Collage of My September Paintings

Collage of My September 2014 Paintings

Last month, including reworked paintings, I finished 25 paintings!  As many of my readers may know, September was the month of Leslie Saeta's 30 in 30 challenge.  I didn't participate in it, because I learned from experience that it was unnecessarily stressful.  I don't need the external stimulation, because I am an artoholic who cannot live without art!

By the way, I started a new series of "Cityscapes" with a new section on my Etsy store.  As a big city girl from Seoul, Korea, I love what big cities can offer--monuments, museums, parks, bridges, boulevards, bustling neighborhoods, etc.!  In the coming weeks, you will be seeing lots of paintings of my favorite cities--Paris, London, New York, San Francisco, Washington, DC, Venice, etc.

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

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I have often painted the famous Pond at the New York Central Park with a sliver of the Manhattan skyline.  It is such a picturesque scene.  It is always beautiful, but is most spectacular in fall colors!

"Autumn Glory" (oil on stretched canvas; 14" x 18")

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Take a walk wit me in the country on a fine autumn day.  Leaves have turned colors.  The world is a festival of gold and rust.  Ah, it's good to be alive!

"Autumn Day in the Vineyards" (oil on linen; 8" x 10") sold

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The reference picture was taken near Weinviertel, the region north of Vienna, Austria.  It is the largest wine-growing region in the country.  The middle ground in the painting are vineyards, hence the title.

"Autumn Glory" (oil on linen; 12" x 8") sold

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These days I feel like I am on fire.  It has to do partly with my hot flashes (!), but mostly it is because of my ardent desire to paint better.  Compare "Autumn Glory" with my one-month-old painting, "Autumn Park."  Which one would you rather have on your wall?  Do they even look like painted by the same person?

"Autumn Park" (oil, 10" x 8")
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By the way, doesn't the gnarled tree in "Autumn Glory" look like a tree ent?  I found it in the woodlands at Green Spring Gardens Park in Alexandria, VA last fall. I wonder if it is still there, or wandered away with some hobbits.

"Connecticut Ave Bridge in Autumn Afternoon " (oil on linen; 8" x 16")

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Reference photo

On a beautiful autumn day ten days ago, my family had to drive to the Levine School of Music in Northwest in Washington, DC for my daughter's Suzuki flute Christmas concert rehearsal.  Instead of griping about missing the opportunity for plein air painting with friends, I took my camera with me to take pictures of Rock Creek Park in the car.

Yes, you've been there, clicking away your camera without even getting out of the car.  In my defense (I always have excuses!), it is impossible to pull over along the drive in Rock Creek Park.  Besides, the traffic was heavy, as seemingly everybody was out enjoying the spectacular weather.

I was mesmerized by the tall trees in brilliant autumn colors along the drive.  Since we were in the valley, only the crowns of these trees were lit by the late afternoon sun.  Fascinating!  We passed under several bridges until we hit Connecticut Avenue Bridge over Klingle Valley, more commonly known as the Klingle Valley Bridge.  It is a handsome Art Deco bridge near the National Zoo on Connecticut Avenue.  Marvelous!

I cropped the photo to make the composition more dramatic and proceeded to paint "Connecticut Avenue Bridge over Rock Creek Park."  The painting has the clear separation of the light and shadow families that Kevin Macpherson talks about in his book.  To exaggerate the sensation of a bright sunny day, I painted the area in the sun even lighter than in the photo.  Do you feel like you were there with me in the car wowing at the scenery?

"Autumn Central Park" (oil on linen; 8" x 12") sold

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Before

Reference photo

The other day, my teenage daughter opened a "wise" fortune cookie that said "a failure is an opportunity in disguise."  She asked me if it was deep enough for me.  Ha!  I don't put much stock in fortune cookies, unlike some people who go out to buy a lottery ticket on account of a particularly lucky fortune after a Chinese meal. 

Nevertheless, the incident got me thinking.  Hm.  I pulled out a "failed" painting to give it another shot.  It was sold on eBay last fall, but alas, the buyer failed to pay up.  So it wasn't my painting but the eBayer that failed.  All the same, I knew right away what to do. 

"Autumn Central Park" was based on a photo I took two years ago when my then college department took a bus-load of students on an educational tour to New York City.  It was mid-November, but we had an unbelievably mild, gorgeous weather!  We walked through Central Park, our destination being the Metropolitan Museum of Arts to see its world-famous Egyptian collection.

I am glad that I still had the painting in my possession so that I got another chance to work on it.  It had a good bone structure, so to speak, but my original execution somehow lacked conviction, especially in the foreground shadows.  The fortune cookie was right, don't you agree?  A failure, indeed, is an opportunity in disguise!

"His Best Friend" (oil on linen; 9" x 12") sold

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The reference photo for "His Best Friend" was black and white.  In the picture, the man was walking two dogs.  I got rid of one dog with an awkward posture, and kept just one.  The title obviously comes from the phrase that a dog is a man's best friend.  The rest was up to my imagination. 

I decided that it is to be an autumnal scene in late afternoon light.  The distant trees on the far right was painted in dull violets, whereas the sun-struck area of the tall trees in the center is bright yellow organge.  The man and his dog are rather far away in the middle ground from the viewer, so they are painted small and gesturally.  Even so, the eye goes straight to them, doesn't it?

"Walk along Autumn Canal" (oil on linen; 9" x 12") sold

"Walk along Autumn Canal"
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"Autumn Bliss" (oil, 9" x 12")
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"Autumn Canal" (oil, 12" x 12")

"Autumn Day along the Canal" (oil, 9" x 12")
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Canal is not really one of my series, although it surely looks that way.  The reason has to do with the beauty of Wide Water on the C & O Canal along the Potomac. Some places are like a painter's heaven, a gold mine, a jackpot. You can go there over and over and still find things to paint.  The C & O Canal is one of them. I had a good fortune to discover the place, thanks to the Art League Plein Air Painters, who went there several times this fall. It's always a good idea to paint with friends for safety and conviviality. I joined them twice. Each time, the weather obliged. I still have more pictures to work from. Yippee!

"Autumn Bliss" was the third painting from my "mini" series.  Can you tell whether it was done on location or in studio?  Surprisingly, "Autumn Canal," with all those details, was painted en plein air, whereas "Autumn Bliss," with a bolder design, was painted at home.  You can tell, however, that both have the similar feel in terms of the time of the season.

"Walk along Autumn Canal" (I am running out of titles!) is the latest canal painting.  The vantage point is just a short distance from the one in "Autumn Bliss."  It feels more painterly than "Autumn Bliss."  Perhaps I have finally gotten in touch with the painterly arist's zen.

"Autumn Brook" (oil on linen; 9" x 12") sold

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Reference photo

It was a picture-perfect autumn day when several members of the Art League Plein Air Painters went to Green Spring Gardens Park in Alexandria, VA.  It had been a busy, exciting week, and I was tired.  I walked around, taking numerous pictures of last roses, trees with their fall colors, etc.  But I couldn't settle on any particular view to paint.  So I continued walking down the trail in the woods until I came across the above scene.  This was it!  Except that I had left my painting gear back on the main lawn.  The thought of having to go back to fetch the stuff, drag it down by the brook, set up the gear, and actually paint the scene tired me out even more.

Among my artist friends I am known for my workaholic (or shall I say, artaholic) habit of painting fast and furiously every day.  Not that day.  I decided to give myself a break.  Gasp!  I sat by my teacher and friend, Bobbi Pratte, and watched her paint an overgrown garden.  We kept company, got to know each other better, and had a great time.  It's sometimes good to kick back and relax.

I painted "Autumn Brook" from the photo yesterday.  The background trees with their fall colors are brilliantly backlit.  Tree shadows caress the foreground and middle ground forest floors.  And there it is--a tiny waterfall in the center of the painting.  It was a glorious day to take a walk in the woods.

"Duck Pond" (oil on linen; 8" x 10") sold

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Reference photo

At the outset of every painting, I always feel two emotions: excitement and fear.  I feel excited about the subject AND fearful about whether I will be able to pull it off.  If there is no challenge, boredom will set in and only slapdash work will come out of the painting session.  Yes, I live on the edge.

When  I went to paint at Wide Water along the C & O Canal a week ago, I took a walk to walk off numbness in the toes.  It was a bit chilly, yes; but, oh boy, it was gorgeous.  There were several mallard ducks and lots of Canada geese in the water, fishing and sunbathing.  I took many pictures.  Yesterday, I decided to make something of the above picture, with a bit of both feelings I just mentioned.

I cropped the photo to focus on the ducks and warmed up the palette.  Wobbly reflections of trees and their brilliant leaves fill up the entire painting, but without the two birds, it won't make any sense.  It would have been nicer if one of the ducks had been a female, but I didn't want to invent their colors.  Just to be on the safe side.

"Autumn Canal" (oil on linen; 12" x 12")

"Autumn Canal" blocked in

"Autumn Canal" almost finished

Today a group of friends, now called the Art League Plein Air Painters, went to Widewater along the C & O Canal, just north of Washington, DC. It was a chilly day, but the light could not have been better. In one more week, most leaves would be gone.  Fall colors were absolutely breathtaking.  I walked around along the canal and down to the Potomac River, taking pictures.  Wow!  I was in a painters' heaven.

Remembering how cold it got last Friday when I painted outside, I was better prepared today with woolen socks, boots, leather gloves, and a warm hat.  Even so, my toes and little fingers became numb after a while.  As I am determined to paint some snow scenes this winter, I'd better get a serious winter gear.

After a few hours of painting, we all walked over to the historic Old Angler's Inn for lunch to celebrate the launch of our new group.  We are going to design the "official" hat, have a group show at a gallery, and do lots of fun things in the future.  When several students of Sara Linda Poly started painting outside of her class last year, we had no idea where it would lead.  Another group out of The Art League organized a plein air painting group this summer.  What we did was to combine the two groups.  As they say, if you build it, they will come.  For us, if you start painting together, more people will join us.  We are thrilled.

"Fall Patterns" (acrylic on paper; 15" x 11") sold

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Do you like Wolf Kahn, a great colorist?  His calendar hanging in my office claims on the back that he is "probably the foremost American colorist."  Whether you agree with it or not, I surely love his semi-abstract art.  But I don't have the courage to paint with his bright yellows, mauves, aquamarines, pinks, and scarlets.  If I dare, my teachers would probably admonish me to tone them down to more "natural" colors.  Perhaps only masters, such as Kahn, can truly follow their aesthetic choices.

In "Fall Patterns", however, I hear the echos of Wolf Kahn.  Have you ever seen the violet fall foliage?  Why is the ground under the tall trees burgundy, or the sky so chalky Naples yellow?  But the painting works, and one feels that it is fall and the leaves are changing colors.  I don't know what got into me to paint like that, but surely like to do it again.