"Monet's Giverny Garden in Wisteria Season" (watercolor and gouache; 8" x 8") sold

sold

Wisterias are blooming over the famous Japanese Bridge at the waterlily pond in Monet's Giverny gardens. The fragrance of white and purple wisterias perfumes the air.

"Winter Goose Pond" (oil on stretched canvas; 12" x 16")

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Exactly a year ago, my daughter and I went for a walk after a snowfall in the nearby Green Spring Gardens Park.  Geese were swimming in the half-frozen pond.  I even caught a goose in flight in one of the photos.  As we were expecting a snow storm yesterday, it seemed appropriate to paint "Winter Goose Pond".  When I showed the finished painting to my husband, he said: "It looks cold!"

"Wisterias at Monet's Garden" (oil on stretched canvas; 11" x 14") sold

sold

Visit Monet's Garden in Giverny during the wisteria season.  Wow!  In my painting, wisterias in the foreground frame the lyrical landscape created by the Impressionist painter.

"Duck Pond" (watercolor on paper; 6.5" x 4.5") sold

sold

These days I feel like painting watercolors.  The desire came upon me suddenly and I can't shake it off.  So I turned the kitchen table into my temporary studio to my husband's inconvenience!  I have already taken over the dining room; the living room is on the way to becoming my studio space as well.  I guess that's the price a guy has to pay for living with a creative person.  He he.

How do you like my small watercolor painting above?  Who says that a painting has to be large to have an impact?  A pair of ducks glide on a dark, lush surface of a pond.  I've said what I had to say in small format.  Sometimes less is more!

"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.

"Love of My Life" (oil on stretched canvas; 12" x 16") gift

gift

These two people are the love of my life--my husband and daughter.  They give meaning and purpose to my life.  My daughter is a busy high-school kid who participates in many camps during the summer months.  We haven't taken summer vacations for two years because of her busy schedule!

Bemoaning the fact, I suggested a day outing one day.  But the forecast was ominous with thunderstorms and such.  We stayed put.  The weather, however, turned out to be one of the best summer days in the Washington area.  After a nice dinner at a restaurant, we went for an enjoyable walk in a neighborhood park.  I took the reference photo for the painting at the pond gazebo.

"Love of My Life" again proves my philosophy.  As long as we are with the people we love AND enjoy each other's company, we don't have to go to Europe or a tropical paradise for a "quality" family time.  My husband asked me to paint the scene to capture our happy day together.  The painting is for him.

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

sold

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!

Roseate Spoonbill in the Pond" (oil on linen; 6" x 8") sold

sold

A friend of mine saw this beautiful bird with extravagant plumage, brunching in her pond.  I am green with envy.  When I see golden finches in my garden, I quiver with excitement.  If I have one of these spectacular birds in my neighborhood, I would die of ecstasy!

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

sold

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.

"Brilliant Lotus" (oil on canvas; 24" x 18") sold

"Brilliant Lotus"
sold

"Lotus and Dragonfly" (oil, 12" x 9")
sold

Reference photo

The lotus is one of my favorite flowers and I never get tired of painting them.  Over the years I've painted them in watercolor, acrylic, and oil.  The sculptural flower with the Buddhist association looks great in all mediums.

Last year in early June, the plein-air-painting class with Sara Linda Poly went to the waterlily pond at Green Spring Gardens Park.  My first attempt at painting the lotus from life was a disaster.  The lighting condition, however, was ideal and I came home with several terrific pictures.  The following day, still smarting from the failure, I made another stab at the lotus.  "Lotus and Dragonfly" was the result of my persistence.  Since then, I've painted several more lotus paintings, small and large, and sold them all.

When a favorite client of mine asked me to do a larger version of "Lotus and Dragonfly," I wasn't sure whether it would work.  I tried as he "begged" for it.  And, boy, am I glad I listened!  My initial fear was that the lone lotus flower and yellow green undersides of several lily pads will dominate the painting.  As it turned out, there were enough details in the shadow areas to add depth and nuance to the bold composition. 

In the small version, there was no room for playing; most subtleties had to be sacrificed for the clarity.  Not so for "Brilliant Lotus."  You can look at it for a long time and still find hidden "secrets."  My client didn't want the dragonfly (there are actually three of them in the picture).  So they went, as his wish was my command.  I don't think they would have added much to the abstract beauty of the painting anyway.  It is fun to paint big, using large brushes.  It is also great to have a client with the sophisticated eye who appreciates and is willing to pay for original artwork.  Thank you!

"Cardinal on Maple" (oil on linen; 10" x 12") sold

"Cardinal on Maple"
sold

"Robin in the Evergreen Bough" (oil, 8" x 10")
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"Blue Jay at Bird Bath" (oil, 8" x 10")
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"Early Spring Robin" (oil, 8" x 10")
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"Cardinal in the Snow" (oil, 8" x 10")
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"Winter Bird" (oil, 8" x 12")
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"Duck Pond" (oil, 8" x 10")
sold

Last fall I decided to do some bird paintings.  To date, I have seven under my belt.  "Cardinal on Maple" is my latest attempt at bird paintings.  As you know, I am an impressionist painter, not a super realistic animal painter.  So if you are an avid bird watcher and I got some avian anatomies wrong, please bear with my errors. 

I am more of an opportunistic bird watcher, if there is such a thing. The other day I spotted a male cardinal perched on green shrubs outside of my laundry room. I grabbed a camera and began to click away. This bird made a terrific model, turning its head to show profile, then facing forward for the front view, and so on. This went on for a while until it decided to retire from a modeling career.  I didn't dare to open the window for better shots (one knows better than that when dealing with a wildlife).  After photoshopping the best shot, I came up with the picture below.  Passable, yes, but the environment in which the bird was sitting left much to be desired.  I did some Internet research and found a picture of a scrawny-looking cardinal on a lush maple tree.

My photo

Reference photo for the maple tree

I got to work and painted "Cardinal on Maple" with joyous rapidity.  My gratitude goes to the anonymous photographer and the cardinal who lives in and is fiercely protective of my property.

"Cherry Blossom Season" (oil on linen; 8" x 12") sold

"Cherry Blossom Season"
sold

"Spring Song" (oil, 12" x 10")
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"Weeping Cherry Blooming" (oil, 12" x 9")
sold

Cherry trees got to be the most seductive trees in the world.  Look at "Cherry Blossom Season," my most recent painting of cherry trees in full bloom.  Trunks and branches twist in all directions.  Not all cherry trees behave this way, of course.  Some have straight limbs, like those featured in "Spring Song."  The weeping variety in "Weeping Cherry Blooming" looks like cascading pink waterfalls. 

In all varieties, the fluffy clusters of pale pink flowers drape the trees top to bottom in early spring.  They all look like ballerinas in pink gossamer tutus.  Innocent and intoxicating at the same time.  Stand under their pink umbrellas.  You are transported to a pink heaven.  When they are spent, petals drift down like pink snow.  If there is a breeze, you get caught in the midst of a pink blizzard.  No slow, ugly death for cherry blossoms.  From beginning to end, there is nothing uncool about cherry trees in season.

I am utterly seduced by the magic of cherry blossoms.  I keep painting them, trying to capture their exuberant, yet delicate, essence.  Someday I will succeed to my heart's content.

"Central Park Snowed In" (oil on linen; 10" x 12") sold

"Central Park Snowed In"
sold

"Snow Trees" (oil, 8" x 12")
sold

"Snow Creek" (oil, 9" x 12")
sold

As you can see, I have a mini series going on here--snowscape with trees and creek/pond.  If I paint the same scene over and over again, I will die of boredom and atrophy.  But as I continue to explore the same theme with variations, I gain a deeper understanding of the theme.  In "Snow Creek," I learned how the smaller area of the sun-lit snow seems to glow next to the much larger one of the snow in shadow. 

In "Snow Trees," I grouped the sun-lit and shadowed areas and assigned them the two separate sections in the picture plane.  I played around by intensifying the blues of the creek, to contrast them with the warm colors of the trees.  But my main concern and fun was to figure out how to paint wet snow clinging to trees.

In the first painting of the new year, painted on the New Year's Day--"Central Park Snowed In--" I am back to the meandering stream and snow-coated trees.  I am also contrasting a small sun-lit area with the rest of the snow-covered pond at Central Park, which is in shadow.  I have become more ambitious, introducing the background, which is very different from the rest of the painting and works as the foil for it: the blurred skyline of Manhattan.  I was also trying to vary the tones in the foreground to indicate different states of moisture from snow to ice (darker) to water (darkest).

Painting these small "daily" paintings has been a great tool for self-education and growth for an amateur-turned professional artist, which is who I am.  Last year I retired from teaching history at a college, something I had been doing over twenty years, and began with much trepidation the adventure of a self-employed , starving artist.  One doesn't get younger.  It was now or never to do something I truly wanted.  Wish me luck!

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

sold

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?

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

sold

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.

"Waterlily Dreams" (oil on stretched canvas; 24" x 18") sold

"Waterlily Dreams"
sold

"Where Dragonflies Play" (oil, 12" x 9")
sold

At the request of a client, I did a much larger version of the same painting.  When a painting is blown up, I often feel that something gets lost in the translation.  The charm and suggestiveness of a small painting become sacrificed in favor of details.  I was determined that it should not happen with this commission work.  I came up with the title first and stuck to it, keeping it "dreamy" and "soft-edged."  What do you think of the new painting?

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

sold

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!

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

sold

Reference photo

Yesterday when I went to the lily pond at Green Spring Gardens Park in Alexandria, VA, I took many photos, hoping that I might be able to use some for future paintings.  The lotus flower in the above flower caught my eye for the dragonfly it was hosting.  If you look at the picture carefully, there are two more dragonflies.  They were everywhere, landing on a flower briefly only to fly away to another.  There were no other insects--no butterflies, bees, or mosquitoes (thank goodness for the absence of the last).  Just these beautiful creatures, which do humans no harm.  I love them.  So I was thrilled to be able to capture their images in my camera.

Today, in the comfort of my studio on another miserably hot day, I painted "Lotus and Dragonfly."  I took care not to get too fussy, which is one of the biggest dangers of painting from photographs.  Another problem is, of course, the inability to see dark shadow colors.  Since I painted these sculptural flowers just yesterday, I could remember the colors of the pads and flowers pretty well.  The dragonfly was painted in last, quickly and gesturally.  So here we go--my first painting of a dragonfly.

"By the Lily Pond" (oil on linen; 12" x 9") sold

sold

Despite the threat of a heavy thunderstorm, five die-hard plein-air painting friends including myself went out to paint the water lily pond at Green Spring Gardens Park in Alexandria, VA.  The thing is that we are not going to have a nice, balmy weather until September in the mid-Atlantic region.  We might as well brave the elements so that we can show off to our soft friends what we are made of.

Having said that, it was hot and very, very humid.  It would cloud up, making us all nervous, then the sun would return to cast gorgeous shadows on lily pads.  The fluctuating light and generally intolerable weather conditions somehow led me to paint decisively so that I could go home as quickly as possible.  If I may say so, I like "By the Lily Pond" very much.  Unfortunately, I lost the photo file, so I cannot Photoshop it to show you the true colors of the painting.

"Lotus Season" (watercolor on paper; 12" x 8")

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Every summer, when the lotus season comes around, I head to the waterlily pond at the Green Spring Gardens Park in Alexandria to greet these glorious flowers.  The sun was high when I took the reference photo and the flowers and huge leaves all glowed with translucency.  Initially, I left the background white, but it didn't work.  When I dropped the dark, granulating paints and allowed them mingle on the paper, the painting began to glow!