"Red Fox" (oil on stretched canvas; 9" x 12") nfs

nfs

I asked my husband, whose birthday is coming up soon, what I could do for him.  He said: "Paint a fox for me".  None of his fox pictures in our backyard came close to the one I found on the internet--a healthy-looking fox staring at you in a snowy landscape.  I hope he likes the present!

"Snow Creek" (oil on linen; 8" x 10")

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Down the street on which I live, there is a park along a small creek, called Holmes Run. When my daughter was little, we spent many hours there, launching paper boats, throwing rocks, and hopping on stepping stones across the creek and back.

These days, I usually go down to the creek by myself after a snowfall to admire the crisp winter beauty.  "Snow Creek" was based on a photo I took last year on a bitingly-cold morning.

"Winter Sunset" (oil on linen; 10" x 12") sold

sold

Sometimes I don't have to go far to find something to paint.  All I have to do is to step outside and look up.  One winter day, there was a light snowfall, then freezing rain.  It was altogether a dangerous driving condition in my hilly neighborhood.  I went outside to put the trash can to the curb for the following day's garbage removal.  That's when I saw the above scene.  I had to take a picture.  When I came back out with my camera, a car went by slowly.  Frozen snow reflected the sunset sky. There was a hush all around.

"Spring Sky" (oil, 24" x 30")

I have painted my neighborhood before, as you can in the above painting.  You can recognize the same tall tree, same houses, and same curvy street.  I love my neighborhood and this is how I watch it, not with a gun, but with a camera and paint brushes!

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 Fourteen of Leslie Saeta's 30 in 30 Challenge.  Thirteen paintings done.  I may take tomorrow off.  Have a great weekend!

"Winter Magic" (oil on linen; 8" x 10") sold

sold

It is never too soon to wish for a snowy winter.  As I was growing up in Seoul, Korea, we had snow every winter.  It was no big deal.  When I lived in Minnesota for graduate work, we had too much snow.  I was sick of snow.  They had a foot of snow in April this year!  Now I live in northern Virginia, I yearn for snow.

Yes, we sometimes get snow, as you can see in my new snow painting.  Last two years, however, have been very disappointing; we got a bit of dusting every now and then.  My daughter, who loves snow and cold weather in general, decided to go to college in Minnesota!

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 Ten of Leslie Saeta's 30 in 30 Challenge.  20 more paintings to go!  What did I get myself into!

"Capitol Nocturne" (oil on linen; 12" x 12") sold

sold

I thought I would create a series of evening scenes of famous Washington landmarks.  "Capitol Nocturne" was actually the third in the series, but it was the first one that turned out right at the get-go.  Painting from the reference photos of nocturnal images that did not give much information about details and colors was not easy. I also wanted these nocturnes to be as evokative and stirring as Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata."

Capturing the drama of the brilliantly-lit US Capitol dome  and lights and their reflections in the pond was my goal in "Capitol Nocturne."  About half of the painting session was spent painting upside down in an effort to get the image and reflections to match up more or less.  I would bring the painting to a mirror to look at it reversed, only to put it back on the easel in the wrong way!  Wait a minute, which way was I painting?

"Snowman and Barn" (oil on linen; 9" x 12") sold

sold

As I was painting "Snowman and Barn" on Monday, it started snowing!  There had been no forecast for snow, but it kept falling.  The first snow of this winter made all of us giddy with joy like the kids on the Christmas morning.  Alas, by yesterday, with the balmy spring-like temperature, there was no more white stuff to be seen. 

Another reason for my happiness was that I was painting a landscape, not a figure!  Boy, I was glad to be back to what I normally do--paint loose and suggestively.  No more uptight measuring and hours of staring a nude person to figure out the subtle color changes in the skin tone.  The moral of my experience last week is this: get out of your comfort zone once in a while; do something wild and get back to your life.  You will be wiser for the adventure.

The painting was based on a black and white photo.  The advantage of a challenge like this is that one gets to make up colors.  Ha!  it wasn't that hard to come up with lovely violets for distant woods; brownish wood colors for the barn; and the red scarf for the snowman.  I made the big tree on the right not clearly defined, although it was in the middle ground and a lot closer to the viewer than the barn, because I made the latter the secondary interest.  Of course, the snowman is the star.  I boldly put it in the middle of the picture.  Why not?  Relax and have fun.

"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!

"Snow Trees" (oil on linen; 8" x 12") sold

sold

I had a photograph which was so underexposed that it almost looked black and white.  But it had an intriguing design I wanted to explore--a line of snow-coated trees along a dark band of a creek flowing through snow fields.  I photoshoped it to lighten the darks.  It looked better; but it still had hardly any colors, which wasn't a disaster.  I could "make up" colors easily, you see.  Browns for the trees, dark blues for the creek, and various whites for the snow.  The painting isn't really about color.  It's about design.

The photo's picture plane was originally divided into two by the biggest tree, which I moved a little to the left.  Other trees were also moved a bit this way and that way, so that the painting has three groupings of trees: the papa group in the middle, the mama group on the right, and the lone tree (baby!) on the left.  The snow field across the creek is sunlit; the snow bank in the foreground is in the shadow.  So are all the trees.  I had a lot of fun painting wet snow clinging to the trees--trunks, branches, twigs, and all.  Oh, I wish it would snow!

"Winter Creek" (oil on linen; 8" x 10") sold

"Winter Creek"
sold

"Winter Morning" (oil, 9" x 12")
sold

Both paintings above are based on the pictures I took many winters ago down the street along Holmes Run in Alexandria, VA.  We don't usually get much snow in northern Virginia.  So whenever there is a bit of snowfall, it is a snow day and everybody is happy.  I am from a country (South Korea) that gets lots of snow every year.  I've got to see snow in winter; otherwise, I feel deprived.

And I love to paint snowscapes.  Although it gives local residents much pleasure, Holmes Run is a small creek, not a particularly scenic one at that.  But look at my paintings!  It's the snow that transformed an ordinary creek into a winter wonderland.  No omnipresent, oppressive greens as leaves had fallen.  White snow, which has hints of the sun's warmth, makes big bold shapes or sparkling, lacy tendrils.  The creek with wonderfully fuzzy reflections of bare trees on the opposite bank is a bonus, which provides a nice dark shape in the middle ground.  I hope we get some nice snow this winter, not just dustings.