Roadside Landscapes

Here are a few unfinished roadside landscapes. These are on a few left over pieces of Shina wood. (for woodcuts - about 3x3" and 4x4"). I'm hoping to get some wood cut at the hardware store to do more - maybe not quite this small. Stay tuned I'll be working on more :)

Clouds

A few weeks ago we took a drive to one of my favorite little quilt shops ever, The Buggy Barn about a 1/2 hour out of town in Reardan, WA. It's a converted small barn and is located in the middle of farm land. (rolling wheat fields)

Anyway, after painting all these portraits for so long... I'm planning on painting some roadside landscapes. The car window is a fabulous viewfinder. On this day, the clouds were so beautiful - we need to get out to the country more often!

Addendum...

I was mentioned at a lovely blog yesterday and wanted to say thanks to Karen.

Little Village Ink Drawing

A street scene in the village of Sospel - French Alps.

I've been trying to finish a lot of ink drawings on paper lately... love painting these with gouache. It's really armchair travel pour moi! But, things are looking up, it's been raining and the snow is slowly melting! There is a little grass visible in the front yard now and rings around the trees and bushes. This is a good sign. Hopefully I'm going to discover a few bulbs peeking through :)

Saint Marthe Cathedral in Tarascon, France

This was a memorable Cathedral we visited in the town of Tarascon... it's named after one of my best friends! I'm looking forward to painting these drawings I've posted. The holidays seemed to have broken my rhythm, though! Lately, I've been sitting on the floor, knitting while the kids play next to me... or just playing with them. So, I'm sort of stuck in that lazy, post-holiday 'in-between-world'! I've gotta get my groove back... but it is nice to just chill for awhile.

Yorkshire... & Ramble

My great-grandparents came from Yorkshire, England in the 1920's to Los Angeles, CA. They never returned. I have a love of all things British (and French)... the rolling hills and stone fences of England are no exception. Maybe it's the phenomena, 'Primordial Ancestral Imagery'** that drives me to paint these kind of landscapes. I've never been to England but have heard about it all my life and know many customs that we've practised in our family. I could be totally 'off' but somehow in the back of my mind, I'm seeing what my Great Grandma saw through her eyes in these paintings.

**This comes from a theory of Carl Jung... having to do with social anthropology and psychoanalysis. I learned about it in a fabulous cultural anthropology class...back in my social work days.

The images are inborn forms of intuition.

Primordial images originate from the initial stages of humanity and have been a part of the collective unconscious ever since. The images are apparently located in an inaccessible part of the brain. In my class we studied more details about this theory that included discussion about our own ancestors having more specific, cultural imagery - not just pure, primal human experiences from the initial stages of humanity.

Whew! That got way more detailed than I'd planned... but I wanted to explain myself instead of just throwing the term out there :)

Painting on Linen

Here's my first painting on linen. Wish I could say it is oil on linen but... my kids are usually mucking around in the studio when I'm there (in the daytime). I can't handle the mess of oil paint/solvent that a child has made and the damage it can cause to them and the house! Someday I'll get back to my oils!!

Anyway, I bought this Belgian linen in Victoria BC at a fabulous art store called Opus... they have a great selection. It felt like quite a splurge... especially when I was building and stretching the linen on the stretcher bars. (I build all my canvases, I consider it part of my process.)

This painting is unfinished but I'm getting closer. It's been through some radical changes and I'm ready to get back to it.

Making Progress

The Kite Shop at the Beach

Arles Cafe

Perfumed Hilltop

I'd rather be posting completely finished pieces today... but 'life is what happens when you're busy making other plans.' (Thank you, John Lennon... such true words in 'Mommyland'!) Today I will finish up and perhaps Sat. The Kite Shop is done, though and I'm really happy with it. It's a good sign when you really just want to keep it for yourself! These will probably land in my etsy shop sometime next month.

For fun today, my daughter and I are going to the annual quilt show here in Spokane. It's a yearly ritual for me and now for her since she's gone with me her whole life! I'll be hoping to get a bit of new, brightly colored wool felt from the vendor section.... hooo-haa! Have a happy Friday.

The Cooking School

A quaint little house that's been turned into a cooking school in a Pacific NW beach town. (I liked how it was perched up on a hill from the sidewalk). I used gouache on this ink drawing plus a bit of colored pencil. I'm working on being more 'rough and immediate'. More to come... This will probably land in the etsy shop but first, we're going for a good long stroller ride. The weather is legendary today and we must bathe ourselves in it! Happy holiday weekend :)

French Box

I'm working on a new series of jewel boxes... this time they are architectural in subject. I love doing faces but needed a change. This one is from a photo I took from a moving car (!) on the Cote d'Azur... Juan-les-Pins to be exact. There are some beautiful, old mansions there... this one of Moorish design. I'm really having fun with it and will post more later.

Lavender Fields

Lavande Bleu, 4 x 4 in. Woodblock print, hand colored.

Ah to be in Provence again... maybe one day. This is a Mas (farmhouse) we stayed at in Arles, France. Until then, I have many memories and lots of photographs that I can work from. My mom has a Lavender farm on the Olympic Peninsula of Washington State and I hope to do some domestic sketches this summer.

Waterlillies at Giverney - continued

Here is a painting that is nearly finished, I still need to add some highlights but, here it is! I like the dark and medium blues in the water. I think waterlillies are such a great subject, and it seems so many people have paininted them at some point. It 's hard not to think of Monet and waterlillies together. There is a breathtaking exhibit of Monet's waterlillies at the Musee de L'Orangerie in Paris. They are huge and displayed in an oval -shaped room. If they have a website, it's worth checking out.

ADDENDUM:

There is a website... click on "Les Nympheas".
www.musee-orangerie.fr

Sonoma Mountains continued

Here is a more finished version of Sonoma Mts... I would like to add some more colored shadows especially on the road and do something more with the leaves on the trees. It's a good thing these 'daily paintings' are not due for a show or something, because, I work best when I can mull them over for a period of time. Maybe I should change my blog name to 'Mulling it over...' nah.

Waterlillies and Woodcuts

Here is a painting I started today... it is taken from a photograph I took in Giverney, France - aka- Monet's garden. This is armchair travel for me, or "easel travel"... when I'm painting from holiday photos, it's like I'm there the entire time. Sorry to say it's not too pretty right now, but that will change.




Here is a woodcut I have just started tonight of a lovely summer day... kids at the park, tadpole hunting and tree hugging.