doesn't really live up to what I aspire to. Away it goes.

Paintings tell you what they want.

2011-06-10T10:58:00.010-04:00

A picture is worth a thousand words.
For the Newton Art Association demonstration, last February, I painted this still life on a green background and the red plate. The red just looked so strong. I only had eyes for red. Months later this painting hung at the Brickbottom show, FEAST. It was there that is started speaking to me. The green was overpowering the red. That's hard to do but I couldn't deny it was happening.

I thought of cutting down and re-stretching the canvas so I took it home and hung it on my wall.It was there that I realized that the painting wanted to be blue; more than want..NEEDED blue. Having nothing to lose, I brought the painting into my studio and changed the background from imagination. To my eye it completely transformed the piece. I like it and the painting is happy. Paintings tell you what they want.As artists, we have to learn to listen.

Dimensions are 24 by 24 inches

Vessels of Color and Light

2011-06-02T14:04:00.003-04:00

I am looking forward to the pleasure of your company at Gallery Seven this Saturday, June 4th from 7-9 PM.

Nick Johnson and Kelli Costa have established a very fine framing service and an exceptional gallery. Due to their experience in the arts; Kelli as an assistant to the Lee Gallery in Winchester and Nick as an instructor for the New England School of Photography their reputation as extraordinary gallerists is now well recognized throughout the arts community. It is my honor to be showing in this two person show,along with B. Glee Lucas in Vessels of Color and Light through June 18th. I Kelli expresses and understands the art as much as any artist who has created it. And so I would like to share with you her write up on this show because I couldnt have said it better myself.

In the exhibition Vessels of Color and Light painters Marian Dioguardi and B. Glee Lucas paint images of everyday objects, but they portray the light interacting with the subject matter in very different ways. In Lucas’s work we see the translucent quality of wine glasses and glassware as the light passes through them. The glasses are always in the foreground still and undisturbed. Some empty, some half full, but always drawing the viewer’s eye through them to the background making one aware of the weightlessness of light.

In contrast, Dioguardi’s paintings of teacups and bowls celebrate the solidity and mass of the object. She uses bold and vibrant colors with subtle shadowing around the edges. There are large solitary teacups atop saucers which are strikingly powerful. Then there are stacks of teacups on saucers and towering images of bowls nestled together. All appearing to be on the verge of toppling over at any moment.

Dioguardi’s use of light emphasizes the weight and volume of the object. While Lucas’s work is about the light that describes the object. In the end, both of these artists create work that surpasses the content in the painting. It’s more about the harmony, form and light in front of us then it is about the subject matter itself.

Experience the Mysterious

2011-06-01T08:00:00.003-04:00

After weeks of being away from the easel preparing for exhibits and open studios, I have returned to the work I left behind; my laundry line series. I have always been fascinated with shadow colors and more recently found a desire to paint back lit objects. Back lighting makes painting much more challenging. With that in mind, I set off to do the first of two paintings from the back courtyards of Burano. These are quiet places with interesting but quiet color and light at the end on the day.

This is the painting that has been emerging. It feels very different than my previous work. There is something that is profoundly changing here but I don't know what it is. When this happens, I find it best to "go with it". The underlying changes I am feeling may remain in my next work or disappear entirely or reappear years later to influence my work. Sometimes it feels like someone else is painting my picture. When this happens it can be blamed or credited to the "Muse".

This painting is not completed. I have NO IDEA where it is going, which is so unlike the way I usually work. But as Einstein said " The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed." My eyes are open. I see it but I have no idea what I am looking at! The adventure continues.

Finishing Up

2011-05-25T11:35:00.005-04:00

This blog has been a long time coming. Why? Because other things required attention. The good things: organizing for open studios and shipping paintings to galleries. The bad things:looking for stuff that I lost over the course of twenty days of being extremely busy. The ugly things: cleaning up my studio. That has to be done once a year whether I want to or not.

But I am back on schedule, painting, blogging and enjoying the company of good friends, family and pets. So, after I made the changes in the still life I went in and blocked in as near as I could observe the overall color and value of the broad shapes.

The next day, I went back in over what I had painted and resolved the finer, smaller shapes and values of each object. And to my surprise, I finished the painting. This is what the painting looks like fully resolved.

Last but not least here is the painting in full color. I am told that green can be a difficult color to work with but I decided that this green was the only color that could bring everything together.

From Start to Finish - Next Stage

2011-05-05T09:37:00.007-04:00

What's different here from the where I last left off?

I added another plate underneath the original base plate. Why? because as much as I prepare for a painting, a painting takes own its own life. It speaks to me in some way. At the end of a painting day it is a whisper of what the painting might need "maybe something to break up that background color field, a little something extra...".

However, I usually hear what a painting needs loud and clear when I wake up the next morning: "Get another plate in there and make it a sweet color to cut those sour colors". When I get back into my studio I have to talk myself into making the change.
I ask myself "is it REALLY worth changing the painting? Do I really need it"? And as usual the answer comes back "of course I do, it will make the painting better".

So out came more plates. Colors were tried. The right color was found because I know it when I see it. The still life set up was changed. The drawing corrected and the painting got a little further along. Stay tuned.

Frome Start to Finish continued

2011-04-27T06:45:00.006-04:00

" Every fine fisherman has a few fancy stunts that work for him and for almost no one else".

Here is the next installment about my painting processes but keep in mind that quote. My painting is a process cobbled together with techniques and approaches which work for me. My paintings look the way they do because I have taken some of this from one teacher; some of that from another teacher; a little dash of that from a historic painter; a smidgen from my colleagues and mixed it all up with everything that I've got inside of me. And Voila..out comes my paintings and they are distinctively mine.

After the still life is set up and the sketch is done, I fully draw, in paint, the composition onto my painting surface, which is panel here. This drawing is mono chromatic, typically in black and white.In this case (I rarely do this) I have outlined each cup it the local color of that cup. I did this to give me a visual clue how these colors were going to work. This gave me an opportunity to make changes, easily, should I want to.

After the drawing on the panel is completed I paint by mixing colors and "blocking in" broad accurate colors in a very graphic way. I always starting with the background. I was taught this by Ed Stitt and I find it incredibly helpful to begin this way. All colors and values relate to the background.(And if you go to his website...you will recognize my cups and saucers which were used when teaching still life painting!)

So in this stage four image, here, you will see that the background has been painted in, the bottom plate is painted in and I just started to work on the large bowl when it was time to stop and cook dinner. To be continued....

From start to Finish - Stage I and II

2011-04-14T14:29:00.004-04:00

This is going to be a little series on my method. This blog is for you, Heather.I thougt it might be fun to show everything in black and white until the end just to let you have some fun guessing what the colors will be.

I start with an idea. This idea was that I wanted to do a horizontal stack and work with some colors that typically do not show up in my work. I went to sleep thinking of this. The color combination came to me in a dream (really!). So the next day, I started pulling out my cups,bowls and dishes to build my still life. The background color was the toughest to choose.

After I set up, I did, as I typically do, a very sketchy sketch to look at composition and to determine the proportions of my painting. For this painting I chose 24 X 36 inches or 61 X 91 cm.And you can see here the sketch done with pencil. sometimes I will pick up charcoal (whichever is easier to find).

Stay tuned: next week, next stage.

Life is Beautiful

2011-03-31T16:13:00.003-04:00

The title of this painting is Life is Beautiful. The title arises from my fascination with laundry as the flags of life. I found this to be a striking image, the shapes of the silhouetted black clothing against a festive and pastel lit court yard. I see it as a tension between the weight of the horizontal black laundry line against the beautiful verticals of Bright Buranese homes. "Beauty will save the world."

And on to my monthly reminder that tomorrow night in the SoWa First Friday. And you are invited by to the open Studios of 50 artists. I am in Studio 223B, 450 Harrison Ave, Boston, Ma. There are 13 or 14 new paintings from my current laundry line series. Just walking in to the studio will make you feel warm and happy. And if it really is going snow tonight, you are going to need a good dose of Italian sunshine.Monica Cesarato tweets me the weather from Venice everyday and I hate to tell you this but its been beautiful there!Thank you Monica because no matter what the weather is here the sun is out somewhere.

Painting in the Shadows and "this and that" chat

2011-03-25T11:54:00.007-04:00

As promised, I am showing the challenging and exciting colors which I see in the shadows. It's the SURPRISING colors that I want to paint and show you. I find those colors in the shadows. It's bright and bold colors in the light but it's the shadow colors where I shine.

I love the city of Venice, no surprise there. Thanks to Monica Cesarato who has a Venetian centric Twitter feed I wake up every morning to all things wonderfully Venetian (not to mention good recipes).

And I was also very fortunate to be found by Bostoniano.info "Your one-stop website for all Italian related news,events and information in Boston and the surrounding areas." This site and their Twitter feed was a great way to follow the 150 Year celebartion on Italy's unification and to follow all fun things Italiano. Not to leave out the fun interview I did with Briana Palmer: "Life Line, an Interview with Contemporary Painter Marian Dioguardi"

Last but not least a rare photo capture of the inside of my husband's mad scientist's secret lair and project.

Only the Shadow Knows..what?

2011-03-18T10:10:00.003-04:00

My cat taught me that the most interesting things happen in the shadows. And for me that is true. My paintings are full of light but the secret to painting thatlight is not the color or the value of the light. Paying attention to only that aspect of light just gives you "bright". To really paint a sense of light there needs to be a contrast. Looking at the painting above, if you can visualize the painting with out the shadows cast by the clothesline, you will have a bright painting. The colors take care of that. But by adding in the shadows, and getting the right amount of darkness (called value), the light comes through.

Another thing I love about shadows is that they have their own distinct color. Its not enough to take the violet and add more purple to make it darker, nor does it work to just add black. You really have to look into the shadows to see the colors, sometimes determined by the intensity and type of the light and the reflected colors.
Also, it is important to remember that the lightest part of the shadow is always darker than any color that is in the light; this includes black.

Currently, I am working on another cup stack painting. Interestingly, most of the painting is in the shadow. I am enjoying observing and painting all the strangest in-nominate colors, like greenish orangey yellow grey. I will post more about that next week.There are little patches of light and bright but I am bring most of my color sense into the shadows. The shadow knows where the light in comes from.

Happiness is...

2011-03-12T10:06:00.005-05:00

Seeing an artistic vision become real. That was one of the many things that made me happy at last week's First Friday. I finally saw the canal scene which I envisioned five years ago become real on the wall of my studio. For those lucky enough to come by that evening, you saw it too. It may never be experienced again. I took this picture with all eight homes as they hung on the wall, last Friday. Today there are six homes (two now in private collections). You can also see the studies that I prepared, painted studies and line drawings, before I made the paintings. It all came together and it felt very satisfying. Thank you everyone.

The other thing that made me happy was to see my friend Mario's project become real. He had a great team, TEAM HAPPY, who recorded, filmed, showed videos , made music, sent out good vibes and proved happiness is contagious. Two hundred people contributed to expanding our Happy Post installation that night.
There is a great Erik Angra Happy Post video here. Please take the time to click on the link and be happy.

What makes YOU Happy?

2011-02-28T13:07:00.004-05:00

Taking a walk in Burano on a sunny day and finding all the little quirky places full of life and laundry lines. It's full of color, light and life.

Laundry lines make me happy but you all know that by just looking at my paintings. This SoWa First Friday on March 4th, I will be showing the suite of paintings I call "Looking at Life". Based on my walks in Burano, these eight paintings depict my joy of discovery in looking at the homes and lives of the Buranese. Using my artistic license, I have recreated my feelings more than I have recorded the scene. Some homes are real some are imagined. The home in the painting above "Who lives There?"; real or imagined? That was REAL! Gottcha.

So what makes you happy? Tell us this First Friday in the Happy Post project started by my friend Mario Chamorro. He believe happiness is contagious and so I am trying to help him prove it by spreading happiness. Mario has happy agents from all around the world collecting Post-It notes from individuals with the words or drawings of things that make them happy. We want to know what makes you happy. So, we will have Post-It notes and markers in my studio for you to contribute to this fun non-profit project. We will also have on the wall , an installation started from Post-It notes that he collected in Boston. We need your happiness to help it grow.

Painting yourself into a corner

2011-02-17T10:08:00.006-05:00

This week. I have been having a discussion with another painter about making paintings from photographs. It's my view that a professional painter, under no circumstances, should ever paint a photograph taken by someone else. It's a given that painting from someone else's photograph, without permission, and selling it as your own is an illegal copyright infringement. Even with permission, copying a photograph will not advance your creativity or skills. If you love the photograph, as a photograph, enjoy it for what it is, another person's expression of creativity; not your own.

Painting (copying) from photographs is a technique that I see all too often in student painters. And when they learn to paint that way, they stay that way. You can paint yourself into a corner by relying on the photograph. You will never develop drawing skills (or you can loose drawing skills). You won't develop the painting tools which only come through painting from live observation. Too bad...there is SO much to add in a painting when using a photographic reference.

So can you ever paint from a photograph? I don't like to but I do it. It's OK if
1) you have taken the photo yourself
2) if you already know how to paint
3) if you do not have access to the image for the duration of making a painting.
(I always paint my still lifes from life because they are set up in my studio as long as I need them there to paint from.)

I use photographic thumbnails as the starting point for my Burano laundry lines. The thumbnail is there to remind me of THE PAINTING that I saw in my mind when I looked at the subject. I take the photograph not because it makes a good photograph...but because it reminds me of the painting I want to paint.

Above is the photo of the laundry line that I liked. You can also see the painting which I saw when I took the photo and then painted in my studio. After the painting was completed, I decided to paint out the white shirt against the blue building. I liked it there originally but in the end, evaluating the painting, I decided it was a better painting with out the white shirt.The white shirt was distracting.I drew the painting by hand...using the photo. I am surprised how close my drawing is by drawing by "eye balling" (meaning by just looking and measuring the angles with my paint brush).

On the March 4th, SoWa First Friday,from 5-9 PM, I will have several works up showing my process for this laundry line series; starting with the thumbnail photo, the painted studies and drawings in between. Come by and tell me what you think.

Painting the town...Burano Venice, Italy

2011-02-10T07:47:00.005-05:00

There are beautiful towns, buildings and laundry lines everywhere. Burano stands out among them all. For a painter, a colorist, and someone who still hangs their laundry,the beauty of Burano can be overwhelming. Located far in the Venetian lagoon, this was a the quiet island of lace makers and fisher men. The homes are painted in bright colors to be visible fishermen coming in from the sea through the fog. In sunny weather, the island dazzles.

I have been painting and documenting the laundry lines here since 1998. My last trip in June 2010 was nostalgic, as Burano experiences changes. Burano is now on a major tourist vaporetto stop. The Buranese women have begun to move their laundry lines to backside court yards and side alleys. The front of their colorful homes are now decorated with flower boxes. It's beautiful but generic.So in my new laundry line series of Buarno here I have included ,corners, back courtyards where laundry is now found. To the women of Burano who still hang their laundry in the front of their homes I say "grazie mille".

The painting above of a back courtyard and neglected back doors was rich for its decrepit but lush and layered textures. And still the meager laundry lines stood out and called to me.

Cure for Cabin Fever - Art Everywhere!

2011-02-03T11:42:00.004-05:00

I am very honored to have been invited to be one of the first two painters invited to participate in Art new England's Art Everywhere initiative, bringing art into alternative gallery spaces. It's my kind of thing. I like it when art shows up in unexpected places. Since, as many of you know, color is my thing. This is celebration is my prescription to cure your cabin fever.

You Are Invited to a New Grand Gallery Opening!
This Friday evening, February 4th, from 6-8 PM the new Art Everywhere Gallery at the Boston Center for Adult Education celebrates their grand opening with my oil paintings and water colors of Jacob Higginbottom. Join us for the opening celebrations with a complimentary wine and hors d'oeuvres reception at the Boston Center for Adult Education (BCAE), 122 Arlington Street, Boston MA.617-267-4430
This show is an Art New England's ArtEverywhere Project, showcasing art in exciting alternative gallery spaces. Join us!

And now a report on Snow Camp!

The red truck in snow was painted over the first two days in grey, cold, steely, and snowy weather. Did you know that snow can bury your pallet so that you can't see your paint. It's ironic that I should have brought my sun umbrella.

This is a little scene, Snow Path,which I started on our last day. Sure, it was clear and sunny but it was also 5 degrees below zero when we got out there, warming to a balmy 14. I was only able to work on it for about an hour and a half.I will have to finish it from memory.

The What and Why of Snow Camp

2011-01-27T08:43:00.007-05:00

There are the scenes from my windows at home this morning... and you wonder why I paint hot sunny paintings all winter. Wonder no more. I need the color.

Tomorrow, I will pack as much warm clothing that I can possibly wear and still be able to move and head off to Stapleton Kearn's Snow Camp, Year 2; far into the White Mountains. We paint snow. There is no color quite like white. And that's why I sign up for this insanity. It's also fun to meet and be with other crazy painters in this shared insanity. Stapleton, sometimes called the Frank Zappa of painters is vastly entertaining as he is knowledgeable. So next week Ill show you what I did or didnt do there. The weather is expected to be warmer than last year. Lucky me

Simple is as Simple does

2011-01-20T09:48:00.003-05:00

I take a simple subject. I paint it simply. Not always so easy. There is a lot to be left out and a lot of work and reworking to get to the essential. But what I find there is a joy and a celebration in the process of distillation. I feel that by keeping my work focused on simple subjects, simple elements (color,light and form) it actually becomes more intense. It's like looking through a pin hole,reducing a sauce or a fine perfume.

Next phase of course will be to look at the complex and simplify. But I am not so ready to jump there. I like to keep thing simple. However, some thing are not always in my control.

Discovery

2011-01-12T12:34:00.008-05:00

Here is Sydney Hardin , an artist in her own right. She loves pink. She loved my painting, La Dolce Vita. I loved her in her hat. The hat she made and the painting that I made were made for each other.

Michele Kennedy writes a wonderfully written, accessible blog on design the department of the interior and I was very honored to be featured in her Curatorial Affairs section of her blog. Michele is not only a fine, fun and elegant designer she has an education that encompasses art and curating.Check out the link because Michele got a scoop on my newest work before it hit the website.

An end to cultural elitism? Who knows?

2011-01-06T09:55:00.005-05:00

I don't know the answer to this question. There is a very provoking commentary in the Globe today written by Neal Gabler.
However, I have been thinking about this very question every time that I hear that a gallery is closing. I always wonder what went wrong? Or are people just out there looking for art on their own through the Internet, word of mouth, finding it when it intersects their busy life and just having fun at all the open studios. People should have confidence in what they like. After all, I do believe you should ultimately buy the art that will make you happy..for what ever reason it does make you happy.That's why I paint.

I continue to paint my "Here's Looking at Life-Laundry Lines on Burano" polyptych. But I was dropped by a gallery once for painting Laundry Lines. The gallery owner saying that 'people in my town don't even know what a laundry line is , never mind looking at other people's dirty clothes". I didn't argue or even tell the gallerist that there are clean clothes on laundry lines! I just crept away and kept painting...my laundry lines. Three years later, I had two solo shows in other galleries...featuring laundry lines. So in those black moments of self doubt I wonder; "Who is going to want laundry lines?". I then find a smile on my face as I think; "I do" . I continue to paint away. No one ever accused me of being an elitist and I do know what I like.

Beauty Will Save The World

2010-12-31T11:04:00.011-05:00

I just read a quote from Dostoevsky "Beauty Will Save the World" and there could not be a more wonderful wish for the New Year from me. So in my own little way, one painting at a time, I paint my happy paintings. This year ended on a high note as two of my favorite pieces, The Almost Flying Saucers and A Two Story Family, were purchased for an apartment building in Chelsea which will be home to 32 families. I lived in Chelsea for nearly ten years in a two room apartment. It's still near and dear to my heart.

My new laundry line series based on Burano, Italy is on it's way! And here is the first view of five completed pieces in the polyptych of 8 that I am painting. I am also posting the studies that I started with because no matter what you plan for; paintings do dictated what they need and want while you are painting them. That's why its art.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Ars longa, vita brevis

2010-11-30T08:06:00.004-05:00

"Ars longa, vita brevis. - Art is long, life is short."

That is not the title of my new painting (copyright 2010) above, this painting will be hanging at the Gallery at Boston Art and Framing, 100 Charles Street, Boston, MA from December 8 th through January 22 nd 2011 in a still life show curated by Pamela Sienna. The opening will December 9th during the festive and fun Beacon Hill HolidayDecember Stroll . You can stroll on in and be inspired and nourished by the beautiful art and refreshed with food and libations. All that is needed then is just a little snow to make it picture perfect.

The Latin quote above struck a cord this morning on many levels. All artists hope to have our art live beyond death. But also, in owning art, life beyond the artist occurs. Over the years I have bought contemporary art of my peers and it has always made me fell important to be partaking in preserving the culture of the time in which I was born ..

In addition, at home, I have the honor of living with paintings that touched my mother-in law's life. It's interesting because, though I feel a thread of connection with the artists who created the art, I feel more of a connection to her life because of the paintings with which she chose to live . The art she so telling of who she was and what she wanted out of life. She is living with us through the art she bought!

There is something magical about buying an original piece of art. One becomes a guardian of culture but then you become known by it as well. Through buying art, you do share the artist's vision but then, by virtue of placing in on your walls, it becomes imbued and synonymous with your own life. Think about giving the gift of art this year because, as it is said: Art is long, life is short. And I say, a life shared through art is forever.

Brickbotton Open Studios

2010-11-19T18:33:00.002-05:00

It's that wonderful time, Brickbottom Open Studios, Saturday and Sunday from noon to 6 PM. TheBrickbottom community of artists partnering with the Joys street artists makes for a dynamic and happening open studios. And I'll be there , in Studio c-214 and very happy to see you all come by. Brickbottom, 1 Fitchburg Street, Somerville, MA.

Laundry Lines- My Latest Series

2010-11-13T09:32:00.008-05:00

For those of you who are familiar with all my work, you know that I have been documenting the beauty of laundry lines since 1999. It's a subject near and dear to my heart. I returned from Italy this past June, 2010 and so I began work on my new series of laundry line paintings based on my studies done in Burano, Venice.

How does a new series begin? With and old idea that I have had kicking around in my head for three years. I wanted to construct a scene of a Burano canal walk made from individual paintings, yet hanging as a whole. So I chose 8 houses because of their shapes , size and colors to be on my canal walk. I worked up small gouache (opaque water based paint) studies to see how they would hang together as a whole. And I made notes of the changes I will be making when I paint them in scale in in oil paint.
Then, I worked up these little studies into scaled up compositions (about two and a half times the little color studies). The largest painting will be 23" x 23". This is determined simply bu what felt "good" to my eye. I don't really have a formula.
In my line studies, I also get to see how the entire composition plays out. It also gives me another chance to make changes before I have the panels built to the non standard sizes. My painting panels are made to fit my paintings; not my paintings to fit standard sized panels. My paintings might be about ordinary things but I do not make ordinary paintings.

All the panels , then need to be primed on the sides because I will be painting parts of the image onto the sides. There are eight and possibly nine paintings that will be included in my Burano canal walk scene.
Then there are 11 other paintings planned , laundry lines, but all in different scales. Below you will see my thumbnail sketches and my scratings about possible scale.
My paintings may look simple but that's how they look. It's not how they are done. The work and fun is about to begin.

Conclusion of the Concord Art Association Demo

2010-11-04T15:28:00.005-04:00

I want to do a bit of an instructional post here to conclude my 2 hour demonstration at the Concord Art Association on October 27th.

In one image you can see the under-drawing of the still life that is lit on the table...all edible pumpkins. In the next image, I am painting and talking and looking and painting and talking. Thank you to Helen Powell for these images taken during the demonstration. And finally, the completed painting which was finished, after12-15 more hours of work, back in my studio. I cannot paint a painting from start to end in two hours. Pallet knife painting is very slow.

This painting was done on linen and because the surface is very different than the hard surface that I am used too, I used a brush about half the time and I applied the paint with the pallet knife the other half of the time.

I needed to make some color and temperature adjustments when I brought this set up back to my studio because the light there is different than Concord's gallery. So I started by checking colors and temperatures on the colors and corrected them.

After I get a good drawing on the canvas, I do look at the still life for references BUT I look MORE at what I am painting. When all is said and done, the still life is taken away, the pumpkins are cooked and what you are left with is the painting.

And my composition goes edge to edge. That is a design that appeals to me. Tere is no room for a frame but if someone wanted to frame the painting...thank goodness for floating frames that allow the entire composition to be appreciated.

I kept seeing more and more colors in the "blue pumpkin" and so I painted them in there until I couldn't see anymore. Please feel free to email me and ask me any questions about how I got from the starting point to the completed painting. I'll be happy to answer your questions.

This painting will be at the SoWa First Friday Open Studio on November 5thom 5-09 pm, if you want to see it in person. I am in Studio 223B at 450 Harrison, Ave, Boston, Ma. Parking is free.

Beauty in My Time and Place

2010-10-15T09:34:00.009-04:00

Beauty vs. The Modernist has been a hot topic in art blogospheres lately, as if they are mutually exclusive (not for me). This idea probably started when curators were, are driven by having "new eyes" discovering the new and the shocking. Beauty went out of favor then, I guess because it was seen as the low hanging fruit. This does not make beauty irrelevant , it just means it is not fashionable. Fashion comes and fashion goes..beauty is forever.

There is common beauty (beauty we recognize, such as a sunset, scenery, alove betwen a mother and child). Then there is uncommon beauty (a plastic bag dancing in the breeze ie. American beauty). And there is superficial beauty (candy). But what brings beauty into our lives and keeps it there is not the prettiness but the meaning. And this brings me to the picturs above.

I did this picture in first grade, out of cut paper. I was raised in East Boston, a working class, what would be called a disanvatanged neighbor hood, inner city, industrial, and squeezed between the airport and ship yards. It was not pretty but to me it was and is beautiful. Amongst the most beautiful things in my nieghborhood were laundry lines, full of colors and shapes and stories. It was my chore to hang out the laundry and its something that I love to watch my mother doing, I loved to do it and I love to do it to this day For me, it's beautiful and meaningful. So though this piece is ostensibly about the Pied Piper, it's really about my own time and place and my first laundry line to make it to an exhibition.

And now this takes me onto my current project, another Laundry Line series based on the laundry lines of colorful Burano, Venice. When I went to Italy for the first time, I felt as if I had come home and what did I find the most beautiful thing in Italy to be? The Laundry Lines. I have been painting them ever since. You are looking at my gouache studies done and hanging in my Boston studio. There are eight studies, total, small and in color. I am working out the colors, the sizes, composition and problems here. After being generally satisfied with what I have built (to hang as a street but to sell individually), I worked up , what I call 'blue prints" line drawings done to scale so I know what size panel to build. I dont paint to fitcommercial size panels, I make THE composition I want and the panel is made to my composition.

My panels are being built now. I will begin painting them at the end of this month, October. They will be eight to hang as a street. There are another ten that are individual, all on their own.

So what is beautiful? That which is pleasing and meaningful, beautiful on the outside and beautiful on the inside. In Venice, when one woman wants to compliment another she will say; "She hangs a beautiful line." Need I say more?

A humbling story

2010-10-05T10:35:00.004-04:00

Here's the story, I promised you, about the cookie painting.

Three weeks go while I was in my studio on a Sunday afternoon, working and open to the public, a father with his two sons came wandering in by chance . As I like to do; I invited the two boys to touch my cookie painting. It was clear that the boys were delighting in my work and the fun of touching a painting.

They all left, only later to return with their mother to show her "THE cookies". As the parents looked at my paintings, the father turned to me and asked if I had shown with Alper's Fine Art (I had) because this family owned on of my pieces bought from Alper's. They had bought this painting,One Humble Home - 2001, because the oldest of the two boys, only a toddler eight years ago, had pointed at the painting and announced that the window was open! The parents, taken by his connection to the work and to the painting, bought it.

Fast forward eight years and here is the same child , older wiser and still making connections and observations about my work that most adults don' make. (turns out he's a Leo like me). We had never met before. I knew of the story through Alper's and here we are eight years later connecting, by chance? Once again: everything is connected to everything. And this was a very specal moment to meet the child I had only heard about and yet remebered so well.

My Secret Project. I have lost the battle. I am putting my work on hold, after six paintings. I have to ask myself "is this working?". My largest obstacle is the transient nature of the material and taking a photo doesnt capture it, so I cant take that easy route out.

But I am working on more laundry lines and cup paintings and they are all making me happy.

SOUTH END OPEN STUDIO WEEKEND

2010-09-23T06:44:00.007-04:00

SOUTH END OPEN STUDIO WEEKEND is this weekend , Saturday and Sunday Spetember 25 and 26th. 300 south end artists open their studios to exhibit and sell their art. My studio is participating of course, #223B Harrison Ave, Boston. It going to be beautiful weather, there are great restaurants, there is even some free parking but most of all there is fun!

(Our apologies to the Jamaica Plain Artists because our dates were changed to their weekend out of respect Yon Kippur). That just means there is double the fun this weekend in Boston.

La Dolce Vita is my featured painting on the blog this week. It translates to "The Sweet Life" and as one should expect, the painting is much larger than life (46 X 46 inches) in celebration of LIFE!. This style cookie is ubiquitous in Italian American communities. Cookies, just like these, have been at all my life's celebrations from birth, birthdays and every time my Aunt KAren from East Boston comes to visit. These cookies will be at my funeral so they represent a life, in a way.

This is a very textural painting. Texture is a big part of many artists's work but it's a part that most artisit do not share texture and touch with the public because, as a rule, one should not touch a painting.

That's WRONG for this one! It cries out to be touched and so you can touch it. I paint on panel.The panel does not flex and so there is no danger of the touch pressure causing the paint to flex and weaken the bond with the substrate. Another reason to want people to touch it is that it is irrisitable to touch. Also, when it is sold, it will be easy enough to wipe it downn and apply new varnish. But I hope that in some way, the buyer would want the touching to remain part of the painting and incorporate those human touches into the sweet life of the painting.

I have a special story to tell next week about a very special re-connection that occured because of this painting and people touching it. Life isn't just sweet. It's strange.

Success, Struggle and Failure:all in a day's work

2010-09-17T10:04:00.004-04:00

My apologies for not keeping a post a week going but Life happens. I will do better. I promise. This post is about a little bit of this and that.

Success: my painting shown here, the Big Bold Cup Stack was accepted into the Concord Art Association's Regional Roddy Competition juried and curated by Victoria Munroe of Victoria Munroe Fine Art, Newbury Street, Boston. I am really always very honored to be accepted into this competition which is open to all artists. This year 95 pieces of art were selected out of 500. The juror, Victoria Munroe must have to work very hard. I cant imagine being able to do this and then hang the show. Thank you to everyone at the Concord Art Association for all your efforts and hard work. The reception is Sunday, September 19th from 2-4 pm. The exhibit runs through October 17th. Awards will be given.

Struggle: well, as you know I am painting a Top Secret new subject which has really challenged my eye. I am about five paintings into the project and with every new painting comes a new problem which challenges my abilities, spirit and motivation. This is space is where many give up and go back to painting just a good simple beautiful piece of fruit. I feel the draw.
This project is not about fun anymore. It's about a vision and the will and struggle to overcome the obstacles to realize that vision, regardless of success or failure. As an artist, to make art, you have to want to struggle more than you want to paint.

Finally, Failure: I had an idea (always more ideas than time). I wanted to see if I could develop a painting theory. (Here I am going to get technical but I hope I don't bore everyone.)
I wanted to paint a painting and for the lightest lights, use only one primary color (red, blue yellow) and white.
For the medium values areas (not light nor dark), I wanted to use only the secondary colors (orange green violet) plus white
And for the darkest areas, use tertiary colors (red orange, yellow green, green blue etc.)

So I actually made two failed attempts at this system before it was called to my attention by Stapleton Kearns that I need to add tone (which means adding black) . Bingo! I believe this will work. Back to the painting board. Remember: If you are not having failures you are not trying hard enough.

From Basement to Basement

2010-09-03T13:07:00.007-04:00

Who did this? I do. Would you believe I do this?

And I am showing this work on paper, done with gouache over digital print for the first time in an Alternate Art Space at the Art Emporium, at 32 Chestnut Street , Needham, MA. Hours are Monday to Friday 10AM to 5:30PM, Saturday 10AM to 5PM, Closed Sunday. (781)449-6722.

I was invited to submit this work for THE BASEMENT PROJECT by my friend and ex student of sorts, Mike Finnegan. He knew about this secret life. This work is being exhibited along with Diana Vosburg and Mike Finnegan. all of us are showing our alternate work in this alternate space. Diana had done an installation, Mike has done conceptual abstracts and I have done these painted musings. The theme that brings us together digital communications and wondering where the clouds of data,words and information can and will take us. Digital is no longer relegated to the realm of science; it is now the most powerful social force. To know and be known.

I do this work when I need a break from the observable. I allow my mind and hand to wander and explore without any pre conception. I use an digital giclee taken of a magnified common object. Then with gouache and brushes I respond with simple mark making and let it all take me away.

Here, I am exploring unconscious patterns and symbolic paths of transmission, migration and mutation; be they electronic bits, seeds, cells, words, cultural memes or information. In the process of replicating marks, an unintentional alteration inserts itself. It's beyond control and yet within the dispersion of these disparate packets there is coalescence, a connection, and creation. It's all mysterious to me; why I am compelled to do this and what happens to the piece.

All these pieces have been done over several years in and done when I can do it and when I want to. Some pieces have been sold over the years and several pieces were commissioned by the Children's Hospital Research Center but they have never been in an exhibit.

Painting inTom Thomson Territory

2010-08-19T16:29:00.007-04:00

Tom Thomson is my favorite landscape painter. We were both born on August 5th. And strangely enough, over the last three years, I have been invited to Cache Lake,Algonquin Provincial Park, Ontario to the campsite of friends. Algonquin Provincial Park, then a logging camp was the three season home of Tom Thompson and the Group of Seven.

Now, I have a real affinity for Tommy, as I call him, because he never painted at the park in the summer. He painted Fall, Winter and Spring, when shapes and color and sky dominate. In the summer he would head back to his studios and work up his studies into master works.

Alas, the summer is for green. He didn't do green (smart!). I , on the other hand , don't have a choice; so it's painting summer time green up there for me.

I was up there for five nights. The campsite has been in my friend's family for sixty years. There is no running water (lake water only), there is no electricity (kerosene lamps light), wood burning stove and out houses. I had fun giving lessons to my hostess and a young boy, a guest from Glasgow. The cooking is four star and the beauty and peace on the lake is beyond description. Unfortunately for me it's SO beautiful I just cant do it justice. So "Practice" is what you get when you don't get a painting.
I got some practice in.

The top painting is the tree across from the campsite deck. This painting is 11 X16 inches.
The painting below that is the view out to the left, into a cove. This painting is 6 X 8 inches

Somewhere Over the Rainbow

2010-08-04T07:18:00.004-04:00

Well, here you have it, somewhere over the rainbow, where Dorothy sees my painting in color for the first time. Is anyone surprised that I used red here? Probably not, since that is an important color in my aesthetics. This little dear painting ( 12 in X 6") has not been varnished, which in other posts, I have mention that the varnishing intensifies the colors much like water makes beach pebbles shine and glow. That will come later after it has had a chance to dry.

So? What Am I doing NOW? Well, I have been painting the objects for my Top Secret project. I decided that I will call my show "So , what are you doing now?" Because this is what most people ask me when they see me.

Life can imitate art. This project started because I found this object to be somewhat repulsive yet compellingly beautiful when I started out with the idea. Now, I have so much more respect for it and I am beginning to develop a love for it. Will it turn into a passion? Goodness! So that is what is happening as I make this object and then I paint a painting of it. I am getting better at making it. (I'm telling you, it's not that easy.)

And I am getting better at painting it's essential nature. I have to say here, that this is the most abstract painting I have done. To make Top Secret look real, I have to make it look abstract. I have had to lose much of my hard , graphic edge but I continue to paint with the pallet knife.

As I get an understanding of what gives this object it's true nature, I may be able to simplify itin to a more graphic representation: or painting this way may change the nature of my other paintings. You know, if you paint with an open mind and an open eye, art happens.

August 6th is another First Friday Open Studios at 450 Harrison Ave, Boston. Free Parking. Come on down to Studio #223B. Love to see you all.

PS. In between painting Top Secret, I continue to do my still lifes, as I come across them and I am working up studies for my new laundry line series which I am hoping will be done in May.

Real Art

2010-07-27T09:09:00.005-04:00

Image 1: My first pass at the study - incorrect values and little drawing issues
Image 2: The B&W image showing actual values of the live set up.
Image 3: My latest version with the corrections in value made and drawing issues resolving.

When last I left off, I was correcting values and minor drawing conflicts. This study is going so much slower than I thought because there has been so much to attend to in my "other life"- out of the studio. Today we are leaving for the Catskills for two nights, visiting good friends . I'll take my traveling painting set up but most likely I will not get to paint. Sometimes us painters, can forget that the real art of life is connecting with people. Paintings "don't have your back" the way friends do. Ever try hugging a painting? So, I am really there to visit with friends and that doesn't mean sitting on a couch watching the same TV program.

Anyway , the little time I had to work on this study was put to good use. It's coming along..I'll show you the colors when this is all finished. Surprise! In the meantime , use your imagination. The cups is a light limey green..what other colors did I set up here? Back ground? Take your guesses and have fun.

Values before Color

2010-07-21T16:48:00.004-04:00

Sometimes in the rush to paint, an artist will skip their very own good rules. I did that yesterday.

You see, I have a new pretty little light green cup that I just wanted to study in anticipation of using this cup soon in a large scale painting. I love the shape and I love the color of this cup. I 'm happy just thinking about it. Anyway...I pulled an odd size panel (12" X 6"), set up the still life pretty quickly this time, did a fast pencil sketch and started mixing and applying paint.

(The small drawing issues that will clear up as I continue to work.) However, the larger problem is I am not getting the feeling of the light on the object the way I see it. That's a sure indication of incorrect values. It was obvious that I needed to make my shadows darker. But I was in love with the colors I painted! but I love the light! Value wins out. For the purpose of demonstration, compare my color study (as a B&W digital) against the B&W of the live set up. I am not painting from the photo hence the differences in perspective and drawing.

So why did this happen to me? Because I wanted to just start painting and I didn't want to take the time to grey tone my panel, I was painting on white . If I had tone my panel grey, I would have read the darks correctly when I applied them. So tomorrow, I will scrape the shadows out and mix them up again until I get it right.

Value is more important than color, every time. Stapleton Kearns reminded me about that last week in his very excellent blog but see how easily we can forget important lessons in the rush to paint. Colorholics Anonymous; that's what I need.

PS. Tomorrow I aslo start #3 TOP SECRET painting. Oh what fun! What folly! Today I decided that I am crazy but that I would have regretted NOT painting doing this. I REALLY don't have a choice.

What to do with a New Idea

2010-07-13T07:57:00.004-04:00

Many artists, clients and friends often ask me in he course of friendly conversation; "Any thing new that you are working on?" And over the years I have told them about the series that I am working on at the time. Typically my series have been, Still and Not So Still Lifes, Laundry Lines and Building scapes. These subjects have proven to be compelling subject matter that consistently propel my work forward, exploring the themes, the colors and the shapes which these subjects provide.

One fateful day, I found myself thinking about aparticular thing in a disparaging way;"I'd never have that in my house BUT it would be really beautiful to paint." The next question I asked myself was "Why not paint it?". The obvious answer was because the subject matter is too idiosyncratic but the fact that it is a compelling, visually beautiful object has overridden my good sense. The fact that I have not been able to find other painters out there painting this subject should tell you something..... I mean , I have done several internet searches and I have come up with nada.

The new dilemma is; now that I have started painting a whole series of this subject, will I do it justice, can the overall reaction to the subject matter be supplanted by a beautiful and happy painting and will I have the guts to show it?

One artist friend in whom I confided rightfully asked me the most important question :"So what do you want people to think when they look at these paintings" And My answer was I want them to think;"I might not like __________ BUT it IS beautiful. The painting makes me happy "

I paint it because I have to. And so it goes.

PS I am also working up my next laundry line series, ready for May 2011 Newton Open Studios?

In Between Painting Paintings

2010-07-06T13:17:00.004-04:00

I am still in this "inbetween" state where I am home, taking care of life's demands and preparing for my next painting series. At this very moment I am doing a commission. It's always a fun thing to do. But there is the other part of my brain still filled with images from Italy.

I have posted a sketch which I did at Hanbury Botanical Gardens in Ventimiglia. This is the kind of sketches I do. They could be considered technical sketches, more like diagrams of a painting plan rather than a sketch for art's sake. My two favorite things to do in kindergarten were to paint and to build with blocks. Maybe that's why I construct paintings from building blocks of color. Here you can see that I broke the sketch down into blocks of value with color and value notations. It's how I think and why I do thumbnails. I am the kind of painter who can work out problems on paper and keep the visualization in my mind's eye. However, a caveat, having a plan does not mean that the painting turns out as you plan it. All paintings have a life on their own and you have to know what each paintingis asking for and what it needs. But I start with a plan. I finish with a work of art.

There is chatter about right brain - left brain art making, where the right brain is non verbal and intuitive and the left brain is verbal and precise. Current brain imaging is changing that particular brain theory. Art goes on in my entire brain. I feel it. I was once told by a teacher, a student of Hans Hofmann, that I was the most even brained artist he had ever met apart from Hans Hofmann himself. As an aside, I am ambidextrous (I can use chop sticks with either hand) and that does in handy!OK-bad pun. But seriously I find myself in states from the flowing mindlessness of a muse led hand to technical struggles that torture my waking and sleeping hours. It has been said of artists that we do it, not because we can or want to but because we HAVE to. And so it goes.

Bussana Vecchia and I'm back (almost)

2010-06-21T09:04:00.003-04:00

I returned last Wednesday from my travels in Liguria and Veneto (including Venice) visiting dear friends ; a 16 day trip. Since my return, ALL my dreams are taking place in Italian and ancient landscapes as the one shown here from Bussana Vecchia. This has been going on for five nights in a row now.

This trip to Italy, my seventh, has made the strongest impression on me. Perhaps it's because I was accompanied by my Italian friends from Venice and who are now living in Genoa. I felt like Janus, with two sets of eyes: one set looking at a contemporary Italy moving toward the future and the other set of eyes looking at the historic, nostalgic, touristic Italy rooted and preserved in the past.Seeing this all at the same time!

Incredible food experiences which nourished body , soul and mind. I actually had a dream of making testeroli pasta this week...and this is after eating it only once! My Ligurian cookbook is on it's way.

Enough of that! Bussana Vecchia; a thousand year old town destroyed by earthquakes, re inhabited by homesteading hippie artists in the late 60's. Today it's a tourist destination inhabited by both Italian and foreign artists, some monied enough to have these studios as their second homes. The art was not to my taste. The true art is the town itself transformed from and with ruins and flowers into a haunting, romantic and beautiful vision by people who understand what can arise from rubble. I saw the town as a collaborative, ongoing and interactive installation or sculpture. We visited on Sunday morning, quiet and few people and we stayed long enough to have a slow food lunch. Good food- good friends-good life.

I have lost a month. I haven't picked up a paint brush since May 8th. Preparations for Newton Open Studios,a bout with the flu and my trip to Italy extended this "dry" time. I was unable to paint while traveling but I have my sketches and sketching helped keep me sane. Today is THE DAY that my studio is set up once again and readied for my return to painting-tomorrow!

Grazie Mille Alice, Stefano, Giulio, Gianni, Enrica, Paoli for everything;especially your friendship.

My Vote for Eurovision

2010-05-29T15:24:00.002-04:00

InCulto! YES.

2010-05-24T14:18:00.002-04:00

A Little Something

I've been down and out with the flu since Newton open Studios but I wanted to get something posted before I leave for Italy next week. I'll be returning on June 16th and I'm sure there will be much to post about on my return.

Above is the marathon cup studies I did before Newton Open Studios. Though I didn't get the chance to show them all together yet, I can show them all together here. It was a real challenge to come up with all the combinations of colors as well as to distill the colors down to the most basic color choice to express.That's why I came them my simplicity studies. Happily, I found out that one of my previous a cup studies was accepted at the Danforth Museum Show, The Community of Artists.

Art at the Villa - Newton Open Studios

2010-05-12T17:32:00.006-04:00

All my paintings are now finished painted and the art is on the wall , all in anticipation of our community event, Newton Open Studios.

As promised; the varnish demonstration. One image is the "before" a painting is varnished and the other is an image of "after" the painting is varnished. Can you tell which is which? The darker, more intense and dramatic coloration image has been varnished. Also the image with intense coloration , while more color correct, especially the red, is taken by a professional photographer, however the color is not still not true to the painting. The green is a bit off in the VARNISHED painting image. The technology of digital color reproduction still has not caught up with my painted colors and combinations. Some colors always seems to get sacrificed in a digital image, but it's getting better.

I won't be posting again until after Newton Open Studios..so please come on by and enjoy the event. Start here at 22 Burnham Road, West Newton with a Villa visit.

Final Project -Advanced Drawing-Harvard Graduate School of Design

2010-05-11T15:56:00.004-04:00

Above is the work of a Harvard Design School Student, Allison Dailey.

Twice a year since 2006 I have been invited by Anne McGhee of the Harvard Graduate School of Design to join her cross-art group of critics to critique the Advance Drawing Class. It's always very exciting to see how each student approaches the same assignment (or not) in such different ways. This hand drawing class is there to rekindle the creative hand drawing skills for designers and help cut the cold technological drawings of the computer. By all evidence from this class, it works. Allison Dailey's work. shown above. was very interesting and beautiful to my eye. And maybe because it is so different than my own work, I had a very real appreciation for the complexity and process she was working out in her mind trough her hand. I can't help but think that she will have some wonderful landscape architecture designs to unleash in the future.Brava and Bravo to all those willing to let their hand speak their mind.

What's happening?!

2010-05-04T12:03:00.004-04:00

Above is part of a 16 cup study series which I did after "Pretty in Pink". I'll be showing this piece "Simplicity - a cup study in magenta and blue" at 450 Harrison THIS MAY First Friday

There is a lot happening! Let me start with the major event for me (I'll post more events next week) but then I have to go back to painting to finish up a great big gorgeous stack painting that I am hoping to show in the Newton Open Studios this May 15th and 16th.

OK- this Friday is the First Friday Open Studios at 450 Harrison Ave, Boston, MA. My studio is 223B, come on by, I'm open

Then Newton Open Studios is happening May 15th and 16th. You all are invited here at 22 Burnham Road, West Newton, MA (near the West Newton Cinema) where I will be showing my all my NEW (never before seen) work along with three other artists:Will Kirkpatrick (traditional Boston school painting), John Borchard (digital photography) and Edward Friedman (pastels).Start here , pick up a map and go see more!Parking is easy all around the town.
I have to get back to painting.....more to come.

Aurora Borealis; A Bold Bowl Painting

2010-04-25T10:26:00.006-04:00

I've been down in The Dungeon working every day, nearly seven hours a day on this painting since my last blog. It's dimensions are 36 inches by 24 inches - a vertical.It took two days just to set up this still life; determining shapes, colors, values, lighting and most importantly what I wanted to paint. Of course, I wanted to paint the bowls but within that subject there is always a little something that catches me and makes me want to paint every day. In this set up it was the reflective colors contained in the bottom dishes. Those colors reminded me of what I imagine the Aurora Borealis to be - colors of the strange magnetic atmosphere bouncing around the sky at the top of the world. Hence the title of this painting. Visually, in my determination, it is those reflective colors that ties it all together.

Then I took a good day to draw it all out and determining the actual composition as it sits in the rectangle.
Then I finally got to paint until I finished this morning.My studios is a mess with gobs of red paint on the floor. I need to do some cleaning up before I start the next one.

Again, my apologies for the surface "blotchiness" in the image here. It's the oils on the painting drying at different times. When the painting is entirely dried, I will apply the varnish. That restores the juiciness of the original paint application. When I get the varnish on, I'll do a post showing before and after varnish to demonstrate the difference.

Painting on Marginal Way, Ogunquit, Maine

2010-04-17T08:29:00.013-04:00

Mary Byrom is a robust and hardy painter from Maine. She paints every day. And this week she invited a group of us from Boston to paint the surf on her turf, the shoreline of Ogunquit, Maine. This started out as an intention to paint rocks and surf. There could almost not be any lovelier place than this to paint. However, the subject along "the way" that caught my eye was the "leaning tree" on the landscape. Here is a case of a subject picking me.
I made the decision to paint this wonderful element (the tree) into a painting that was about the tree and not necessarily about the landscape before me. This is what an artist can do that a photo shopped photo cannot do, make it look totally believable as a place and time.

These are the decisions I made to make the painting about the tree:
- To use the low lying house to give the tree more stature.
- To drop out the shoreline and most evidence of vast human occupation on the cliff - To isolate and reinforce the tree as a survivor.
- To drop out the back ground shoreline because it added nothing to the tree.
- To paint the sky at the moment that it was at it's most windswept self.
- To emphasize the whips of color that my eye caught (and is no where in the photo)

One could say that I am treating the landscape as a still life, moving objects around from the landscape before me; re- arranging in order to design and emphasize my intention. It's very freeing. And most surprising to me ... everyone who walked by while I was painting, approved of the changes. I did not have one person say "That's not the house the tree is leaning against." Now, that's a successful painting.

Never Before Seen Glimpse into the Dungeon Studio

2010-04-09T12:26:00.005-04:00

Today's post is a rare, never before seen image of my oil painting dungeon studio. This studio is at the back of the house, in the basement partially below ground grade . It has windows but as you can see they do not receive any light. The shades are there for privacy. It is also "a mess".

Artist studios are VERY personal. If you have been painting long enough to know how you paint and what you need and want to paint you will adapt your studio to the way you work. A don't believe a painter should adapt the way they paint to the studio they have.

In place of natural light I have individually controlled "natural day light" florescent lights. I do not typically work with them all turned on either. This lighting tends to be cool which is way I may push my warm colors. From left to right you will see:

- My last completed stack painting. It's drying and I am looking at it everyday to make sure that there are no more changes I can make that would make it "better" to my eye.

-Prepared cradled panels stacked on the window sill. The sides are taped to keep the wood clean.They are ready to be painted on.

- Some of my cups. I spent all day (well at least five hours) yesterday choosing cups for the series of cups studies I started. Hoping to complete them in time to show at Newton Open Studios, May 15 and 16th; The SoWa Art walk (the same week end) and The Malden Sketch group show (May)

-My red "elephant step" so I can step up and reach the top of my paintings when I am painting large.(Someone pointed out to me that I am short. This may be true.)

-My "Hunter orange" sweat shirt that I wear when it's cool down here and my grey work coat which is a piece of yuck - fabric and paint, becoming more paint than fabric every day.

-A retired painting pallet. When a pallet comes to the end of its life (too much hardened dry paint)I retire the pallet and hang it on the wall. I think I have seven all around the studio.It's a history of color.

-A vinyl tile floor which I do not bother to wash (but I do sweep).

My home is considered to be really beautiful (upstairs that is) so anyone who makes it down into my dungeon is shocked to find that is is not beautiful and that it such a work space. Guests and other artists seem to expect high ceilings,all natural light, wood floors, tastefully place object d'art place around the studio is aesthetic perfection. Wrong!I work here and I only have eyes for what makes my job easier. My painting is my aesthetic focus in my studio. All else falls away, out of sight. The painting remains.

Pretty in Pink

2010-03-29T09:26:00.005-04:00

The suite shown here, all wrapped up in cellophane and ready for delivery, was a commission for a Valentine's day gift for someone who loves pink and also loves my work. I had so much fun doing this suite. I looked forward to going into my dungeon studio and painting every day. In fact I enjoyed it so much thatI will start paintings a cup/saucer inspiration every a day starting sometime around the middle of April but I have no idea when I will stop. A whole wall full of them? One painting leads to another and so it goes with ideas with one idea leading to another. Creativity begets creativity.

It's also a wonderful reductionist observational way to simply paint only the color and shape I feel is essential to my impression of the un-filled cup as my personal expression of joyful anticipation and simple moments.A study in simplicity.

Voila!

2010-03-23T11:01:00.004-04:00

A long time coming. It's done and drying. Two of my favorite things are ending one painting and beginning a new one.There is artists' inside joke; their favorite painting is the next one.

The Other Question: When do you know it's finished?

2010-03-21T12:31:00.002-04:00

This is an addendum to the last question: "How Long Did it take you to paint that?". And so, when DO I know when a painting is finished? My teacher, Paul Rahilly has said; unless you are from Finland, a painting is never finished (Finnish). However as an artist one does have to know when to stop working and changing a painting. My own personal guideline is internal; when the painting makes me smile, I know enough to stop working on it. On another level I also carefully and mindfully keep painting,changing and evaluating what I am doing with the paint until my efforts no longer make the painting any better. The painting above is still taking longer than I thought but every time I get to work on it, it is getting better and closer to the exciting painting I had in mind when I started. Now, back to work.

How Long Did that Take You To Paint?

2010-03-18T09:34:00.002-04:00

This is one of the most common questions that artists are asked. Usually this question is asked by someone just learning to paint or by someone who just enjoys art. Some artists have come up with clever answers "Twenty years of learning about painting". But the reality is that it is a very difficult question for ME to answer. For instance the painting shown here, is a smaller painting than my previous stacked still life but it's taking me twice as long to paint and by the time I am finished it will be much longer than that. So though my answer is truthful; "As long as it needs; any where from two full days to two months" it is never a very satisfactory answer to the questioner.

I am not a fast painter. I don't always approach a painting in the same way. I change up systems of investigating the objects and every day I observe something different. This is the excitement of painting from observation; every day there is something new, surprising or intimate that I didn't observe the day before. If it is a drawing correction, I always make the correction. If it is a value or color change, then I have to use my artistic decision as to whether or not to put it into the painting.

This painting because of it's design will be very exciting when it's FINNALLY completed. But the drawing problems of the multiple ellipses of the bowls and rims is giving me the challenge. It seems that every day I must make a drawing change. Why I didn't see it the day before, I can't really tell you. I suppose that when one change is made it shows up another change that needs to be made. After all, everything is connected to everything. And beside that my teacher, Barney Rubenstien believed that "Every painting problem is a drawing problem". He might be right.

Remeber this?

2010-03-09T18:06:00.003-05:00

It's a warm March here and it's feeling like early Spring rather than a late Winter. But I haven't forgotten that penetrating damp cold of the White mountains during Snow Camp in February. Nor have I forgotten to work on my painting started on that day.

As I mentioned earlier, I like to finish up my paintings from my memory of the scene or still life. I also like to paint a good painting. So changes have been made to the original start. And since everything effects everything in a painting, there were more changes made than the planned substitution on the birch tree (the birch tree here being only lightly sketched in). I still need to angularize the branches to they look like they have STRUCTURE. Right now they do look to me as too sinewy and soft. But in order to paint in the birch I had to paint out the other tree. This meant changing the sky...which lead to changing the mountains ..which lead to changing the tree brush line ..which meant changing the ..and so on and so on. It's not done yet so stay tuned.

In the meanwhile, I have been doing another still life stack but this one is way too raw to show you....it would just scare you away. Sometimes the painting process is just plain ugly.

An Almost Done

2010-03-03T08:01:00.005-05:00

Here is a quick post this morning showing the monochromatic study I did in preparing for my still life. The purpose of that study is to think out the big problems. However, painting reveals other problems. I changed the handle of the red cup, adjusted the background and eliminated the shadow and incremental changes and decisions which all got me to go where I wanted to go. And as always, I put the finishing touches on, after the still life was removed and I looked as the painting as my impression of the still life. Technically, I am told this makes me an Impressionist, but I don't want to go there.

Also in this image, we have the oil paint colors drying at different rates. Since I do not use a medium , some patches here look shiny while others look flat. When the painting is dry, it will all look matte. And that's where varnish comes in, to restore the juiciness and protect the paint. In about a month or so you can visit this painting on my website, the colors will look cleaner and sharper.

This Friday, March 5th is the First Friday Open Studio 5 -9 PM at 450 Harrison Ave. My studio is 223B. Come on by and say "Hi".

Process if not Progress

2010-02-25T09:19:00.005-05:00

It's nearly a week later and though I have put at least 24 painting hours into this painting and it's not yet done. As the drawing was fleshed out as a painting there were areas which require attention and changes. In painting the initial set up, the body of the bright red cup presented itself as too demanding an area , taking away the viewer's attention from the other parts of the painting without offering the viewer much to hold on to. And so I rearranged the cup so that the handle presents itself. I really like this change. In some ways it's less aesthetic but in other ways it really gives the viewer a challenge and acts as a conduit between the top and the bottom halves of the set up. The original flat looking red cup area became a a waste land in which the eye did not want to cross.

More importantly, the change made me happy and I am one for going with gut feelings when my intellectual idea is lacking. There are other parts of this painting that have not yet resolved themselves in my mind. I hope to have it completed by the end of the weekend. (yes, painters work weekends too). As the painting process takes place progress is made.

Yikes! I am on Twitter!

2010-02-18T09:15:00.001-05:00

O.K. I did it. I am a Twit. You can follow my notices of events and new painting debuts on http://twitter.com/mariandioguardi

New Starts

2010-02-17T10:15:00.003-05:00

I have started on a fresh still life series. This is being painted along with my super secret series. (The update on THAT project is; I finished four small paintings, all which highlighted to me the challenges, the quirkiness and the fun). I am pretty sure that no gallery would touch my secret quirky series. I can see why they might perceive it as too challenging to sell. So it's my fun and their loss. Sometimes a girl has to paint what a girl has to paint and that all there is to it.

Anyway, here is the start on my next stack painting. The still life set up took me about two hours to set up. Setting up a still life like this up entails deciding cup shapes, cup colors, cup order, balance and tension in the composition, back round color and lighting. I paint every painting as if it were for me and going to hang in my home to be seen everyday. Some decisions can be intuitive and quickly taken care of. Others are very thought out. When I started my study I changed arrangements three times. Some elements of the composition make themselves more apparent during the discovery of drawing and have to be dealt with. My paintings may be "happy" paintings but there are no "happy accidents" just happy decisions. And I really dislike working from photos;there is no discovery in copying a photo. For me there is a magic, the discovery, which happens while drawing with the hand , the mind and heart from real life. It's not always a "perfect" drawing but neither is life perfect.

Snow Camp W (the W does not stand for Warm)

2010-02-10T11:09:00.005-05:00

Back from Snow Camp W. W doesn't stand for workshop either, it stands for my painting buddy's first name, Will. Will gave up his space in the first snow camp workshop and he was the first sign up of the second snow camp workshop.

It was a great workshop. It was wicked cold. It was also wicked grey. The weak link in my gear was my glove/hand arrangement. Cold fingers at the end of the day are painful. They also stop your mind from working well.

Attending a Stapleton Kearns workshop is like taking a drink from fire hose. There is so much to learn there and you can only take in so much. My favorite items that were demonstrated were the use of two difficult colors, Viridian (check it out on the horizon of the sea scape) and cobalt violet(under the whit for snow). I like the design principle of interlocking shapes in the landscape (no long straight lines) and layering , not only the darks and lights but also the warms and cools as the scenery recedes. There was so much more. And that Stapleton Kearns;he's wicked nice...others are not so nice.

This seascape was not in the white mountains. Stapleton used his experience and minds eye to conjure up this painting to show us the similarities between sea and sky and to demonstrate amazing brush work. I plan on staying with my pallet knife but I will now go forward and use my pallet knife in less conventional ways.

I also learned my weakness, which is trees. The good news is that I love trees (especially without leaves)so that I will enjoy the practice of painting them. I also plan some changes in this painting and I will post when they are completed.I am changing that tree!

Oh yeah..and I learned I was short. And here I thought everyone was tall. Silly me.

Work shops

2010-02-03T15:22:00.003-05:00

Here is a little painting Moka Maker; Thinking of Spring time Cafes) which I finished recently. I'll be showing it for the first time at SoWa First Friday, February 5th. The Yin and Yang painting will also be there but it's not yet dried and varnished. Not quite ready for delivery but you can see it in the paint. The studio,223, will be open BUT I won't be there. I'll be in the White Mountains preparing for the painting workshop known as Snow Camp W under the instruction of Stapleton Kearns. Last weekend they painted in -10 weather. I am hoping for the 20's but I believe I have the proper clothing and equipment. I shall see.

Typically I am a studio painter. I like to be with my own thoughts working on painting problems in my own little space all alone. BUT it's not good to get too comfortable in your own little world. It can become too little. So every once and awhile I like to rouse myself out of the studio and be challenged by another artist, subject or technique. And if the experience doesn't kill me-it makes me stronger.

I have started on my new subject. It's still a secret. I thought I would fail and then I could tell you all about it. I thought I would succeed and then tell you all about it. As it remains, it's challenging and promising and I'm going to keep it a secret until I decide what I am going to do for showing the work. I would like to have about 20 pieces to show by fall and have an opening in my Boston Studio.But...????

Creativity and Craftmanship

2010-01-25T09:01:00.006-05:00

Above is a horizontal painting of cups "In the Valley of the Shadows". The companion piece, the single stack, was commissioned by my client who bought 'In the Valley of the Shadows".
The commissioned stack was finished in January 2008. However, I knew that there was something that didn't sit right with my client.The painting remained "unfinished and undocumented" as she mulled over her unease. We had talked about changing the color of the blue plate (to another blue which I had been considering). But THAT wasn't it. She has been looking at the painting for two year in her home and this year she had a "Eureka" moment. She realized that it wasn't the blue plate that bothered her, it was the original shadow color which I had painted inside the top yellow bowl of the stack. To her, the shadow was too dark and it looked like "mud" in the cup. It made the top of the painting too heavy and weighted it down. And you know, when she brought the painting back to me to show me,I knew she was right. I had been so intent on getting the original visual shadow correct that I hadn't realized it was wrong for the painting as a whole. This is a very interesting case of everything painted correctly does NOT add up to a correct painting. I had released this painting too soon to her. Typically, I will keep a painting hung in my studio for a couple of weeks before I release it, in the even that I might see things that I want to change or that "bother me". I hadn't had the time with it to catch my own lack of judgment here.

My craftsmanship was compromised. When my client told me about the shadow, she cushioned it by saying that she didn't want to insult my creativity because she loves all my work. But I pointed out to her that my creativity (which is personal) is not in question here. It was a matter of craftsmanship. Craftsmanship is about having high standards, ability, skilled workmanship, durability and quality. The rendering of that one little shadow was not up to the standards of the rest of the painting. I was so happy that she pointed it out and that I had the chance to correct it. It changed everything.

I can finally sign my name to it.

2010-01-19T08:42:00.004-05:00

As I get closer to realizing the painting to completion,the changes become more subtle and more discreet and maybe even hard for you to notice. But add all the little changes up and it's the most important time for a painting; determining what I am not satisfied with and then changing it. I took to heart some advice I was given by another VERY experienced artist;"never leave anything on the canvas that you don't like." He is right. Because in the end, I am the one who has to put my name to it.

PS. Thank you to Karen Masterson and nourish Restaurant in Lexington for putting on a wonderful reception last night. It was an icy night but a warm time. The hummus and the falafel hit all the right notes and the ribs were soft and tender and juicy and delicious. Than you all for coming. It was a great get together. I'll be going back!

Not quite a painting day but...

2010-01-18T09:07:00.006-05:00

I did manage to get some paint on my painting yesterday. I tried the cadmium red thing and the color in the box interior is more to my satisfaction. I didn't turn on the light for the still life. I could see some blue daylight sneaking in, onto the box with the lights turned off so played around with the daylight color. I'm still wondering whether or not it will stay. I brightened some of the "whites" too. As for today, I may give it a rest and start my super secret project that may be doomed to failure and ridicule. Do I care? Obviously not....

You Are Invited

2010-01-17T11:18:00.004-05:00

Reception: January 18th 5 - 7 PM

nourish restaurant
&
Marian Dioguardi
invite you for complimentary ribs & tofu in the company of great art by seven artists.Nourish's first juried art show, "FOOD" , celebrates the art of cooking, eating and all its beauty.

Save a space for you and your friends: e-mail Karen Masterson, founder, at nourishlexington@hotmail.com
1727 Massachusetts Avenue
Lexington, MA 02420
(781) 674-2400

Second Paint Day on Yin and Yang

2010-01-17T11:01:00.005-05:00

As you can see, I continue to adjust the colors and some values as the light in my studio shifts, even with the blinds down. Some days the color appears warmer to me and other days it seems cooler. I have to strike a balance and a decision as to what my own impression is. This happens on the last day of painting, when I will dismantle the still life and paint from the image that remains in my mind's eye.

Also, here, the filter on my camera is exaggerating the warms in the light but I wanted to clearly demonstrate the changes I made to the foreground and the Meyer and Chang black Chinese food container from time before. OK..stay tuned...it's not clear that I'll get to paint today. Life demands attention.

PS. I really didn't get the color of the inside lids of the white container to my satisfaction. This was the problem on my mind right before I fell asleep. I woke up this morning thinking "cadmium red light". Maybe?

Paint Day - First attempt

2010-01-16T09:19:00.002-05:00

Here is what I managed to paint on my first attempt at Yin and Yang. I painted the background and the black Chinese take out box. The white Chinese take out box is unpainted and what you see here is still the under painting drawing. So..on to day two.

NEW YEAR - NEW PAINTING

2010-01-15T09:30:00.004-05:00

Its' 2010 and with all that New Year celebrations -eating Chinese Food, I was struck by the difference in the take out boxes from my two favorite Chinese food Restaurants. The traditional white box is that of Sichuan Gourmet
(a very traditional and authentic Sichuan Province restaurant) and the cool black lacquer looking box is from the South End's own Myers & Chang (a cool, funky and very personal interpretation of Chinese etc.). It struck me that the black - white take out and the old - new food differences were a Yin and Yang; both making a whole in my Chinese foods tastes. Both boxes are beautiful, each in there own way and so is the food. Hence all the inspiration for this painting study (which I fully intend to do larger than life size at some point this year).

You will see the photo of the still life I have set up to express Yin and Yang. Then I did a very basic line drawing to place the objects and look at the shapes which will make up the composition. Also the drawing functioned as my means to determine the proportions of the piece. Happily it suits itself to an 8" X 10" panel.

Next I did a corrected drawing in paint. This is more accurate (always learning from my mistakes) and a little more fleshed out, in black and white.

What I expect will happen is that the painting will show you the differences in color from what a photo shows and what my eye sees and I decide to paint. Stay tuned.
Tomorrow I will post my painting progress.

Stapleton Kearns Snow Camp

2009-12-30T17:27:00.004-05:00

I have always loved winter and snow paintings. This may surprise you because you are thinking "Where's the color in that?". As Ward Elliot Hour said "The color of spring time is in the flowers. The color of winter is in the imagination."

I have only painted two paintings of winter, ever. Shown here ;Winter Crow a Snow Day and Cold. But I own about seven paintings done by other artists dealing with snow scenes because I just love the colors of white and the way in which other artists have rendered cold and snow in paint. However, finally I will have to put up or shut up about wanting to paint in the snow because my husband is sending me away to Stapleton Kearns "Snow camp workshop" In February, in the white mountains to paint, in the snow! My boots are rated at 100 degrees below zero but what about my paint? I guess I will find out. So stay tuned.

When Art Finds a Home (or when a home finds art)

2009-12-14T09:17:00.002-05:00

I don't know whether it happens to every artist, painter or maker but there are always certain works I become very attached to. I am often asked "How can you let someone buy that". And the answer isn't easy, it's complex especially with pivotal works that get me thinking in a new direction. But I'll try to give the simple answer, that answer is FAITH. I have to believe that I have within me the motivation, the passion and the ability to continue to create. That my creative drive does not end with an ultimate work. Each work contributes to the piece before and have faith that I will feel as passionately about the next painting as I did about the ones that were bought. And as another painter once said it so well 'an artist's favorite painting should be the NEXT one'.

So this month I say farewell to five of my favorite paintings as they find their appreciative home. May the passion I had in creating these works be passed on to the next.I am grateful for the opportunity to be tested yet again. Stay tuned.

An Honor

2009-12-07T12:48:00.005-05:00

This week end, The School of the Museum of Fine Art informed me that my piece, A Little Pink,was bought by Dana Farber for their notable art collection. This collection includes the work of Warhol, Alex Katz, Lichenstien and Oldenburg. It's a great honor for me to be sharing the walls with these great Ameerican Artists.

But most of all I am honored by having my work in this special institution of hope. My dear friend, Alma was a patient at Dana Farber during the last two years of her battle with breast cancer. More often than not I would accompany her during these visits. When we were at Dana Farber together, the art on the walls gave us both relief from worry, treatment and the cancer situation. Alma loved art. Alma Kretchmer was also an early collector of my work. She had great faith in me and it's truly bitter sweet for me that she did not live to see my work on the Dana Farber walls. But I can't help but feel that maybe she IS seeing it and smiling. May Little Pink give everyone a little hope to get through their day at Dana Farber. Thank you all.

SoWa Winter Lights

2009-11-28T12:06:00.002-05:00

The SoWa Artist Guild invites you to come and celebrate our art in a different light in conjunction with the SoWa - Thayer Street Winter Light Weekends. During the December 4th, SoWa First Friday evening from 7 to 8 PM, participating SoWa artists will convert our standard studio lighting into trans formative, imaginative and provocative studio lighting. We invite you to come and experience viewing art in a different light. It will change the way you see and think of art, if not for one hour but possibly forever. December 4th, 7-8 PM, 450 Harrison Ave, Boston, Ma.

There will also be a fund raising silent art auction in Studio 222 for the Rachel Molly Markoff Foundation supporting children's brain cancer research.Rachel loved art.

My studio, 233B, will also be open the first two weekends in December with extended hours;Friday nights, Saturday and Sunday afternoon hours, coinciding with the Thayer Street hours.Come by and take a second look at the painting you and your loved one fell in love with this year. Surprise someone with the gift of art for the holiday.Or don't remember what painting they loved best? Give a personalized gift certificate for one of my paintings or a commission. I will be leaving for the Alsace region in France on December 15th and my studio will be closed through December 23rd.

Above is my newest painting, They All finally Fell Down. This painting was glorious fun to paint as well as a challenge. A good painting always starts with a good drawing.Most artists will tell you that true ellipses are not easy to get looking right. Ellipses are not ovals; they are fore-shortened circles.The important difference to me is that an ellipse is an expression of three dimensional space while an oval is a two dimensional shape. I worked at he drawing from a close perspective and really wanted to get the feeling of the cup handle turning out into your space. The shapes and curves set up a rhythm to the composition and the colors fleshed out the light.It will be on view at First Friday.

Thanks to all for coming by the Brickbottom Open Studios. I had the most wonderful conversations with visitors., Sold some art but mostly enjoyed being a part of this creative community of artists.Fun was had by all.

Brickbottom Open Studios this Weekend

2009-11-17T05:40:00.006-05:00

This weekend is the Brickbottom Open Studios. I am privileged to be an a Associate Member of the Brickbottom Artist Association and fortunate to be invited into studio C-214 to exhibit. I will be there with four other interesting and diversified artists.

Brickbottom visitors are some of the most art savvy visitors that I come across. I can tell that they are really looking at the art with interested and informed eyes. I have never failed to have interesting discussions about the elements of painting that are challenging and eye opening to what others see in my work. Of course, as a working artist, I want my work to be bought and enjoyed but there are many other reasons why I do Open Studios and those reasons are visitors. Every artist is different in what they want to get out of an Open Studio but please, as a visitor, come on by; say "Hi" and tell me what you think. I am there. I am as interested in you as you are in my art. This may be my favorite Open Studios to do because of the conversations that I have had there.

The hours are Saturday the 21st from noon to six and Sunday the same.http://brickbottomartists.com/open_studios_info

Come on by and see my new work, enjoy all the artists work (I do) and let's have a chat about art.

Frances N. Roddy Open Competition

2009-11-10T12:33:00.004-05:00

Competitions are an artist's way of playing the lottery. It's our excitement, disappointment and it's always a thrill. I spent two months painting and finishing THE PAINTING that I wanted to submit to the Concord Art's Roddy Competition. Three weeks before the due date, I painted the sides on the painting. In order to finish the sides off quickly, I used an old Old Holland quick drying medium. To make a long agonizing wait for it to dry, short - it never dried. My best laid plans for a grand submission was aborted. So I took in one of my favorite and simplest paintings. I opted for directness in place of grand and my painting was chosen for the exhibit. Just goes to show you that you can NEVER tell what will happen.

This Asparagus painting was everything that I wanted this painting to be in order to do justice to these beautiful asparagus. Painted primarily with pallet knife, I worked quickly and intensely over three days, spraying the asparagus with water and keeping my studio cool to preserve the wonderful and subtle colors. When I took a step back on the fourth day, everything was just so. The muse had entered and I wondered who had painted the painting.

If you all can join us, the reception for the Frances N. Roddy Competition is Thursday the 12th from 6-8 PM at the Concord Art Association's newly renovated historic building in Concord.

PS- I ended up having to scape down the sides of my big painting and re paint them using Windsor Newton's Liquin, which predictably dried in two days. The irony of it all.

Fall's Final Farewell to Color

2009-11-05T14:19:00.004-05:00

The Blue Berry Barrens

I thought it was finished;the fall colors brief and beautiful. I was wrong. Will Kirkpatrick and I hunted down the flaming wild blueberry barrens of Maine. One barren more beautiful than the other.

I have never been in Maine so late and I never experienced the turning of the blueberry barrens. It took my breath away and I decided this is what I was meant to paint. Not that my paintings will become standard by which blueberry barrens are judged but because I get to stand all day in late October and look at them. And the blue berries themselves are the real things I remember being given on my birthday in a bowl of cream from my Uncles' own hidden spot in Malden, MA.

My little paintings were started in the field and finished in the studio where memory makes them all the more real. I was finally happy painting the landscape.

Plien Air work

2009-10-07T16:09:00.007-04:00

Longfellow's Wayside Inn

This was the scene of another plien air painting day with Will Kirkpatrick. Autumn is the time to paint outside(for me )..the green is fading, other colors are popping, the light is warmer and lower, the shadows are longer.It's all good.

I was especially lucky in that Will wanted to do a structure, the Wayside Inn and the Mill.I can't wait to do the Mill. I love solid objects in the landscape to counter the organic wildness of foliage. Though, I am feeling more confident about imposing a design on the foliage to get it under control. I drew and painted this from life, planning out the composition and painting in basic blocks of the major colors. I finished it up in my studio today. I invented the light ambiance and I finished the little details such as window panes, the flag, the fallen leaves. Shown above is the painting and all my painterly decision. The other is the photograph from which I took my details. Will and I expect to be showing our work out at the Wayside Inn this Saturday as invited artists from 10 to 2PM. We will be painting on site. Hope to see you!

Happy paintings

2009-09-25T15:58:00.001-04:00

The painting above (Study in Simplicity-Redux -Revisited) is the last painting that I have finished. It is a reduction, a study of complicated perspective, lighting and color reflection. I believe that one has to master THE defining shape and colors before choices about the details are made. As I told my students, it's easy to paint an eyelash (one little line):it's difficult to paint an eye.

I love this little series of simple yet bold shapes that are painted to exploring how flatness can be used to construct the illusion of space. You can feel the curved inside of the cup and feel the hard flat surface on which it sits yet individually each part of the painting (the shape of the shadow, the ellipse, the crescent of the bowl) would just look like a geometric floating shape. This piece is being shown in my 450 Harrison Ave studio.

We had a fabulously attended First Friday open studios (every First Friday of the month 450 Harrison Ave Boston artists open their studios from 5-9 PM) last night.
The comment that viewers consistently use when they walk into the studio is how "happy" my paintings make them. My paintings are called "Happy Paintings" by many visitors. I embrace that label. I can't deny it. And you know, I am happy when I am painting and exploring the joyous colors and shapes of objects that I come across in life. To make a BOLD painting from a humble object, makes me happy. It's a job and a responsibility that I take seriously. Walk in beauty.

Shamefull Self-promotion -September

2009-09-04T08:52:00.000-04:00

The painting here is part of a four painting suite I call Party Cup Suite.It's 6" X 8".

I now have a Boston, South End studio, that I share with my creative husband, JB. Studio 223B 450 Harrison Ave, Boston, MA 02118. This artist building is at the heart of the Boston Art district in the South End.

When my work is not on gallery exhibit, it is hanging here. On the First Friday of every month, the artists in our building are open to public visits from 5- 9 PM. The commercial Galleries on the first floor often have very exciting openings on First Fridays It is a great scene to be seen at with art, fun, food, drink and who knows what. The dates for the rest of 2009 are September 4th, October 2nd,Nov 6th, Dec 4th. I plan on being there.

In addition, thru October, the Art district hosts a crafts market, farmers market and antique market EVERY Sunday from 11 AM to 4 PM. The South End is a great place to stroll and get great brunch. I plan on being in my studio on Sundays most of these Sundays. You can always e-mail me,md@mariandioguardi.com, to make sure that I'll be in. Other artists are opened and welcoming all visitors too. More fun.

Then,(Can you stand it?!) on September 19th and 20th the entire South End in opened for two days 11 AM- 6PM for the annual South End Open Studios.
This is an event that every art lover and art student looks forward to each year. I'll be there. Hope to see you.

What I did over my summer

2009-09-03T16:48:00.000-04:00

Well, I don't write often so in case you haven't heard, I don't love doing landscapes because I just can't seem to bring an added value of what is already overwhelmingly beautiful in nature. Also, in the good old summer time, I am always fighting the greens. Green Green Green and not a color to drink up.

The image above is the inspiration. What started out as a cloudy day and cleared. Hence the painting looks sunny. I did and finished in my studio. which is so much more satisfying.

But my buddy Will gets me out there and I give it the old try. Well Will also turned me on to Stapleton Kearn's Blog. Now Stapletton is an opinionated mother but he knows how to paint up a good painting. I think he could do it with his eyes closed and one hand tied behind his back. He knows his stuff and he knows stuff. So I read this blog and things slowly sink in. Having been taught to paint through observation, I now find, has really held me back from enjoying the landscape. Why? because it's more fun to make things up and be inspired by what you see not a slave to it!You can design things, add color change color, change forms, eliminate, add. etc. The more deliberately you can make your decisions the better the painting will be.

Stapleton knows so much that your head could explode trying to remember it all.I ventured forward at Swan's Island Maine, staying with a few principles at a time which I could keep in my mind:
Design with a center of interest in mind.
Mass the dark areas
Break up straight lines.
Add reds to the greens and where ever you can mix them in. It really does help control the greens. I used Cadmium red deep.
And use blue but keep it under control. The less blue in a sky the better.
There are so many more helpful hints but I can only swallow a few at a time.

Process and Pain

2009-06-24T10:08:00.000-04:00

Will Kirkpatrick and I have a canopy tent which we paint under when painting in the rain or beating sun. This set up was on the Concord Art Association's temporary home at the Samuel Brooks House, Concord, Ma. looking over at the Noah Brooks Tavern and their field along with heritage breed cattle.

It rained all the day. The rain was heavy. The rain was light. The cattle came. The cattle went. Painting was a struggle that day. And just as we packed up..the light broke behind us and put the barn into late day light. That was the scene I wanted to paint. So the next day, in my studio, I painted in the light as I remembered it, using a quick digital image for reference (that does absolutely nothing for color.) Then the bull debate started. I painted in a brown bull. I didn't like it so I took it out. I was almost satisfied with it. However after "sleeping on it" bull or no bull, I woke up with the vision of a black and white bull. That's where it ended up. See for yourself. What do you think?

Painting in the great outdoors

2009-06-16T11:44:00.000-04:00

Well,it must be getting on to summer because my buddy Will Kirkpatrick and I are out there painting. I have always been reluctant to paint outdoors. I consider myself a studio painter who likes to control the light. However I seem to have picked up a little more skill at observing the light out doors, holding it in my mind and getting it quickly onto the "canvas". This has given me more confidence and more enjoyment of the challenges painting out side.
Some things which have helped me painting out doors:working with a limited pallet of no more than eight colors (including white and excluding black)and painting quickly.Will and I work with very different palettes but we were amazed at how close our color mixing was to each other using entirely different set of pigments. I always have yellow ocher on my pallet and he doesn't go near the stuff.
I prefer to paint on a blue sky day but yesterday,I realized how easy it is to paint in the flat light of a grey day with just local color. So with the smell of chicken fertilizer in our noses and the threat of rain, this is what I got onto a canvas at Beale's Farm in Southborough.

Going Ons and Updates

2009-03-16T10:39:00.000-04:00

It's time for a blog. I have just finished and hung up my work for Still Life-Not Dead Yet, a group show at Brickbottom Gallery.www.brickbottomartists.com It's an interesting show with diverse artists who continue to work in the still life tradition while making it contemporary to their life. The show is up through April 4th. Here are you can see three of my pieces. They are all fairly large. "La Dolce Vita" is 46" x 46". "Good to the Last Drop" is 46" X 46" and last but not least "Stacked and Ready" is 48" x 32".I love painting large with pallet knife. I don't just have an intellectual relationship with the painting, I have a physical relationship with it. I am only 5'1" so painting large just doesn't involve using my eye and my hands. Painting on a large scale involves, arms, legs , step ladders, squatting on the floor etc. There is a lot of investment in the time,the energy, and the commitment to doing a large piece but I find it exhilarating and challenging.

After a series of large paintings, I typically go back and paint small life size objects. That's where I am now. To my surprise, I find myself using brushes more than I have in the past with hese smaller paintings. It will be interesting to see whether I continue to reach for brushes as I return to large scale work.

The "Really Big News" is that I have taken additional studio space with my husband- photographer, at 450 Harrison St Boston in the SoWa art and gallery district.One reason is that I am really trying to set up time to work on encaustic pieces and I find it difficult to set it all up in my studio which needs to also accommodate my oil set up. Also I have not had much confidence that I can ventilate properly in my dungeon studio but I can in the new studios space. And it will help me to get out of my routine as an oil painter to pursue such a different medium. I should be working in the new studio space by the last week in March. 450 Harrison is also know for First Fridays nhttp://www.sowaartistsguild.com/.So come on by. You'll be the first to see my new oil works and hopefully my encaustic experiments.

Visuals inspired by the olifactory

2009-01-29T09:05:00.000-05:00

To follow on my last blog...that fresh air smell on sheets. I was inspired to compose a little painting I titled "Sweet Dreams". This painting is a pastiche of images and colors, real and imagined, from Burano-Venice. The juxtaposition of the shocking pink against green is true. The green in the painting has been changed to a green I love, rather than the "Kelly" green of the existing building in Burano. The window here is also borrowed from another building. Digital images are useful as references but a painting copy of digital image does not art make. There have been too many digital image paintings going around these days that leave me empty and that are not to my "taste". That says more about me than it does about the copies, some of which do show real patience and a type of virtuosity. But I ask myself "Is it not the artist's responsibility to bring something personal to the art beyond photo shop? "

On another subject, I am honored to be a juror for Project Laundry List's "Art on a Line Comptetion. "Project Laundry List is seeking submissions of all varieties of artwork to be judged from digital images for its Art On the Line competition. The year's competition celebrates Project Laundry List's mission of making air-drying laundry acceptable and desirable as a simple and effective way to save energy.To check out current entries, join us at Project Laundry List’s Art on the Line Flickr Group." http://www.laundrylist.org/index.php/art/66-artcontest
I showed you myr art, now show me yours!

That fresh smell of fresh air on sheets!

2008-12-01T20:12:00.000-05:00

A quick kudos. When we were in the Catskills for Thanksgiving, my friend Edward stayed at the Catskill Motor Court. A simple but sparkling, friendly place with wonderful views. Anyway, Marie the proprietess hangs all the motel sheets out in the fresh air on a line to dry! It's beautiful. Imagine settling in for a good night's sleep on fresh air sheets. Wonderful! Project Laundry List would be so proud of her.
www.catskill-motorcourt.com

What could make me blog today instead of paint?

2008-11-30T12:39:00.001-05:00

I have an interesting story to tell you all and that is why I am on my blog today. On the way home from Thanksgiving in the Catskills, we stopped for lunch, a visit with Duncan Miller the FRM and look see into the Berkshire Art Gallery, specializing in good painters to super good painters, mostly dead American painters, not on the list of "greats" as most people know the list. The art here are not as well known, mostly because of fate and circumstance, not because of lack of talent. www.berkshireartgallery.com (Someday, if we are lucky, when we are dead and gone our work will be in a gallery like this).

Anyway, while browsing, I saw an oil painting that reminded me of a watercolor I painted, in the sixth grade, of a clothesline strung from a brick house with a broken window, a bare tree in a yard behind double deckers and row houses;in short, typical East Boston. (My little water color went on to win a little school art prize somewhere.) Anyway, I went over to this oil painting because a) it was a laundry line, b) I liked the way in which the paint was handled and c) the composition was strong, not to mention a nice harmony of colors.
GUESS WHAT?
The title was Wash Day - East Boston done by Guido Rinaldo Borghi an Ashcan School / WPA / and animal painter. So, I bought it of course! I also saw, online, a painting Borghi did of the White Castle in Chinatown dated 1952 so he must have been around Boston a that time in a time when things didn't change much. East Boston looked much the same in the 40's 50's and 60's and 70's. Guido Borghi was born 1903 and died 1971. I attached the image for you viewing pleasure. I LOVE this painting.

Miscellaneous Musings

2008-06-24T20:59:00.000-04:00

Hmm..I was hoping the lazy days of summer would start but so far I have been very very busy. Of course most of it is of my own making. For instance; I decided to do an encaustic portrait of a friend to submit to the Newton Art Association Library Show. I have always wanted to paint Miss X but I never really did get around to it. She will be leaving fr parts unknown soon so this is my last chance to paint her, really. However, I must be mad. A portrait is difficult as it is and to do one is encaustic seems nearly impossible. I may just throw the whole thing out when I am done. But I'll learn more from my big mistake than I will from my little successes.

Confucius supposedly said: "If the names are not correct, the judgments are not clear. If the judgments are not clear, the works are not accomplished." Now how does this apply to painting? Well, I think that in that eternal internal dialogue that I have with myself about a painting it is important to use the right words and names to describe what I am doing to myself. Perhaps if I can't find the words I won't be able to understand what I want to do.

And I would also like to post a commission piece which is completed. I titled it "The Storm Passed Over" It's 60 in X 46 in. I do like the physicality of painting large, I must say. I also like the intimacy of painting small. Hmmm. Maybe I'll do both!

Montserrat Encaustic Conference

2008-06-18T16:27:00.000-04:00

I attended the Montserrat Encaustic Conference. The real meat of the program for me was the all day workshop which I took with Alexandre Masino. http://www.alexandremasino.com/. I admire his use of wax surfaces and textures in his beautiful landscapes and still lifes. He is a realist artist who works in encautic technique, using the medium's qualities very effectively. His paintings are not a forced preconceived vision in encaustic but rather he lets the encaustic do what it does best and that is to make a layered and textured surface. He has a very good sense of when to control the wax and when to let the control go.

For the most part, many encaustic realist painters don't seem, to me, to fully appreciate the medium. Many realistic artists hope that the encaustic medium helps their particular realism to be distinctive from oil or acrylic though to my eye they could very well be doing what they are doing in oil or acrylic. In fact, some realist artists try to get the encaustic to look like hyper realistic oils..something that oils is best suited to do. I see this as a technical goal not an artistic goal. Some encaustic realists use tape, stencils, and what ever works to re-create an effect close to a photo realism. Why?

I like to think of myself, firstly, as a painter. And as a painter, I see the paint quality and the image quality as equals in a painting. In other words: the painting ( quality and use of the paint) has to be as interesting to me as the image itself. That's the kind of painter I am. I like the quality of encaustic surface (textured, thickness, layered and luscious colors) but I will only use wax if it gives me something I can't get with oils .

Again, I am not interested in a narrative or recording image in my work but rather I find composition, light, color and surface to be where the excitement is whether it be in an abstract or a realistic painting. It's here where wax becomes "interesting"; encaustic a medium DOES have an advantage for me over other mediums. This I just now realized through this work shop. I can layer, texture and keep my colors pure and clean in an immediate way. If the results are not to my liking , it can be changed. But because the wax hardens on contact (more or less) the colors stay pure, like painting with a pallet knife. BUT then you can texture and layer immediately, not needing to wait, sometimes days and longer, as you must do in oils to say, scumble. Some oil painters do work up a layer of texture by a thick gesso or acrylic undercoat and then they use thin oils over texture but the texture of the under coat and the strokes with in the image are often a mis-match which, for me, corrupts the integrity of the painting. It's not me, I guess I am still a purist I guess wanting oil to be oil, acrylic to be acrylic and wax to be wax. This is certainly out of favor in the mix media world and classes me with dinosaurs.

The advantage that wax has over acrylics is that though the wax sets up, it can be activated and manipulated on demand through heat. This is unlike acrylics where once the acrylic paint sets up and dries (and it dries fast on pallet, brush and painting and you are always dealing with the water, extenders etc.). Acrylics is an awful medium for ME. I am a Leo, I feel much more comfortable using heat than water. Weird but true.

Now in encaustic realism, the resulting piece will only be as good as you are a painter. It still comes down to seeing and painting but now there is the whole wide world a texture. I intend to pursue it further. It's a risk because I have been somewhat competent and successful in oils. It's difficult to leave a safety zone but HEY! Nothing ventured nothing gained.

Anything else you want to know? It's an expensive medium but less time consuming if you know what you are after and don't stop to play too much.Oh yeah.. in the torch vs. heat gun..using both was the way for me to go. Each tool does something very different to the wax. And a thanks to Heather Hutchinson for giving me a little shove towards the torch.