Watercolor sketches - Anna Maria Island

I get so much inspiration when we spend time in Florida on Anna Maria Island. I abandon my usual style of painting and do some quicker, fun watercolor sketches. This year as I visited I noticed the small bungalow homes that are original or “old Florida” are disappearing and larger more modern type buildings are replacing them. I love the colors of the old bungalows, all painted in beachy pigments and bright attention getting colors. So, I decided to document them before we return another year and more are gone. Here are a few of the sketches that I did this year so far.

These little paintings are only 5 x 7 and I purposely kept them simple allowing the color to come out from an all white background and highlight the subject.

Children's Art - Apple Progression

I recently taught a two hour children’s art class for a home school group. I painted a progression board for the apple because it is usually visually helpful to see where the painting is headed. (Image #1)

I have found that beginner students, no matter what age, think that they need to draw the entire painting first and then paint around the pencil lines. I try to explain that layering the paint, colors and steps, is what gives a painting depth. So as I walked the students through the process, they had a visual of what the step would look like.

But they didn’t have to make it look exactly like mine, they decided where they would place their apple on the canvas (or the composition) and how big their apples would be etc. They all did incredible work and each came out as different as their personalities are. (Image #2)

Image #1 Apple Progression

Image #2 The children holding their finished paintings

New Year Resolution - A Donut!

One of my final commissions in 2023 was a donut painting. (image #1) It seems like an appropriate subject for today, New Years Day, a day of both celebration and new health resolutions. This painting is 8 x 10 acrylic on panel and it was really fun to paint. I started by buying a donut and making a few sketches of different views. (image #2) I knew that I would be changing the sprinkles on the frosting in the painting and the colors, to be more in line with what my client wanted.

I delivered it 3 days before Christmas to a very happy client.

Image # 1

Image # 2

Tower of 3 Jars - Drama of Light

 I like playing around with my still life set ups, moving the light source to see what kind of “atmosphere” I can come up with. 

Flooding the light from the back to the front, or from one side - spotlighting one particular item in the still life changes the mood or the focus of the painting.  Changing from light background to dark background also changes the mood.  When creating my still life set up I usually allow a lot of time so I can change everything around until it feels right for painting.  Adding in items or taking some away, changing the background from light to dark or adding a draping cloth, and moving the light source around, are all things that I do until I like what has resulted.  Then I paint.

Composition and items used in a still life can tell the story that you want to convey, but lighting really sets the mood.  It creates interest for the artist as they paint as well as for the viewer of the painting. 

This painting, Tower, is the result of playing with the light source. I used a very dark background with an overhead light. The light flooded the tops of the jars and the top of the wooden box, but the further from the light source, the darker things became. And then when painting the still life, of course I exaggerated it a bit for a dramatic effect.     :)  Tracy

The Pink House in Summer

In Newbury Massachusetts there is a house called the Pink House. It sits right by the marsh and you pass it by on your way to the Plum Island Beach. It’s one of those buildings that is “infamous”, if you live in this area of New England, you are familiar with this house. It’s unoccupied and has been for years, and is disintegrating little by little. But it has been of great interest to many artists. This house has been painted and photographed over and over in watercolor, oil, pencil, acrylic, and more, and in spring summer fall and winter. It has been documented at all different angles and through all kinds of weather and skies. So although it seems that it will one day fall down physically, it will forever stand in paintings and photos because of the lure of the artist. Below is this artist’s rendering of the Pink House. Acrylic on canvas.

Pink House in Summer - acrylic on canvas

Childrens Book about Numbers

My last children’s book was about color and I was delighted at how well received it was by the intended audience - children! It was a very short book about seeing colors around you with characters that represented two of my granddaughters. Well, I just finished another book. This new book will be about numbers. It has the same concept but this time of seeing numbers in everyday life and how they can be fun instead of scary to learn.

I began by creating and painting a lot of watercolor illustrations of my simplified style of children in a variety of poses. This was a warm up exercise to get my mind and creativity flowing. Once I felt good about and had some fun creating the little characters, then I began to sketch out the pages that would make up the book.

The book “Your Favorite Number” will be available in a few months, but you can pre-order it now in my web-shop. Pre-ordered books will be signed by the artist with a unique sketch on one of the pages.

Children’s Book Cover

Art Tells a Story - Seeing Red

It’s amazing how a color can make a difference in the mood of a painting. In my painting “Seeing Red”, the entire mood would change if I had put this still life onto a light background and it would tell an entirely different story. It would also send a different vibe if the glass in the lantern were clear and the rose was pink or yellow. It might still send a bit of a moody feel with the dark background but it wouldn’t have as much drama as the red presents it with. Do you read a story when you look at artwork? You may not always sense the same thing that the artist did when they created the piece, but each painting will still begin to tell you a story when you view it. In still life I like to imagine who would be the owner of the objects and what was taking place when they were all put together. In my painting “Seeing Red” one could wonder where the items are and why are they placed there? Are they preparing to light the lantern or has the event that was to take place been abandoned? What story comes to mind for you?

Acrylic - a Versatile Paint

Lately, I have been asked quite a bit to create a class that beginners can come and accomplish in one sitting. I find that very hard because I’m so into detail, and short amounts of time don’t allow for too much detail. But I recently revamped one of my simpler paintings into a beginner class and it took about 2 1/2 hours for the students to paint it. I prepped the canvases ahead of time so we started with measuring out the door panels and then began painting. The first painting below is the more complicated one that I painted, and the photo below that is the one I painted with the beginner class that I taught to students in one sitting. Acrylic is a great medium, I can create a lot of layers of depth with it and yet it can be used in a more simplified form for quicker less fussy paintings.

Winter Wreath 16 x 20 Acrylic on Canvas

Winter Wreath for Beginners 16 x 20 Acrylic on Canvas

Small Paintings - Small Investment

I’ve been working on some small paintings. Sometimes collectors want one of my paintings but it isn’t the right time for a large investment so they want to purchase a smaller painting. I enjoy doing these little paintings because they work up quicker and they don’t give me time to get bored with what I’m working on, lol. If you have always wanted a real painting, not a print, a smaller painting is a great way to begin a collection.

I’ve also been working on a paint party type painting. I’ve had some interest from people to come and paint an afternoon quickie and decided to go ahead and teach one. But more on that in a later post. :)

Green Pear Cup - 6 x 6 Acrylic on panel I love green antique glass and am a bit of a collector of it. I was rearranging things and put the pear inside the cup to carry a bunch of things at once, and a still life was born.

Mini Blue Jar - 5 x7 Acrylic on canvas. This mini jar sits on my kitchen window sill with a little splash of a green leaves in it.

Tomato Rain Inspiration

As an artist you never know where your inspiration will come from or where you will be when something strikes you that you suddenly feel like painting. One of those moments happened right inside my own home when it was pouring outside. The last tomatoes from the garden were sitting on the window sill ripening and the rain was running down the window outside and the inspiration hit. This was a quick painting, done just to capture the moment. :)

Layers of Summer - A Monochromatic Still Life

One of my students brought me a purple Mason jar and asked me to use it in a still life painting. I had never seen a purple mason jar before and I don’t work in purple very often so it was intriguing for me to use it. My first thought was to look at the complimentary color of yellow on the color wheel to set up the still life. So I thought about yellow pears but it did not seem delicate enough. So in order to keep the transparent sense of glass I decided to stay with a monochromatic choice and put some plums along with the jar. Then the addition of a white cloth or doily with the jar would help the purple colors to really stand out and create a crisp summer feeling to the painting. (And notice that the lace has summer daisies embroidered into it…wink.) Layering the colors creates depth in the still life elements. There are several wonderful cool colors used; blues, red violet, magenta, and dioxazine purple.

Summer is such a joyful time and this painting is a reminder of the lightheartedness of the season.

Sweet Summer Plums - 11 x 14 Acrylic painting by Tracy - UPDATE: this painting won an award at the NAA Fall Members Show “Best in Excellence of Craft”

Beach Vibes - Commissioned

A word about artist commissions: I like taking orders for commissions, but honestly, some can stress me out a bit. Trying to create what someone else has in their mind can be a daunting task. There have been times when I finish a commissioned painting and the client that ordered it is thrilled and all is good. But then there are times when someone looks at the painting with a scrunched face and says, “oh, okay, um…..” and you know it isn’t what they were expecting. I find that the people that give you creative license to create something for a space almost always like what you create for them. It is the ones that are so specific about what they want that end up being disappointed. The reason being is that you cannot, no matter how you try, get inside someone else’s mind to see what they see. I do the best to decipher what they are describing but it isn’t always as clear as they think it is.

If you are planning to have an artist create a painting for you, here is my advice:

1. Do some research. Check out different artists and really look at what they have done in the past. Make sure you choose an artist that has a style close to what you want to have painted. If you want a freestyle impressionistic painting, it wouldn’t make sense to ask a Realism artist to translate your commission.

2. Gather some reference photos, either pictures of paintings that are similar to what you want or actual photos of the subject you would like painted. for example, a few different angles or poses for a pet portrait or some different perspectives of a particular landscape (more sky, less sky, cloudy, sun and shadows).

3. Size matters. Some artists don’t like to paint small, some don’t like to paint large, so as you research notice what size paintings a particular artist generally paints. You know what size that you want, so make sure the artist can accommodate the size you are interested in.

4. Don’t be too stringent. I know that you may have something in your mind, but don’t be so specific that you take away the artists creative license. I can usually see the lack of joy in a painting, when the artist didn’t feel good about painting it. Allow the artist to do what they do best, since you chose them for your project, there must be something that you like about what they do.

   Again, these are a few things to keep in mind when commissioning an artist for a painting that will help to keep both the creator and the client happy at the end of the process.

Beach Vibes - Acrylic on Canvas - a commissioned painting for a Florida client

Epic Fail - Mount Washington NH

Hi All - Generally artist’s post on social media what their latest beautiful work is, or what recently sold. All good news right? Well that isn’t actually all that takes place in the studio. Honestly, sometimes there are epic fails as well. There are paintings that get started and no matter what you do they just won’t come together the way you had envisioned before you began. They either get set aside to come back to later, completely abandoned into a dark corner of the studio, or sometimes painted over. Not everything makes it to the screen for show and tell.

This was the case for a large painting that I worked on for my own wall. I wanted a landscape that spoke of New Hampshire, something that was in organic colors that would be considered neutral in most homes. I decided to paint Mount Washington because my husband is enamored with this New Hampshire landmark. I spent quite a few days working on a 36 x 48 canvas and in the end decided to paint over it. It was a fail as far as a painting goes, but it was a learning lesson and painting anything is never a waste of time. :)

The Shop is Open

Finally I took a leap of faith and added a shop to my website! It was time to have a place where ALL of my artwork could be displayed and available for purchase. The shop includes my original paintings, my line of greeting and note cards, and fine art prints of my artwork that can be framed by you, as well as my children’s book “Your Favorite Color”. (Watch for some other fun goodies in the future.)

I’m excited to see how this new endeavor goes. Please visit my SHOP page and let me know if there is anything that you think I could do better or if there is something you would like to see me offer in it.

Moving...

6 months ago I began packing to move. My husband and I sold our house and moved only 6 miles away but a lifetime of possessions. I gave up my gallery and studio and my home of 25 years to downsize. It has turned out to be a good thing but it took a long time to get organized and re-established. I finally have my new studio set up and have begun to paint again. Here is the first painting I did in my new studio, titled “Ball Jar”

Blue Period

I didn’t realize it as I was painting but the last paintings I have accomplished have all been in a blue hue. There was Blue Bottles, Ribbons and Glass, Still Life with Lace, Chemistry, and Turquoise Still Life. In addition I painted a few beach scenes too. I guess I have been going through my blue period like Picasso did lol. Thankfully I haven’t felt blue emotionally, just as a choice of color. So here is my latest “blue” painting titled Turquoise Still Life. It can be seen in person at the Newburyport Art Assoc Fall Juried Show, October 22 - November 20.

Hampton Beach

Early in the beach season in New England there are days that feel like the middle of summer and the next day it will be like the end of winter. The day I visited Hampton Beach and painted this scene it was an in-between day. It was cloudy and cool but if the sun had come out in full it would have been a nice day to sit on the beach. There were many grey clouds but the sun peeked through now and then, and the seaweed all over the beach made the visit feel even more cool and gloomy. I sat on the beach anyway but not as a sun worshipper. 11 x 14 Acrylic on canvas