"Sami" (oil on stretched linen; 9" x 12") sold

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"Sami" was commissioned by Bridget and her siblings who are gifting the portrait to their parents for Christmas. Sami passed away in the fall at the age of 14. She loved people and attention. If you weren't petting her, she would whine and paw at you until you were. Sami also loved the lake more than anywhere else. Whenever she was outside at the family's cottage, she would sit on the dock (as in the painting) staring at people until someone came over to throw sticks into the water for her to fetch. Sitting at the dock like that came to be her signature pose and Bridget wanted her portrait to capture it.

"Sadie" (oil on linen; 8" x 10") sold

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"Sadie" was commissioned by Molly for her boyfriend. Sadie, a 14-year-old mutt, loves boating. I think I captured her happiness!

"Elizabeth at the Lake" (oil on linen; 11" x 14") sold

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The boyfriend of Elizabeth commissioned me to paint this painting of a figure in landscape as her birthday gift.  The peaceful setting is Emerald Bay, near South Lake Tahoe, CA.  One thing the couple were not able to do for their idyllic vacation was bring her dog Slick, which she would have loved. Tommy asked me to paint Slick, an English springer spaniel, into the picture with her.  How can I say no to such a sweet request?

"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!

"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!

"Sunrise by the Lake" (oil on linen; 7" x 5") sold



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It is summertime.  Time to go to the lakes.  Like Boundary Waters, if you live in Minnesota.  Make sure to get up early to witness a spectacular sunrise or two.  A duck glides on the mirror-like water that reflects what is unfolding in the sky.  

"Sunset Clouds" (oil on linen; 9" x 12") sold

"Sunset Clouds"
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"Lighthouse at Sunset" (oil; 9" x 12")
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It is a great idea to work in a series.  To get to the bottom of things, so to speak.  Sunset sky is one of my such on-going series.  I am perhaps inspired by my mentor, Sara Linda Poly.  She is my first oil painting teacher, whose luminous skyscapes never fail to take my breath away.  As a veteran plein air painter, she paints on location these "golden moments," which don't last very long.  Half an hour, tops, if you are lucky. 

Sara draws the landscape parts--trees and so on--on a toned ground first and waits for the sunset to work its glorious, spectacular magic.  It is, of course, hard to paint looking at the sun in rapidly fading light, and I don't know how she does it so well.  As a newbie to plein air painting, I prefer to paint these sunset scenes in my studio.  "Sunset Clouds" and "Lighthouse at Sunset" are my two latest attempts at sunset sky.  I am pleased with them, for now.

"By the Lake" (oil on linen; 12" x 12") sold

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It was one of those vacations you always remember with fondness during which I took the reference photo for "By the Lake".  A couple of years ago, my husband's family rented a cabin on Gunflint Lake in northern Minnesota, and three generations--two brothers and their wives, four cousins and daughter-in-law, and a baby--spent a happy week together.  We canoed, rode horses, picked wild blueberries, played board games, cooked and ate in a cramped kitchen.  The only thing that was not so fun was the short hot water supply; we had to take turns and take very short showers.

My husband sprained his ankle on the flight to the Twin Cities and didn't get to participate in physical activities.  He also had work to do on his laptop.  Poor guy.  He ended up spending much time in one of the Adirondack chairs you see in the painting.  I sometimes kept him company, but he seemed content.  On the holiday weekend that celebrates the nation's birthday, it seems fitting to share with my readers this painting of a relaxing family vacation.

Happy Independence Day!

"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.