"Winter Central Park Nocturne" (oil on stretched canvas; 11" x 14") sold

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This is my favorite view of Manhattan: with the stone bridge of the Central Park in front. If it is a winter evening with snow on the ground, it is even more magical!

"Rockefeller Center Christmas" (oil on linen; 9" x 12") sold

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It is Christmastime in New York City!  The Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree, towering above the ice rink below, all decked out in its finest holiday bling, is a world-wide symbol of the holidays in New York City.  Personally, I like the angels playing trumpets even more!

"Central Park in Fall Colors" (oil on linen; 9" x 12") sold

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I have often painted the famous Pond at the New York Central Park with a sliver of the Manhattan skyline.  It is such a picturesque scene.  It is always beautiful, but is most spectacular in fall colors!

"Central Park Snow Day" (oil on stretched canvas; 8" x 10")

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A lot of people in the country are now sick of snow, ice, and bitterly cold weather.  Yet here I am, sharing another snow painting!  In my defense, this is my one and only snow painting of the season.  Besides, who can deny the beauty of snow?  Just a few inches.  After the night of a gentle snowfall, the sun shines on the Pond at the Central Park in New York City.  People are out and about, rejoicing in the pure blessing.  So please forgive me.

"Autumn Central Park" (oil on linen; 8" x 10") sold

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I love New York City.  It is big, noisy, and a little scary for a suburbanite such as myself.  But, for culture--both highbrow and the rest, there is no other place like New York in the United States. My pet peeve is that I don't get to visit it often.  I have only three or four paintable pictures of this exciting city from my few visits.

The photo I used for "Autumn Central Park" wasn't taken on an autumn day at all.  It was on an overcast day in May during my family's mini vacation that I took the shot.  No matter.  I Photoshopped the picture, intensifying hue/saturation.  You just can't believe what you see these days, ha!

If you send me your pictures to kimstenbergart@gmail.com, I may make paintings out of them.  How fun is that!  At the end of September, I will do a drawing and one lucky person wins a free painting.  You can buy the painting anytime, but there is no obligation.  Thanks!

Today is Day Sixteen of Leslie Saeta's 30 in 30 Challenge.  I am halfway through!

"Central Park in Snow" (oil on linen; 9" x 12") sold

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The Central Park in New York City has got to be the most romantic park in the world. Think of all the movies filmed there!  I have painted the famous stone bridge at the pond several times.  This painting captures it on a wintry day.  The snow on the ground glows in the late afternoon sun.  Lights have come on, adding more warmth to the otherwise cold painting.

"Central Park Sunset" (oil on linen; 14" x 11") sold

"Central Park Sunset"
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"Central Park Reflections" (oil, 12" x 9")
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If you read my blog regularly, you may remember the above painting.  In the entry on "Central Park Reflections", I talked about how I changed the time of the day and mood from an overcast day to a mellow sunset.  Well, I thought I would give another shot at it in a slightly larger format.  It is still a sunset scene, but I used more paint and more saturated colors.  I love the new version! 

I have been re-reading my favorite art books and doing a lot of thinking lately.  I decided that I should use more paint, be braver, and paint with gusto.  I have come a long way from my watercolor days, in which I didn't show any brushstrokes.  My watercolor paintings were so still and meditative that I could fall asleep while looking at them.  Not that they were bad; they were beautiful and won many awards.  But most artists evolve; so have I.  Now I work in the tactile medium of oil, I should enjoy what the medium can do.  Right?

"Central Park Reflections" (oil on linen; 12" x 9") sold

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Original reference photo

Hue/Saturation adjusted photo

Last Monday I took an interesting workshop with Bobbi Pratte at the Art League School in Alexandria, VA.  It was about how to use Photoshop to improve paintings.  I use Photoshop to crop, rotate, lighten/darken the photographic images.  The basic stuff.  I am not a techie; I dread the whole esoteric, mysterious universe of technology.  So it was with some reservation that I signed up for the workshop, mainly because a good friend of mine talked me into it and some other good friends were taking it.  Why not?

I must say that I did see some interesting "tricks" one could do with Photoshop Elements.  My head spinned at the end of the three-hour workshop.  Bobbi covered such an impressive amount of information in one afternoon that, in the evening, when I picked up my long-abandoned copy of Photoshop Elements 8 for Dummies, I could almost understand what the 600-page-long book was explaining--selections, tools, layers, opacity, etc., etc. 

OK, let's talk about "Central Park Reflections."  The original reference photo was taken on an overcast spring day a couple of years ago during a mini family vacation to New York City.  I loved the way the Manhattan skyline was reflected in the pond water at Central Park.  But I decided to change the time of the day to dusk to make the painting "romantic." 

On the morning of the workshop, I tried to paint with the original printout, which was green all over with a colorless sky.  It was hard.  During the workshop, it occurred to me that I should adjust hue/saturation of the photo, so that it would be easier to visualize the mood I was going after.  I did just that this morning and reworked the painting with the adjusted printout.  It was much easier as I hoped. 

I had known how to adjust Hue/Saturation all along, but have never manipulated a reference photo to suit my particular project, only relying on my power of visual imagination.  I honestly don't know which way is better for an artist.  But I suspect that I will be using Photoshop more often to make my life easier.

"High and Mighty" (acrylic collage on paper, 11" x 7 1/2") sold

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You might be surprised to learn that the woman walking the dogs in this semi-abstract collage is the super model Kate Moss.  Or could you tell that from her strutting gait?  I had a lot of fun assembling the pieces of paper painted in acrylic and gluing them onto the support of watercolor paper in Susan Herron's class at the Art League School in Alexandria, VA.

In Susan Herron's class, several years of painting clicked and I finally began to see and paint like a real artist.  She is one of the most generous and innovative teachers whom I had the good fortune to meet.  Despite some personal tragedies, she continues to be a warm, positive human being and popular teacher.  I may have never attended an art college, but will hesitate to call myself a self-taught artist.  I have had numerous influences--direct and indirect--in my art education, and Susan has been one of the former.  Thank you.