Category: At work in the Studio

Props

Posted on by heather

What does an artist do when a still life set up requires a subject that is…out of season ?

When the very name of the island that serves as the backdrop has the name Vineyard in it and… it is June ?

Well, she takes herself to the grocery store…or to her iphone.

Yep, who knew. Way back in April when this painting idea came to me  and I went to the new supermarket in search of props only to find that concord grapes are not among the items shipped in to our late winter township from some warmer climate on the other side of the globe. While wandering over to my favorite section…the cheese gazebo…I looked up and poof ! Concord grapes, complete with leaves ! Not exactly what I wanted but in a pinch… !

Now, in the middle of June, as I scramble to complete the paintings for the Granary Show, it is time to pull those photos from the camera roll on the trusty iphone and print them out as reference for the still life that sits before me.

You’ll have to wait a bit longer to see the finished result…but here’s a teaser…

FINISHED !!!!!!!

Posted on by heather • 1 Comment on FINISHED !!!!!!!

Noon today… the big painting was signed and declared completed.

Three brutal months, 46 birds, 46 boats, thousands of shingles and one lone fisherman later…

Despite the congestion in the lungs and head, I am breathing a whole lot easier this afternoon. This is one huge weight (literally) lifted off my shoulders… and I’m on to the next ptg…my brushes have hit the ground running as the race to complete as many more paintings as I can in the next two months before the show.

Stay tuned for updates… in the meantime here are some detail shots…

A closer look…

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Maybe it’s because I’m listening to the new Mary Russell novel, The God of the Hive , which is rocketing up the Best Seller list – Congrats to LRK ! …. Another brilliantly written adventure with Sherlock Holmes and his irregulars…

and maybe it’s because this aging artist is constantly fighting her bifocals to see well enough to brush in the finest of details…

and maybe it’s because this massive undertaking of a painting, now three long hard months in the making, is straining and stretching the limits of said sickly artist…

but the other day I got to thinking about magnifying glasses…

and yesterday a new magnifying lamp arrived in a big brown truck.

It certainly does make it much easier to see the detail I am trying to render. Even though there is also an annoying shake that happens when I bump it with the other end of the brush…or the brim of my baseball hat…or Finnegan’s tail. But I’m learning its personal space limitations and loving the sharper focus. Especially on this painting with lobster traps that are half an inch long and seagulls that are the size of dimes. Wish I’d thought of this earlier…but there ya go… and here’s the view through my looking glass…

Now that the storm has passed…

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I know, two posts in one day…and after I whined about being so far behind…

but a few minutes ago Pat called and made me come over to the log cabin because tornadoes had been reported from a storm moving in our direction…fast.

Sure enough we got two whopping doses of wicked weather… the skies have cleared and the temperature dropped 20 degrees… and the studio yard is now a carpet of ice.

It made me think of last year’s painting…

Now that the storm has passed…

I’m going back to the easel now… I promise.

Keeping me sane…

Posted on by heather • 1 Comment on Keeping me sane…

This time of year is always stressful. The big show of the year, summer show at the Granary Gallery, is now only weeks away and I’m typically working extra long days to finish paintings, haul them up to the photographer, and back and forth to the frame shop to select framing.

The usual stress releasers, aka therapy outlets such as tending to the gardens and sitting at the spinning wheel or taking long hikes with the dog, are my favorite detours this time of year.

But this year is different. The challenges of this last winter  have set me back almost two months in the painting schedule and the spring has brought a whole new set of complications. The demands on my time away from the easel have upped the ante in the stress department and I’ve gone into emergency painting mode.

Finnegan has been taking some of the slack by pulling out the tallest of the weeds, the spinning wheel sits idle and the new fleece is safely stored in a pillowcase and the weather has turned much cooler and rainy in the last week which isn’t good spinning weather so that helps, and Pat has stepped in to take Finn for some play time each day and the yearling pup is running like a champ on her newly recovered elbows… so all is being looked after and it is more than ever a team effort here in the studio.

I know of many other artists who are scrambling these days to get ready for shows… and I was just wondering how you guys stay sane ?

Pat will tell you I’m not doing a very good job of that right now… and her oft told joke that she has me chained to the easel…well I’ve better get back to rattling them chains before she notices I’m at the computer…

The  clock doth tick .

Garage Project

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Our son Jon gave us a wonderful Mother’s Day present this year… two weeks of his hardworking, strong and good humored self… and a new life for our old studio garage…

With help from our generous neighbors Walt and Sue, Jon managed to shore up the leaning building, rebuild the falling down shed out back, build beautiful new cedar carriage doors and put a shiny new red metal roof on top.

We took a day off in the middle of the hard work to attend the Sheep and Wool festival and had a glorious day amid the fleece and fiber and we got at least one Reeser’s Ice Cream visit in and one wild night of studio scrabble.

In a few weeks, after the summer Granary show, I will take more time to finish the small details and organize the work space and then be able to use this as a real workshop for panel prep and woodworking and framing. Here’s a few pics of the progress…

I will sleep much better tonight…

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Thanks to our friend Susan who suggested we try calling the electric company to see if they would come and take down the 100 foot tall fir tree that was threatening to topple onto their wires that traverse the studio yard. I have been fretting about this tree for a couple years and this winter it began to take on a lean that was terrifying. The roots were lifting out of the ground and I layed awake through the last two nor’easters listening for a crash.

So I called, Micky came out the next morning and said yep we’ll treat it as a storm damage so we don’t have to pay for it and she actually thanked me for calling them. This morning the trucks showed up with a crew of happy hard working guys who quickly and professionally took that baby down…. AND they hauled the wood to the corner of the yard for us AND they raked and cleaned up ! I am impressed and grateful.

Pat and Finn and I watched the show with awe and when they left we sighed a big relief and crossed that chore right off the big list. Now we’re taking suggestions as to what nice shade tree we can plant there …

Here’s a slide show of the tree felling adventure… PS- after a few days I removed the slide show because it was causing the blog to open very slowly…

Zink family to the rescue…

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One small step for our studio garden….one giant THANK YOU !!! to the Zink family who showed up in force yesterday to help haul two truckloads of dirt to the new raised beds out back.

These guys really know the meaning of hard work and humor and friendship and kindness. Saren, Chuck, Dana, Jim, Jake and Ryan….we are so grateful to you for making a monumental chore into an evening of fun and good company.

Here’s a little slideshow of the dirt moving party… and the snap-your-fingers-progress that has these new beds ready for planting way ahead of schedule…and a much appreciated random act of kindness… [slideshow]

It’s my birthday…

Posted on by heather • 1 Comment on It’s my birthday…

and I’m taking the whole day off… from painting that is…

the easel chair is empty…

The daffodils are in bloom…

Finnegan, Pat and I have taken the first walk in the park of the season…

and there is a stack of wood in the driveway that wants to become new garden beds…

and the promise of sushi when the sun begins to set…

a fine day to turn 52.