"Goosey Goosey Gander" (oil on stretched canvas; 20" x 16")

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Goosey goosey gander, Whither shall I wander? Upstairs and downstairs.... Well, this family of goose, gander, and goslings are swimming in a row in a pond. How many goslings do you see?

"Gibson" (oil on linen; 6" x 8") sold

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"Gibson" is for my old friend, Karen.  She asked me to paint Gibson for her sister-in-law, Amy. Amy, a vet, loves Huskies.  Gibson, who passed away a year ago, was a sweetheart.  I can relate to that.  Strong, handsome, noble--that's how I feel about Huskies.  My mother-in-law had a Husky named Jediah, who always sat by me at dinner table, because he knew I was a softie, sneaking him food under the table.

If you send your pet's pictures to kimstenbergart@gmail.com, I will make beautiful pet portraits out of them.  How fun is that!  Besides, my pet portraits make perfect birthday and Christmas presents.  Thanks!

My readers, in case you didn't notice, I have created a new page on my blog, called "Pet Portrait Orders".  You will find all the information you want to know about ordering a pet portrait.  Please check it out.

"Country Morning" (oil on linen; 10" x 8") sold

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One summer day last year, during a plein-air painting workshop in Fairfield, PA, I was up early to start painting.  I arrived at Willow Pond Farm, where the workshop took place.  It was going to be another hot day.  With morning dews in the grass, all was still fresh and filled with hope.  I looked up as I was walking by the 200-year-old stone farmhouse.  This scene filled my vision. I was momentarily transported to heaven.

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 Nine of Leslie Saeta's 30 in 30 Challenge.  21 more paintings to go!

"Joy Run" (oil on linen; 8" x 8" sold

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A colt gallops joyously on a sunny spring day.  How do you like my "action painting"?  It is based on a picture that my good friend, Jo Mackenzie, sent me.  She couldn't remember whose pet it was!  So I am hoping someone will step forward and claim the painting.

If you would love to see your beloved pet painted by me and shared on my blog and Facebook page, please email me at kimstenbergart@gmail.com.  Send me a picture or two, preferably taken in natural light without flash.  I will do a drawing at the end of September and give one painting away!

"Spring Garden" (oil on linen; 11" x 14") sold

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Reference photo

As I said yesterday, I am done with winter paintings.  Winter is over where I live and in my heart.  Time to move on to the spring stuff!  We plein-air painters are seasonal creatures, sensitive to the changes in temperature, the angle of the sun, and the life cycle of plants.  It's hard to paint snow inside when daffodils and hyacinths are blooming outside.  Even if we paint in our studios on a rainy day, our mind and heart yearn for the outdoors.

It was a soggy day yesterday; I got drenched top to bottom doing yard work.  The Southeast was pummeled by the destructive tornadoes.  I, however, painted "Spring Garden" from a photo I took last year on a most beautiful spring day.  The subject is a white garden gate at River Farm in Alexandria, VA. 

The gate glows in the sun.  Irises, daisies, peonies, and some other white flowers are blooming.  The power of art is such that it will be always spring in "Spring Garden."  Flowers will never die.  The sun will never go down.  I love art.

"Snow on Holly" (oil on linen; 8" x 10") sold

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How hectic it has been for the past few weeks!  Now it's time to relax and wait for Santa.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

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

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Reference photo

I love New York, NY.  I don't want to live there, but would drop everything to visit the city anytime.  So much energy and cultural diversity!  The above picture was taken a few years ago on a family mini-vacation.  It was a mild, overcast spring day.  We had walked for I don't know how many blocks from our hotel at Times Square, stopping at many landmarks.  Our destination was the Metropolitan Museum of Art for an afternoon of Ancient Egyptian history and culture.  (I would have spent the time looking at paintings, but my daughter would have none of that and wanted to visit the world-famous Egyptian collection.  Sigh.) 

Central Park was crowded as it was a weekend day.  I don't know how New Yorkers would manage without this green haven.  Thank goodness, we had Frederick Law Olmsted, who had the vision to design this beautiful park!  Do you recognize the famous bridge, which had been featured in countless movies?

I wanted to paint the scene for a long time.  But something held me back.  Do you know that made me hesitate?  It was the tyranny of the color green.  It's green in the foreground, middle ground, and background.  I might as well pour a bucket of diluted green on the canvas and call it quits!

I thought long and hard about the problem and decided to take an artistic license.  I made the foreground greens warm (with the various mixtures of cobalt blue, cadminum yellow medium, and some reds), while keeping the middle ground greens pale and cool (with cerulean blue, cadmium yellow light, some reds, and lots of titanium white).  The background greens just above and below the bridge are muted violets.  I edited out the tiny figures to enhance the serene mood I was going after.  What do you think of the result of my efforts?

"Lone Lotus" (oil on linen; 12" x 9") sold

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Reference photo

Back to the water lily pond at Green Spring Gardens Park in Alexandria, VA.  I have a collector who loves my water lily/lotus paintings and asked me to paint several for his family.  It's always nice to be wanted, so I said yes!  His original request was to paint additional versions (i.e. copies) of "By the Lily Pond".  I did it once, and decided twice was enough.  How can I copy myself on and on, really!  I had a friend who sold a painting at a gallery but ended up doing two more copies of the painting because it was so popular.  I regret that I teased her at that time, because I was now doing exactly the same thing.

Instead, I decided to do a series of new paintings of these majestic flowers; I never get tired of them.  I have faith that either my collector or some other persons will like them enough to buy my creations.  Art is my job, but I want to enjoy the art-making process as long as I live.  It shouldn't become a drudgery, something I have to do pay the bills and send my child to college, and so on. 

By the way, I am going to take a break from blogging for a short while.  I have been working non-stop since last July when I launched my website.  Time to have some fun with my family.  See you in a couple of weeks!

"Summer Wildflower Meadow" (oil on linen; 12" x 16") sold

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Yesterday several friends and I went to River Farm in Alexandria, VA.  We met each other in Sara Linda Poly and Bobbi Pratte's classes at the Art League School, and as we are passionate about plein air painting, we formed a group.  We paint outside once a week; some of us, more often than that.  Summer in northern Virginia is not an ideal place for plein air painting with the temperature hovering around 90 degrees and about as high a humidity level as that.  We were lucky when we went to the National Cathedral two weeks ago; we got lucky again yesterday.  Painting gods--we appealed to all gods for a good weather (ha ha!)--have been kind to us!

I went down to the meadow, attracted by the sight of Queen's Anne's lace--my favorite wildflowers.  I had about two hours available, so I got to work right away.  After blocking in, I painted back to forward: the sky, Maryland, the Potomac River, a band of trees, the middle-ground wildflowers, then finally Queen Anne's lace.   I took care with the trees to get their shapes right.  Wildflowers, in contrast, were treated loosely as shapes.  If you look at the photo carefully, there are a couple of kids runnning toward where I was sitting.  As I was taking the picture, they suddenly appeared up the path and got captured forever!

"Misty Morning Lake" (oil on linen, 12" x 12") sold

After
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Before

I painted "Misty Morning Lake" three weeks ago.  I got a lot of positive feedback from my Facebook fans and was feeling pretty good about it until I showed it to my teacher, Diane Tesler.  She said the peachy foreground line was awkwardly handled and would like to see the photo reference I had used.  As a matter of fact, I had brought five paintings and not a single one came out unscathed by her critique.  Boy, I felt deflated. 

There were two options for me at that point.  The option 1: hell with your critique and I like my paintings as they are.  The option 2: swallow my pride and get to work to "fix" the problem areas.  I took the high road of humility--the option 2.  Yesterday I worked on the above painting.  I lessened the incline of the offending line and softened it with dark texture.  I enriched the middle-ground trees on the left as well, so that they look more natural.  A big improvement, I think.  (By the way, if the two paintings' colors look different, it's because I took the photos at different times of the day.  The blue of the sky, that affects the color temperature of a photograph, seems to change during the course of a day.)

You know the moral of today's entry.  A painting is not done until your teacher says so?  NO.  That's not it.  Then we have to take classes for the rest of our lives and will never be artistically independent.  What a scary thought!  The moral is this: we should cultivate humility, honesty, and a capacity to accept criticism as a path to growth.  Feel free to leave comments.  Thank you.

"Walk in the Redwoods" (oil on stretched canvas, 18" x 14") sold

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I struggled with this painting, largely because the photo I worked with was so washed out by the blinding light.  My teacher, Diane Tester, suggested that I should restore the darks with Photoshop.  Today I brought to her class the original photo that shows the glowing ground where the figure--my then-seven-year-old daughter--is standing, along with the adjusted photo.

My intention was to darken the background trees with dark greens.  No, Diane said, you already have enough greens.  She recommended that I glaze them with purples, which I did promptly.  Wow!  Suddenly there was a differentiated background, middle ground, and foreground.  I redrew the figure (the head was too big!), tidied up things here and there, and you are now looking at the result.  I was so close to the finish but didn't know it.

"Down the Path" (oil on linen, 8" x 10") sold

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I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas.  We wished for a white Christmas, but it didn't happen in northern Virginia.  Just a little dusting. 

Today I am sharing an old work--one of my first plein air paintings.  It was painted last year at River Farm in Alexandria in early autumn, when the leaves hadn't yet begun to change colors.  I have always be attracted to paths.  If there aren't any, I sometimes invent one as a way of inviting the viewer into the painting.  In this scene, two pathways join and lead you far into the woods.  One wonders what will await you when you get there.