"Summer Marina" (oil on stretched canvas; 12" x 16") sold

sold

The original state

Lately I have been busy reworking old paintings, trusting that I have become better and can spot and improve troubled aspects of unsatisfactory paintings. "Summer Marina" is one such example.  I never liked the chalkiness of the background trees, although I was happy with the composition of the colorful boats and their sails all grouped together and sandwiched between the dark shapes of the trees and reflections.  So I tackled the background chalkiness and, at the same time, jazzed up the water and boats with dots.  How do you like the new and improved painting?

"Enchanted Harbor" (oil on stretched canvas; 18" x 18") sold

sold

As my husband is from Minnesota and has lots of relatives there, we often visit Minnesota.  We spent a pleasant day in Grand Marais on Lake Superior in northern Minnesota during one of our visits a few years ago.  It is a picturesque artist community with two harbors and lighthouses.  The reference photo for the painting was backlit and pretty much black and white.  But I loved the composition and wanted to make a painting out of it.

I transformed a bleached-out, afternoon scene into a romantic twilight moment.  I went wild with dots in the water, sky and everywhere.  I hope you like my pointillist style as much as I do!

Collage of My April Paintings

Collage of my April 2014 paintings

How do you like the collage of my April paintings?  I am afraid I didn't paint as often or as many as I usually do.  But there has been a huge development during the month.  While painting "Bluebells Heaven", I rediscovered the joy of pointillism, the technique that I used to play with at the very beginning of my artistic development.

"Evening Walk in Dublin" (mixed media, 14" x 10"; 1996)

"Maine Event" (mixed media, 14" x 20"; 2000)

A new way of expressing my vision has unleashed my artistic enthusiasm.  Every morning, I can't wait to start painting.  You will see many shimmering, "dotted" paintings in the coming months!

A new series of "Dotted Landscape"!

"Maine Event" (mixed media; 14" x 20")

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Here is an old painting of mine out of which I got a lot of mileage, since it was juried into The Art League American Landscape Show in 2000, and received the second place in the Potomac Valley Watercolorists Invitational Show in 2003.  You will be surprised at how it all got started.

First of all, it is not quite in my usual realistic style.  My foray into a semi-abstract art happened out of my thriftiness.  On a piece of a half-sheet watercolor paper, I had done a drawing of Cliffs of Moher in Ireland.  I didn't like it; instead I decided to paint fishing boats in Maine.  Unfortunately, I must have marred the paper with the pencil line, which became noticeable as I began to drop paints onto the water area.  Oops.  As the painting was going fine so far, I waited until the paper was bone dry, then connected the indented line, changing here and there to make the dark shape interesting.  (As you can sort of tell, I had turned the paper upside down when I started the second project.)

The painting proceeded in the usual watercolor fashion--layers of darks on lighter shapes.  But when it was done, something was missing.  It felt empty and boring.  I brought out my big box of colored pencils and began to add dots--I went pointillist.  After thousands of dots, the painting glowed, partly because of the wax in colored pencils, but mostly thanks to many dots scintillating against the water--light against dark, dark against light, complementary colors, and so on so forth.  The pointillist masters such as Georges Seurat knew all about it.  A friend of mine tells me that she dreams about "Maine Event."