"Sunrise Quietude" (oil on linen; 9" x 12") sold

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A couple of loons glide on a mirror-like lake on a sunrise. Peace and quietude reign.  After the last-minute grocery shopping on Christmas Eve, working on the piece was like meditation!

"Big Sur Blue" (oil on stretched canvas; 12" x 16")

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I don't know why, but whenever I think of the color blue, Big Sur, CA is the first thing that pops into my mind.  As I wanted to paint a "blue" painting, Big Sur is what I came up with.  Although I visited this beautiful place only once, I still dream of the intense blues of the Pacific Ocean from Big Sur! Obviously, I am not the only person who loves Big Sur.  All the previous paintings have been sold!

"Big Sur Wildflowers" (oil, 10" x 8"; sold)

"Big Sur Moment" (oil, 11" x 14"; sold)

"Big Sur Blue" (oil, 5" x 4"; sold)

"Wolf on the Prowl" (oil on linen; 8" x 8") sold

sold

No, this is not a pet.  It is a wolf on the prowl.  I saw it at the International Wolf Center in Ely, MN several years ago.  As you may know, wolves are back in North America, which is thrilling to some and alarming to others.  The center is one of the world's leading organizations dedicated to educating the public about wolves.

We were safely behind the glass barrier; all the wolves out for the visitors to admire appeared pretty darn friendly.  I don't remember the name of this "ambassador wolf".  In another picture it looks like smiling!  I did my best to make the wolf look menacing, on the prowl in the moonlight.  I must say it was fun!

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!

Oh, by the way, it's Day Five of Leslie Saeta's 30 in 30 Challenge.  Only 25 more to go!

"Big Sur Widflowers" (oil on linen; 10" x 8") sold

sold

Some places are so beautiful that they beg to be painted over and over again.  Big Sur, California is one of those places.  I visited Big Sur just once several years ago, but am still haunted by the memory.

"Big Sur Moment" (oil, 11" x 14"; sold)

"Big Sur Blue" (oil, 5" x 4"; sold)

By the way, today is the first day of Leslie Saeta's September 30 Paintings in 30 Days Challenge.  I will try to keep up with the challenge!

"Kauai Surfer Dude" (oil on linen; 10" x 10") sold

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I may be a tad too old for surfing in this life, but in my next life I would like to do some surfing! Preferably in Kauai.  Like this guy.

By the way, I will be participating in Leslie Saeta's September 30 Paintings in 30 Days Challenge.  That's a lot of paintings!  I have never painted that many and blogged that often in a month.  Do you think I can do it?  Let's make it a team effort!  Please send me your pictures to kimstenbergart@gmail.com.  I am waiting for your pictures of pets, houses, vacations (without people in them), favorite places, gardens, hometowns, etc.  I will do a drawing and give one painting away at the end of September.  Thanks!

"Guarding Alcatraz Island" (oil on linen; 8" x 8") sold

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A seagull takes a break, while eating the famous San Francis sourdough.

Alcatraz Island is located in the San Francisco Bay, 1.5 miles offshore from San Francisco.  It is home to the abandoned prison, the site of the oldest operating lighthouse on the West Coast, early military fortifications, and a seabird colony (mostly Western Gulls).  Today the island's facilities are managed by the National Park Service.  As far as I can tell, due to the recent budget cuts, the island seems to be guarded mainly by the seagulls!

By the way, the seagull population is skyrocketing and the birds are taking over San Francisco. Don't feed the gulls and pigeons!

"Winged Victory of Samothrace" (watercolor on paper; 20" x 14")

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The famous ancient Hellenistic Greek statue at the Louvre Museum in Paris was the inspiration for the painting.  The 2nd-century BC marble sculpture of the Greek goddess Nike (Victory) was created to honor a sea battle.  Since 1884, it has been prominently displayed at the Louvre and is one of the most celebrated sculptures in the world.  Although headless, it conveys a sense of action and triumph.  I cannot imagine it with a beautiful woman's head, just as I cannot think of "Venus of Milo" with arms.  The power of imagination!

I visited the museum back in 1997 during a two-week trip to France with my husband. I was awed by the beauty of a chunk of an ancient marble.  I wanted to paint it and paint it well.  It was particularly challenging project.  The reference photo with a flat, interior lighting didn't give me much value variation.

I crumpled a thin piece (90 lb weight) of watercolor paper, which crackled (damaged) the surface.  A sacrilegious act, but I was going for an unfussy way to suggest the marble texture. The background interior of the museum was pained with minimum details, whereas I carefully punched up the statue as much as I could with the same limited palette.  It is a subtle, blue painting, which is curiously alive.  You can almost feel the breeze caused by the fluttering wings of the goddess, which is about to take off!

The painting was juried into the Art League show in Alexandria, VA in 2006.

"Summer Lake Cruise" (watercolor on paper; 14" x 10") sold

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The scene is a lake in the New York state, which I visited on way to Niagara Falls many years ago.  The vacationers were getting on board of a cruise ship festooned with patriotic flags; you can see the captain on the bench watching them.  I left the foreground and the sunlit parts of the figures and boat untouched, since nothing beats the pure white of the paper for imitating the sunlight!

"Poppy Dreams" (watercolor on Yupo; 6" x 8") sold

sold

I am continuing my Yupo painting explorations.  Everyday I work on two or three paintings.  Why?  Because paints on Yupo dry very slowly; water has to evaporate, as the synthetic support does not absorb any moisture.  While a section on a painting is drying, I work on something else on anther painting.  I go for puddly, spontaneous, watercolory look in these paintings, but they are actually painted slowly, patiently, and in stages.  How do you like "Poppy Dreams"?

By the way, I found a great quote by Claude Monet: "I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers."  He took words right out of my mouth!  I can paint flowers everyday for months without running out of inspiration!

"Red Boat" (watercolor on Yupo; 8" x 8") sold

sold

The scene depicts a small charming marina at Luce Creek in Annapolis, MD.  The red boat sings in this green, blue, and purple landscape, doesn't it?  Its actual color was dark blue!  I had a lot of trouble with this painting.  I wiped out and repainted the sky and water.  Still something bothered me.  But I liked the middle section with the boats so much that I couldn't give up.  So I redid the water one more time.  More disappointment.

I was about to toss it into the waste basket, because one cannot mess with a painting forever.  Suddenly a light bulb went off.  Why not crop it and get rid of the offending bottom portion?  I am raising the attitude of "Never give up, never surrender" to an art form!

Reference photo

"Purple Iris and Lady's Mantle" (watercolor on paper; 8" x 8") sold

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Purple irises with lady's mantle and scabiosa (pincushion flower) cast lovely shadows on a white ground.  Did you notice how expressive the shadows in my watercolor florals are?  I love them!  By the way, it's turning out to be extremely tricky to photograph these paintings.  These days I seem to be spending hours retaking and Photoshopping pictures.  The cerulean blue shadow on the right should be purple!

If you want to win a painting from my "Spring Fever" series at the end of the month, please sign in to follow my blog.  Thanks!

"Pansy Posy" (watercolor on paper; 6" x 6") sold

sold

I knew that, after I drew in the pansies, vase, and shadows, I had a small, but fabulous, painting in the making.  Honestly, I didn't think much of it when I was taking pictures of the still life.  Yes, I work from photos for my watercolor florals.  It's better for my sanity that way!  And, as you may have noticed, most flowers that I have painted so far are not blooming yet.  Old pictures came to the rescue.  When you have a serious spring fever, you can't wait for the flowers, can you?

If you want to win a painting from my "Spring Fever" series at the end of the month, please sign in to follow my blog.  Thanks!

"Big Sur Moment" (oil on linen; 11" x 14") sold

sold

Reference photo

As I wrote yesterday, I started a new series called "California Colors."  All the paintings of the series will be based on the pictures I took five years ago during a family vacation to northern and central California.  The occasion for this two-week vacation was a family wedding.  A nephew of my husband got married at a Napa vineyard!  It was the kind of a beautiful wedding you see in movies.  A lucky boy!  He and his wife now have two adorable kids and live in San Francisco.  A lucky couple! 

I had been to the city, but not to the rest of my favorite state.  So we made a vacation out of a wedding.  Why not?  Do you know what happened later in that summer?  A younger brother of the groom decided to get married six weeks after the said wedding, instead of waiting for a couple of years as he and his fiance had promised to the family.  The year of 2007 thus became the year of family weddings.  We made the two remaining boys swear that they would never ever get married in the same summer! 

The second wedding took place in Minnesota, my husband's home state.  We love Minnesota, but Minnesota is not California.  Besides, we were burned out of vacations.  We took just a few more days off in addition to the necessary time, in order to visit with relatives.  The trip didn't result in as many glorious pictures as the California one either.

We had only a day for Big Sur toward the end of our trip, which was a shame.  How can you explore this spectacular spot on earth in one day?  We made a lot of stops to take pictures, that's all.  But I still  dream of the incredible blues of Big Sur.

"Summer Canal" (oil on linen; 6" x 8") sold

sold

Reference photo

No, I didn't paint "Summer Canal" on location.  It is murderously hot out there.  Instead, I dug up a photo I took last September while taking a break during a plein-air painting session.  I took a leisurely walk along the historic C & O Canal in Washington, DC.  One of the pictures from my walk inspired "Autumn Bliss," in which I exaggerated the hints of autumnal colors to come up with a glorious fall landscape.  For the new painting, I stayed with a cool palette.  I need to stay cool, at least psychologically.

"Autumn Bliss" (oil, 9" x 12")
sold

"Kauai Waves" (oil on canvas; 10" x 10" x 1 1/2")

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It looks like there won't be a vacation for us this summer.  My daughter, who is starting high school in the fall, wants to march in her school's marching band.  They have two weeks of training in August, which is ABSOLUTELY mandatory.  There goes our trip to Minnesota to visit relatives and the state fair.  She is disappointed, but one can't march and eat soft-serve ice cream at the same time.  Life's tough choices.  Sigh.

I must console myself by doing lots of vacation-themed paintings, starting with Kauai waves.  Do you know that the Hawaiians invented surfing?  Winter is apparently the best season for surfing in Hawaii.  When we were in Kauai in February, there were high-surf warnings everyday.  I saw quite a few surfers at Haena Beach captured in this painting.  I don't surf, but it sure was fun to watch surfer dudes in action.

Surfer dude

By the way, "Kauai Waves" continues to the 1 1/2"-wide edges for the maximum cool effect! 

"Kauai Waves" viewed from the left side

"Kauai Waves" viewed from the right side

"Blueberry Pie Party" (oil on canvas; 12" x 16") sold

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Still life setup 

I am getting used to a complicated setup, so I wasn't flabbergasted at the above arrangement by my teacher John Murray in yesterday's class.  It was the presence of the red colander with the brass-knobbed lid that bothered me.  I knew that it belonged there for color.  But who puts a colander, pretty or not, in the middle of a setup, which is obviously celebratory!  Ah, perhaps it was used to drain blueberries.  In my painting I deliberately omitted its perforations.

There were other issues too.  John noticed that I put the still life too high in the picture again.  Why do I keep doing that?  I introduced a suggestion of the second vertical plane, which kind of helped.  Still I had a lot of empty square inches of foreground to deal with.  I added one more candle and moved the candles to point toward the subjects.  The way the white-handled knife was sitting on the small plate, pointing out of the picture, was troubling too, but it stayed there so that I would have seven, not six, candle-like objects.  Always go for the odd number.

Do you know what?  The biggest challenge actually had nothing to do with my painting.  John had set up another arrangement with yummy-looking donuts.  The students who chose to paint them were having such success that I was turning green with envy.  No awkward colander to worry about.  No empty foreground to struggle with.  Just fun and games.

Now as I look at the finished painting, I see an elegance in its scheme.  The painting is all about the three primary colors--red, blue, and yellow.  It isn't a fun, loud party we are looking at.  It is a quiet celebration of food and a shared life.

"Crashing Waves" (oil on linen; 8" x 10") sold

sold

Reference photo for "Crashing Waves"

My teacher, John Murray, believes that a viewer can tell whether a painting was painted with joy and fun or with anguish and frustration.  I absolutely agree with him.  Sometimes I work on a painting to death and it shows.  Maybe it's the complicated drawing or muddled value scheme.  I work at it with a sheer determination, but without joy. 

Not "Crashing Waves."  I spent many hours staring at waves during my recent trip to Kauai.  You can, of course, try to analyze the way waves are formed from the physics point of view, as my husband did.  For me, it's the colors of the ocean, waves, their shadows, etc. that are spellbinding.  I took many pictures; while going through them on computer screen, the above photo caught my eye.  I loved the aquamarine sea, white foams, and dark, moss-covered rock.  Look at the wonderful shadows of the rock!

Although I was still tired and didn't quite feel up to painting, the creative juice started pulsing through my artistc veins.  I painted fast and furiously with joy.  After the multi-colored rock and waves were laid down, I lathered thick white paint to mimic sea foam.  What fun!

"Winter Bird" (oil on linen; 8" x 12") sold

sold

Red berries are heavily laden with snow.  One can feel that it is a cold gray day.  No matter.  The small black bird is intently and happily feeding.  I don't know why this painting induces a happy feeling in me.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

"Snow Trees" (oil on linen; 8" x 12") sold

sold

I had a photograph which was so underexposed that it almost looked black and white.  But it had an intriguing design I wanted to explore--a line of snow-coated trees along a dark band of a creek flowing through snow fields.  I photoshoped it to lighten the darks.  It looked better; but it still had hardly any colors, which wasn't a disaster.  I could "make up" colors easily, you see.  Browns for the trees, dark blues for the creek, and various whites for the snow.  The painting isn't really about color.  It's about design.

The photo's picture plane was originally divided into two by the biggest tree, which I moved a little to the left.  Other trees were also moved a bit this way and that way, so that the painting has three groupings of trees: the papa group in the middle, the mama group on the right, and the lone tree (baby!) on the left.  The snow field across the creek is sunlit; the snow bank in the foreground is in the shadow.  So are all the trees.  I had a lot of fun painting wet snow clinging to the trees--trunks, branches, twigs, and all.  Oh, I wish it would snow!

"Blue and Green Still Life" (watercolor with white gouache; 13" x 11") sold

"Blue and Green Still Life"
sold

Still Life setup with Rick Weaver

Rick starts blocking in

Rick's compact travel watercolor palette

Rick's demo painting--loose and free!

Last weekend I took a fabulous workshop--"Opaque Watercolors"--with Rick Weaver at the Art League School in Alexandria, VA.  I was excited to see him in person, as he had the reputation of being brutally honest to students in what he says about their artwork.  I have heard of students ending up in the bathroom to cry after his critique!  Another reason for the anxiety was that, because of a low enrollment, there was an imminent danger of the workshop getting cancelled.  Dang!  I really wanted to learn how to use watercolors opaquely like oils for painting during vacations.

I am a dedicated plein-air painter and have dragged my painting gear around in my enthusiasm to all sorts of places, including national parks in the Southwest.  But there is the bulk issue of the art gear necessary for outdoor painting in oil.  An even bigger problem is traveling with oil paints and mediums.  One has to take numerous precautions not to get your stuff thrown out of your luggage.  These days, a traveling oil painter is treated worse than a terrorist with a bomb on the airplane!

I was tired of it all.  I needed an intervention.  I had to find out whether Rick's promise would deliver: the promise of maximizing the watercolor paints' potentials with one additional paint--a white gouache--to make them behave opaquely, but retaining transparency when appropriate.  Fortunately, six additional students signed up for the workshop at the last moment.  Thank goodness!  And Rick did more than deliver.  His reputation turned out to be false as well.  He was a fun, gentle, encouraging, and phenomenal teacher!

On Saturday, we tackled still life to get the hang of the new medium.  Even a veteran watercolorist such as myself found that adding a white gouache to watercolor paints transformed them into a totally different animal.  Traditional transparent watercolors dry a little lighter; but opaque watercolor paints dry darker, just like acrylic paints.  Strange.  I also had to figure out the right water/paint ratio to make the paints flow.  Tricky.

My still life value study (watercolor with white gouache; 9" x 9")

In other words, it was hard!  For a particularly struggling student, Rick did another quick demo of a value study with just one color of burnt umber.  As we had only half an hour left by that time, several of us decided to do the same instead of starting a new still life as Rick made us switch to another setup.  A slave driver!  I didn't have the right color, so, instead, used Daniel Smith's "Moonglow".  The above value study is pretty much a trasparent watercolor, with one exception.  I restored lights with a white gouache here and there. 

You see, that is precisely the point.  In traditional watercolors, lights once lost are lost forever, just like Fitzwilliam Darcy's opinion once lost is lost forever in Pride and Prejudice.  In traditional watercolors, a white paint is death, anathema.  One must preserve white and lights with life.  But, honestly, who gives a darn!  With a white added to your watercolor paints, you can go either way--darker or lighter.  There is freedom.  Hallelujah!