My gardens are going wild. I have lots of beautiful flowers for painting subject matter. I keep going back and forth with watercolor and oil paint.....
Today's sketch is a gardener's still life.
Showing posts with label still life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label still life. Show all posts
Saturday, July 14, 2012
Sunday Sketches
We are so in the throws of summer and I am loving it! Thus, I am posting early as I am off on another hiking adventure this time in the Olympics.
My gardens are going wild. I have lots of beautiful flowers for painting subject matter. I keep going back and forth with watercolor and oil paint.....
Today's sketch is a gardener's still life.
View more Sunday Sketchers
My gardens are going wild. I have lots of beautiful flowers for painting subject matter. I keep going back and forth with watercolor and oil paint.....
Today's sketch is a gardener's still life.
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Stellar Day in the Pacific Northwest
Yes, sunshine and fall colors!
One of our rare fall Pacific Northwest STELLAR DAY.
I took my dog, Ebony, for a walk on the Chehalis Western Trail here in Olympia, Washington.
I love the arches of color and the depth seen down the trail.
It is like a fairy land.
The leaves are a still-life in themselves.......
One of our rare fall Pacific Northwest STELLAR DAY.
I took my dog, Ebony, for a walk on the Chehalis Western Trail here in Olympia, Washington.
I love the arches of color and the depth seen down the trail.
It is like a fairy land.
The leaves are a still-life in themselves.......
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
"Arts to Remember"
Today was my last day creating art with residents at various assisted living centers in Olympia as part of the "Arts to Remember" program. Selected art pieces will be on display at the annual Arts Walk in downtown Olympia October 7th and 8th.
This year I went to two locations, Merrill Gardens and Olympia West. We created mandalas and several different still lifes in craypas and watercolor. The challenge was to relate that everyone can do art and that the art does not need to be realistic. I even got to a point where I "outlawed" any negative talk about one's art creation. But, that was short lived.
Today, I brought a bouquet of strawflowers from my garden. First time I have grown them and what amazing plants. The shape of the leaves and flatness of the stems are as as unique as the flowers themselves.
Here is a close up view of the strawflowers
The bouquet that became the subject matter of today's session.
Closer view
I attempted to explain that we would be doing an Impressionistic version of this bouquet; my demonstration....
Anyways, they said that they had fun!
This year I went to two locations, Merrill Gardens and Olympia West. We created mandalas and several different still lifes in craypas and watercolor. The challenge was to relate that everyone can do art and that the art does not need to be realistic. I even got to a point where I "outlawed" any negative talk about one's art creation. But, that was short lived.
Today, I brought a bouquet of strawflowers from my garden. First time I have grown them and what amazing plants. The shape of the leaves and flatness of the stems are as as unique as the flowers themselves.
Here is a close up view of the strawflowers
The bouquet that became the subject matter of today's session.
Closer view
I attempted to explain that we would be doing an Impressionistic version of this bouquet; my demonstration....
Anyways, they said that they had fun!
Friday, December 3, 2010
Festival of Light
What an appropriate time to be reminded of the "light" when I have been complaining about how early it is getting dark these days.
Chanukah is the "Festival of Light" in celebration of the miracle of the oil lasting for eight days after the Jews retained control of the Temple in Jerusalem.
I have always enjoyed the ritual of lighting the candles each night. Yet, as I grew older I found even more significance in the symbolism of the word "light" and "miracle".
As an artist, I focus on the effects of light and capturing that in my creations. I have learned that light is essential to my well-being and that I am affected by the amount of daylight or not. Light is an illuminating source and I look for it in those people I encounter.
Miracles abound everywhere. Daily, I remind myself to be appreciative and grateful.
As I walked by the lighted menorah this evening, I was delighted by the still life that miraculously occurred.
Art and light.......
It reminds me to straighten the Matisse!
Chanukah is the "Festival of Light" in celebration of the miracle of the oil lasting for eight days after the Jews retained control of the Temple in Jerusalem.
I have always enjoyed the ritual of lighting the candles each night. Yet, as I grew older I found even more significance in the symbolism of the word "light" and "miracle".
As an artist, I focus on the effects of light and capturing that in my creations. I have learned that light is essential to my well-being and that I am affected by the amount of daylight or not. Light is an illuminating source and I look for it in those people I encounter.
Miracles abound everywhere. Daily, I remind myself to be appreciative and grateful.
As I walked by the lighted menorah this evening, I was delighted by the still life that miraculously occurred.
Art and light.......
It reminds me to straighten the Matisse!
Thursday, April 30, 2009
What is Your Favorite Subject Matter?
Katherine Tyrrell recently conducted a poll on her blog, Making a Mark, regarding artist's favorite subject matter.
Here are the results of the poll for which 173 responded.
24% Portraits/Figures
18% Scenes-landscapes/urban/interiors
16% Animals/wildlife
15% Anything and everything
12% Flowers/Botanical art
8% Still life
5% Conceptual/symbolic
3% Narrative (main-focus, story)
Katherine Terrell's analysis of the polls:
Portraits / Figures are the most popular subject for artwork. Around a quarter of the artists like drawing and painting people and figures best of all.
Add in animals/wildlife and creating portraits of living beings accounts for some 40%of respondents
The second most popular subject are scenes - whether these are landscapes, urban scenes or scenes of interiors - 18% prefer 'the big picture'.
People whose favourite subject is Animals and/or wildlife accounted for 16% of the responses.
In the middle of the poll, we find that 15% of the artists like to draw and paint anything and everything. This figure could have been a lot bigger. However I rather suspect that some of who tend to draw or paint more than one subject had to make a decision about whether we said we genuinely had no preference (ie anything and everything) or whether we did have a favourite.
Drawing or painting flowers or producing botanical art attracted 12% of the poll - which is 50% more than the number who voted for still life as being their favourite subject (8%)
Only 5% are motivated by ideas and involved in the development of conceptual or symbolic art. I'd expect to get a much higher percentage than this if I was asking full time professional contemporary artists. I'm wondering whether this very low percentage is because most readers of my blog are people who don't routinely produce art based on an idea.
Even fewer (3%) had any sort of narrative commonly running through their art.
Here are the results of the poll for which 173 responded.
24% Portraits/Figures
18% Scenes-landscapes/urban/interiors
16% Animals/wildlife
15% Anything and everything
12% Flowers/Botanical art
8% Still life
5% Conceptual/symbolic
3% Narrative (main-focus, story)
Katherine Terrell's analysis of the polls:
Portraits / Figures are the most popular subject for artwork. Around a quarter of the artists like drawing and painting people and figures best of all.
Add in animals/wildlife and creating portraits of living beings accounts for some 40%of respondents
The second most popular subject are scenes - whether these are landscapes, urban scenes or scenes of interiors - 18% prefer 'the big picture'.
People whose favourite subject is Animals and/or wildlife accounted for 16% of the responses.
In the middle of the poll, we find that 15% of the artists like to draw and paint anything and everything. This figure could have been a lot bigger. However I rather suspect that some of who tend to draw or paint more than one subject had to make a decision about whether we said we genuinely had no preference (ie anything and everything) or whether we did have a favourite.
Drawing or painting flowers or producing botanical art attracted 12% of the poll - which is 50% more than the number who voted for still life as being their favourite subject (8%)
Only 5% are motivated by ideas and involved in the development of conceptual or symbolic art. I'd expect to get a much higher percentage than this if I was asking full time professional contemporary artists. I'm wondering whether this very low percentage is because most readers of my blog are people who don't routinely produce art based on an idea.
Even fewer (3%) had any sort of narrative commonly running through their art.
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