"Assateague Island Sunset" (oil on linen panel, 8" x 10")

 

"Assateague Island Sunset" (oil, 8" x 10")

 

Assateague Island in the Eastern Shore of Virginia and Maryland is famous for its wild ponies. My family and I went there twice this summer for two short vacations. You can tell we love the place. We usually stay at Chincoteague, a small, less-touristy place than let's say Ocean City or Mytle Beach. 

There are beaches and salt marshes, of course, but Accomack County, Va, where the city is located, itself is a gem which makes you feel like you are thrown back seventy years with quaint towns and tiny islands to explore. We will be going back and I have already painted this lovely area quite a few times and more paintings are coming up.

In this image there were no ponies although they usually graze in this patch. After an overcast and rainy day, the exquisite sunset and its golden hues permeating the marshy landscape took our breath away! 

 

"Westerkerk, Amsterdam" (oil on linen; 8" x 6") sold

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Located mere footsteps from the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, the 17th-century Protestant church, Westerkerk, is visible from afar, thanks to the much admired 275 ft-high tower which dominates above most of the Old City center. As I was sitting across the canal at a bar sipping a cool drink, the late afternoon sun set the tower ablaze. What a view!

"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?

"Happy Days" (oil on stretched canvas; 18" x 18") nfs

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I worked on this painting of my daughter, at the age of nine, on and off for several years; I finally feel satisfied.  The reference photo was taken during my family's vacation in northern California.  At Glass Beach, we scavenged the beach for pretty sea glasses as the sun set and the place became bathed in the golden light.

Whenever I look at this painting, my heart is filled with tenderness.  She is now a high-school senior, about to go off to college.  In my mind's eye, she is always about this big, or even younger; she is full of joy and innocence, ready to sit on my lap for a big hug.  These were the happiest days of my life.

"Swedish Sunset" (oil on linen; 11" x 14") nfs

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The day after my daughter's fainting, she had recovered enough to go to visit my husband's fifth cousin on the Stockholm Archipelago.  After a long day of trains, ferries, and car rides, we came home for a feast to remember, prepared by Hans's sister and brother-in-law.  The dinner started about 7:30 and went on until midnight. 

The sun set around 10:30, with the sky of the ever-changing, spectacular colors of gold, pink, mauve, and blues.  The family started playing a "Viking" game of throwing sticks.  I was more interested in watching the sky, trying to remember the night for this painting I had in mind for Hans.

My family were privileged to be invited to this intimate family gathering.  We were in Sweden, not as strangers, but as family and friends.  We were neither tourists nor outsiders.  We were home, thanks to Dr. Hans Andersson.  I am grateful for his warm hospitality.

Annakaren on the far right and her husband who is at the grill.

Hans, on the far right, is the patriarch of the family.

The rest of Hans's family and my husband and daughter (to the left).

"Sandcastle Builders" (oil on linen; 11" x 14") sold

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Sandcastle building is a big deal at Prince Edward Island, Canada.  I even saw a park ranger doing a demonstration of how to build one at Cavendish Beach.  You need wet sand.  The girl in the painting is about to go get some sea water with her bucket!

Watercolor sketch for "Sandcastle Builders"; I cropped it for the painting and got rid of the beach bag and blue bucket on the right.

The transparent underpainting.

I started putting down opaque paints.

As usual, I developed the figures, along with the umbrella, last.

"Crossing the Mississippi, Minnesota" (oil on linen; 8" x 10") sold

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I love Minnesota so much that I married a Minnesotan!  He has many relatives there, so we try to visit it as often as we can, which is not often enough.  During the last visit two summers ago, we went to Itasca State Park, the headwaters of the Mississippi River, in north central Minnesota.  The kids of all ages can cross the mighty river and feel mighty themselves.  You can walk across the small wooden foot bridge, like the family with a dog in my painting.  Or, if you feel particularly brave, you can wade the river barefoot, like those in the picture below. What would you do, if you were there?

My daughter had a lot of fun crossing the Mississippi!

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 Twelve of Leslie Saeta's 30 in 30 Challenge.  18 more paintings to go!

"Carmel Mission" (oil on linen; 8" x 10") sold

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The Carmel Mission, from the late 18th century, is a Roman Catholic mission church in Carmel-by-the-Sea, CA.  I had the reference photo printed out six years ago and sat on it.  I have painted two other paintings of this beautiful place before, but the Mission's architecture with the two nonidentical bell towers was trickier.  Now it's Day Four of Leslie Saeta's 30 in 30 Challenge.  I decided to be brave.  What do you think of my efforts?

"Carmel Mission Garden Gate" (acrylic, 14" x 18"; sold) 

"Saintly Garden at Carmel Mission" (oil, 5" x 4"; sold)

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!

Oregon Trip Sketchbook Pages (watercolor and pen; 5 1/2" x 8 1/2" each)

"Multnomah Falls on the Historic Columbia Gorge Highway"
Hard to look up (620 feet) and draw!

Twelve summers ago, when my daughter was three and I could still pass as a "young lady," my family took a two-week vacation in Oregon.  I loved the place so much that I suggested we should retire there.  My husband, being pragmatic as always, scoffed at the idea: "Two months of sun, ten months of dreary weather. No, thanks."

Another reason why Oregon will always remain one of my favorite places on earth is because of my intense sketching activities during the trip.  I sketched while my husband and daughter took a hike or a nap.  I sketched in the car. I sketched at a busy market.  I sketched at a zoo and at tidal pools.  I sketched while getting eaten alive by mosquitoes.  I was unstoppable.  Alas, I no longer have that kind of energy level.

Here are some of the sketchbook pages. Please enjoy.  If you have any questions about my procedure, don't hesitate to ask!

"John Martin and His Band at the Saturday Market, Portland, OR"
Great music and dance, a fantastic weather!

"At the Thai E-San Cuisine in Portland"
Excellent food; I ate stir-fried Thai eggplant with shrimp.

"Sunrise Point (6,100 ft), Mt. Rainier National Park, WA"
Snow-capped in July, I felt like I landed in Switzerland.

"Alpine Wildflowers at Sunrise Point"
I sketched them in the car.

"Chanticleer Point, Columbia River Gorge"
We picked wild raspberries--intense, sweet taste. Hot!

"Dean Creek Elk Viewing Area"
Elk were too far, we couldn't see them very well.

"West Coast Game Park in Bandon"
We went to this zoo because our daughter slept through the entire Oregon Zoo in Portland and was sad about missing the animals. Honestly, I sketched these animals on location!

"Sunset Bay"
We went back at sunset. There were a lot of people to enjoy the view.

"Myself Sketching at North Jetty Beach with My Daughter"
She was a very patient child!

"View from the Whale Cove Inn Restaurant, Depoe Bay"
My daughter was tired from the hike down to Sea Lion Caves, so she again slept through the entire lunch. The  restaurant people kindly made her a PJ sandwich to go.

"Yaquina Head Lighthouse"
The first cloudy day during the trip! Windy and cold.

"Tidal Pools at Quarry Cove"
At low tide, Yaquina Head

"Depoe Bay; the World's Smallest Harbor"
We all sat in the car; I sketched, while my family waited patiently.

"Surfers at Cape Kiwanda"
We leave the coast now. Bye!

"At the Chateau Benoit Winery"
The journey has come to an end. The exhausted, but happy, artist with her daughter.

"At the Portland Airport"
Waiting for boarding. Bye, Oregon!

"Oregon Trip Sketchbook Covers"; I had them bound at Staples.

"Rainbow Point at Bryce Canyon" (oil on linen; 8" x 10")

After
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Before

The view that inspired the plein-air painting

It was a rainy day two summers ago. We drove the whole length of Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah--18 miles--hoping for a break in the overcast sky. Lots of people at overlook points were discouraging too for my plein-air-painting-a-day project, until we decided to take a walk at Rainbow Point. A brief sunny moment transformed the view along a trail. I quickly set up the easel and went to work.

"Rainbow Point at Bryce Canyon" has been hanging in my foyer for two years.  The walls in my house are covered with my paintings; it's practically a museum with many galleries.  Even the garage has a wall with six paintings, which I call "Gallery Garage."  Obviously, the main level is the prime location, where visitors can admire (my wishful thinking!) my artwork.  The foyer being the entry point, I must have thought "Rainbow Point" was pretty darn good.

Winding down my summer project of spiffing up old paintings, I took down the painting and found it lacking that special quality to deserve a wall space in the foyer.  The human-like rock formation in the bottom right, called "hoodoo", bothered me the most.  I think I know why I painted it so big out of proportion--I was mesmerized by and obsessing about it!  This sort of thing happens a lot to painters.  The tall, spindly tree to the left also seemed to be blocking the viewer's eye to truly take in the incredible vista that is Bryce Canyon. 

I strengthened the area between the now much shorter tree and the now diminished formation as the new focal point.  The colors in the shadows of the hoodoos are richer than before.  The new and improved "Rainbow Point at Bryce Canyon" is going back up to the prized spot in the foyer!

"Chaco Canyon Memories" (oil on linen; 8" x 10")

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Before

The view

Have you ever been to Chaco Canyon?  It is one of my favorite national parks ever.  If you are planning a vacation in the Southwest, it should be at the top of your list of places to visit.  My husband and I had been to Chaco Culture National Historical Park back in 1993 and we wanted to show our daughter this awesome place.

Two years ago, on a typical, hot, summer day in New Mexico, we were back at this amazing monument to a native American civilization.  It was as impressive as I remembered.  While my husband and daughter were checking out some archaeological sites, I set up my easel at Una Vita, apparently over an ant hole. Huge black ants soon crawled all over my feet, my art gear--just everywhere. I got stung.

Ouch, so I moved. Perhaps, I had offended the spirits of the Ancestral Puebloans. The evil ants followed me, swarming all around, biting, hurting. I even got bitten on my neck! At this point, you may be wondering why I didn't spray myself with a bug spray. I did, and it didn't do much good.

Clouds kept moving.  Since I didn't have the wisdom to plan out the value scheme at the outset, I had to chase the clouds, changing values every five minutes in between scratching the itchy spots and crushing as many ants as I could.  Did I mention the heat?  The sun was beating down on me.  Although I was partially shaded by my umbrella, my right side was exposed to the sun and was burning.  A painting session turned into an extreme sport. Ah! Perils of plein-air painting.

"Chaco Canyon Memories" had been hanging in the foyer of my house since then, always evoking the unforgettable memories.  But something bothered me.  Last week I took it down, looked at it for a long time, and finally figured out the problem.  The middle ground in the shadow may have been there at some point while I was painting, as you can tell from the scudding clouds in the sky.  But it didn't make sense to the viewer.  The dark middle ground had also the unintentional side effect of throwing the formation in the background into prominence. 

As soon as I brought back the sunshine to the troublesome spot, the background receded, blending into the land itself.  After more textures were added to the foreground sage brush, I was finally satisfied with the painting.  Now I can fully enjoy the memories of my family vacation to the Southwest.

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

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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.

"Where Buffaloes Roam" (oil on linen; 8" x 12") sold

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Reference photo

Have you ever seen a buffalo really close up?  I did.  Last month my family were driving through Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota at sunset, enjoying the views.  We spotted a buffalo herd (there are over three hundred bison in the southern unit, where we were).  What a treat!  As you can see above, the lighting was ideal--with the setting sun streaking its golden rays through the trees and caressing sage-strewn grass field.  We went wild and started clicking cameras.

Suddenly something dark and huge went by within inches of the side of the car.  Oh, my god!  It was a stray bison.  You see that's why we stayed inside the car; if we hadn't, I might have been trampled.  Never go near these huge untamed wildlife!

"Golden Girl" (oil on canvas; 18" x 18") nfs

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Some paintings I do to sell; others for entering juried shows.  And there are paintings just for myself.  "Golden Girl" belongs to the last category.  The girl who is holding something in her right hand is my daughter when she was ten.  She had just found a piece of sea glass and was showing it off.  We were at Glass Beach in northern California.  Yes, Glass Beach--I didn't make it up.  Apparently, there used to be a bottling factory nearby and lots of broken glass made into the beach, hence the name.  The time of the day was obviously the sunset.

Reference photo

I had this girl when I was almost 40.  She was my dream child come true--healthy, happy, affectionate, and bright.  She just became a teenager this summer, and well....  She has changed quite a bit since I took the picture above.  Although I wouldn't change anything about her for the world, I still miss her when she could sit on my lap, be a flower girl, and pose for the camera gladly.  I miss those days. 


So I painted "Golden Girl" to remember my daughter at the age of ten, just as I painted her when she was a preschooler.  She was about three when she posed for a photo in a rose garden in Portland, Oregon. Of all the beauties I saw that day, she was the prettiest in my eye.

"Pretty in Pink" (watercolor, 17" x 12") nfs

I will probably do more portraits of my daughter, perhaps as a young lady, definitely as a bride, and hopefully as a new mother with her baby.  I am thankful for my family and my ability to immortalize their likeness in paintings.

"Sea Caves of California" (oil on linen; 9" x 12") sold

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Reference photo

Some vacations are more memorable than others.  The trip to California three years ago was one such happy memory maker.  There was a family wedding, which was held at a beautiful vineyard in Napa!  Visits with family were special enough, since we don't get to see them often as we live so away.  But one additional week spent just with my own family in the glorious light of California keeps generating a painting after another.  I must go back to California!

As I am focusing on water in Bobbi Pratte's landscape class this summer, I decided to paint from the above photo taken somewhere in northern California.  (You know how it is--after a while, you don't remember exactly where you took the pictures.)  The picture doesn't show much color in the sea caves because they are in the shadow; but I can see many different color changes in the water itself.  In the distance, it is cobalt blue.  As the waves approach the sandy beach, it changes from cerulean blue to a blue tinged with ocher.  The wet sand looks lavender.

I like the design too.  Three concentric waves all point to the sea caves, which I painted with warm, dark paints.  Sometimes I don't have to do anything other than just paint as Nature took care of the design for me!