I said I’d post some of the paintings from studies I did several years ago in Ireland. Took a while but here they are. I’m still working with the idea of time and the landscape. The ancientness of this land and it’s history is overwhelming to me. Ceide Fields are bogs covering settlements over 5500 years old. I’ve done several more in this series, but this gives you an idea.

Ceide Fields and the North Sea
Down Patrick Head in the distance with Sea Stack, Dún Briste

The impact that people make on the land and how people and our civilizations with all our grand ideas pass on and the land has remained is haunting to me. Nature reclaims—so far…

Haven’t posted in a while – summer got pretty busy. Mid August I went to VT to study with Susan Abbott. Her “Vermont Landscape Painting Retreat” was pretty much Art Boot Camp! Learned a lot, met wonderful people and was wrung out! Each day consisted of lectures and demos, slides and exercises, and lots of plein air painting. Oh, and I shouldn’t forget to mention the wonderful lunches every day!

Susan demonstrating in her garden.

Home base was Susan’s airy studio which she had turned into a class room. We started at 9:00 but could get there early to set up – I shot the photo below before students arrived as once we started there was no time… My work space was on the left with the red cup… Susan has a huge library of art books that were available to us. Here are shelves with her sketchbooks. I do love to see other artist’s sketchbooks.

So much to take in!

We visited gardens and farms, beautiful VT homes, meadows and mountains—each day a visual treat laid out for us to paint.
One of our plein air sites was the home, studio and pond of artist, Adelaide Tyrol. I worked with the group of trees at one end of the pond. We spent two sessions here.

Adelaide’s pond and my painting.

Bob came with me and after dropping me off in the mornings he went off and did train things… He’d pick me up at 5:00, we’d grab a bite to eat and I’d be back at 8:30. After a week of this we headed to Maine for a few days to unwind. That will be my next post!

Spent part of this afternoon preparing painting surfaces for week long painting workshop I’ll be attending in August with Susan Abbott in VT. I’m excited about this work shop as I’ve wanted to study with her for a while now but the timing never worked out.

First I made sure I have wet canvas carriers for the boards and canvases I plan to take. Can’t carry wet paintings home in the back of a packed car… Once that was settled, Burnt Sienna paint thinned with solvent was applied to the surface which was then rubbed with a soft rag, leaving this light toning as a starting background. Previously I’ve applied a med grey opaque layer of paint when I wanted to not start with a glaring white surface. This is Susan’s suggested method and I think I’ll like it better.

This is going to be a two part project as I only have so much space to let them dry for several days and I have more to do.

Decided I needed to get back to painting and to try a new direction. Val Rossman‘s course, “Exploring Abstraction” at Woodmere was just the kick I needed. She let’s members use what ever media they wish and encourages each to explore their own path. I decided that since abstraction was out of my comfort zone, why not go all the way and explore new media. Sooo…, the first three weeks I worked in pastels and the second in acrylics. Also, since I tend to be a low chroma gal I thought I’d push color. Here are 3 of my first pastels:

All my professional life has been about telling stories. Now there is no story. Just paint what I am feeling. I work fairly fast, before I can think about things – ideas – content… and then once something is there I consider composition etc. I’ve used scratching, glazing, thick medium. I usually gesso the support first in colored gesso and then paint over it.

The last three weeks I decided to work with acrylics and here are some of them:

Once I get over the feeling of being cut loose with out any plans etc, this is rather fun! Some of these images may be finished and some may get more work. The more I do, the more I learn, the less I know, but, I do feel they do have voices. I just have to learn to listen. I have one more class to go. Then I plan to add this new way of working/thinking to my previous work. We’ll see.