Fascination

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Inspiration and energy to make these watercolor paintings have been relatively steady resources in the past dozen or more years.  I have a folder of “candidates” - photos I’ve taken that have given me the message they are worth spending my time on.  Most of the time when going through this folder, looking at all these beautiful pictures, I can imagine myself jumping in to start painting pretty much any one of them.  My problem is not having enough time.

But after finishing “Aria” in July, I was fresh out of something to paint and a look through my candidates left me totally flat.  I spent 2 or 3 days digging through the rest of my image library looking for something that I may have overlooked.  I never know when something from a while ago will reach out and grab me by the throat (ok, by the heart) - as it did with both “Sherose” and “Lavish.”  Even there… nothing.

The thoughts were scary.  Uh, oh.  What if the inspiration well has run dry? What if I can’t paint flowers, fruit - all the stuff I’ve loved to paint for two decades - anymore, then what?

Then I went to my friend Samantha Davidson’s.  Sam gives the most heavenly facials on Earth.  On my way out the door, all tension drained from me, I saw this amazing faceted glass bowl, about the size of a cantaloupe, on her dining room table. It had a single stem of a pink hydrangea in it.  The way the squares of glass caught and reflected the light, all the colors and iridescence!  My gosh!  It HAD to be painted!

Sam happily lent it to me.  I came home and found a few things in the garden, waited for the sun to dip a lower in the sky and took several dozen photos. It felt great to come alive, to have something I couldn’t wait to paint!

I let myself pull out all the stops in Photoshop:  use the image with the most colors in the pieces of glass, and then add in a few more; use the one that had a break in the flowers to keep it from being too heavy, add a leaf at the top to carry the eye skyward, and of course shift the colors to give myself maximum joy.

As I watched myself paint the glass itself, I realized how important it is to really paint what I see. The grid-like, linear aspect of this would make it really easy for my left brain to jump in and “organize” it all.  In order to make it look real and alive, I had to let the uneven borders, bending lines and diminishing sizes and proportions be as they were, in order for it to really live.

Our Tahoe vacation was busier and more distracted than normal, so I came home having made very little progress and with a fire under my butt to get it finished in time for the Sausalito Art Festival.  I took it on a camping trip in mid-August and even painted it on the picnic table in our dusty Russian River campsite, by (LED) lantern until well past dark. I was determined to get it done!

Somewhere in the last couple of days working on it the title sifted in.  The root of the word “fascinate” in Latin is connected to “spell” and “witchcraft.”  When overcome by the hunger, the need to paint something like I did this one, I do feel bewitched.  That the word “facet” has a similar sound doesn’t hurt either.  Here it is - meet “Fascination.”

August 2019 - 29”x29”– Watercolor on Paper.  

Aria

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I wish I could remember the name of this variety of rose! It came from a bush that petered out several years before I painted this. The image dates back to the spring of 2011, when I brought the little vase with rose and sprigs of sage to our across-the-street neighbors’ backyard to take advantage of the gorgeous evening light.

Sometime down the road I spent some time crafting the composition, but there it sat on my hard drive until I was searching for something to work on to follow Lavish in late spring 2019. I set myself up for one of the most involved “fuzzy backgrounds” I’d ever painted. It felt like I’d never be done with shoving green and purple paint around with my brushes!

But, patient and determined, I did - and then gave myself the treat of the glass and water. It’s such satisfying painting – I don’t have to get it just like the photo. As long as the contrast is there and I’ve saved the white paper in the right places, the magic of portraying light goes “ta da!”

The sage sprigs and the rose were next. Back to my sweet-spot. I love to paint petals! While I was painting this Joe and I went to see two summer operas in San Francisco, which inspired a day of listening to gorgeous Puccini arias on a Thursday. This painting spoke to me of being in the spotlight as well as a sense of space. “Aria” bridged them – the extravagant soprano in the spotlight - and “aria” is “air” in Italian.

This is the painting that was shoved aside when I was overcome with needing to paint “Remembrance” the rose window painting. Not to be outdone, this one decided to come through in grand style!

May-June, 2019 – 30”x22” – Watercolor on paper

Douce

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This painting germinated on an evening before I was to lead a Saturday workshop - on painting glass.  I decided at the last minute that I really wanted to have something new to work on myself - to have something to demonstrate on that wasn't just a sample, but a "real" painting.   It was early June and about 6pm and I went wandering around our yard to see what I could find to put in a jar that had had rose petal jelly from Hediard in Paris in it.  

Our yard in those days was looking really sad with the drought that year.  Our lawn in back was gone, not just dead, but dead and gone!  The deer got in and stripped all but two climbing roses.  They had been struggling anyway with the low watering. I did find a few things in bloom:  the blue hydrangea had a few blossoms, as well as the pink rhododendron and the New Dawn climber had just a few roses near the end of their bloom.  That was it!  But it was enough.  Next to no flowers in the yard and I still came up with something.  

It's a really small arrangement - the jar is only about 4" in diameter.   I went around with two cameras, an SLR and my iPhone 5, setting my little arrangement in various places where it would catch the evening light.  I was resting on the fence rail out front, when all of a sudden a whole bunch of rose petals just tumbled down on either side of the jar.  Oh, how wonderful!  I couldn't have planned for that to happen. So, a few more pictures and I had my image.  

I used the projector to make the drawing after dinner that night.  Painting the glass was actually pretty straightforward. It's a simple exercise of "paint what I see."  I'd never painted hydrangeas before though, and this was where I was most challenged.  Like the lilacs in "Still" from earlier that spring, I found it tedious to pick through all the detail.  I gave up on it part way through, switched over to paint the pink rhody and then came back to it before finishing up with the roses.  

Blue seemed to be working its way into my paintings in that timeframe. This one had it - not just the hydrangea, but in the shadows of the other flowers and blue tints the dark background.  In my weekly online journal around the time I was working on this one, I wrote about "sweetness," which had me think of the French word "douce" - the feminine adjective for "sweet."  When I looked it up and found its other translations:  soft, gentle, tender, quiet.  Oh, how lovely. I could use more of this, these days, can you?

June - August 2015 - 29"x38" - Watercolor on paper

Broadway

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This is a painting that started in a tiny moment. It was early May, 2022. I had picked some roses and put them in three small vases on the dining room table. Sometime in the next few days I breezed by the dining room, heading back to my studio. It was late in the afternoon when the sun comes in the bay window on the other side of the table.

My eye caught that light! The light that was coming through the slats of the dining chairs. And it caught those petals! The petals of the roses - and - those on the table as some of the roses lost their grip on them.

Out comes the phone and its camera. I took several, moving the vases around. I've learned that it's great to have options when working with images past the time when I can take more.

Months and months pass, I periodically see the images in Photos on my phone and iPad - and think - that is SO a painting!

It took some re-arranging in Photoshop too. Even with the photos of different views, none were just right. I craved having this view of that rose and the green and blue reflections from this one... and on and on.

Painting it was all over the place. I usually am quite disciplined about painting the background first, working my way through to the roses, but I was feeling the need for rose petals to paint.

Life in 2023 has been very unsettled - with moving the studio, among other discractions from my painting, so it took a while to get through. I started it on a trip to Kauai in October 2022 (I know!) and finished it on the front porch of the little place where we stay there in May, 2023.

What to call it? I kept feeling "dance" or "chorus line." The name of the brightest colored rose, just right of center is "Broadway." (This is also the rose that became the painting I called "Nova.") It's gorgeous and fragant - one of my favorites. This is it! "Broadway" is a single word that connected with the feeling I got from in this painting. Footlights for showy flowers!

22”x30” – Spring 2023 - Watercolor on paper.

cherish

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11"x8" - $85

Early in 2010 I was in an art store and saw sheets of heavy watercolor paper that were twice as large as I'd seen before. I had been under the impression that if I wanted to paint larger than 30"x40" I had to go to roll paper, which is much thinner and a challenge to paint on. I got so excited, I bought all 5 sheets they had in stock. I've been wanting to paint big for a while and now I was equipped! Then BJ (our doggy) died and the energy was out of my sails for "going big." The summer of 2011 the call came back. At some point I had settled upon this image as one of those that could take being blown up so drastically. Not every image can. There is a lot of detail in this one that would have made it challenging to paint small, in fact. I started on it during our Tahoe trip at the end of July after finishing Faith (also in the Rose Gallery). As the days marched on, it seemed that the painting and the amount of work left to do actually grew! The last week I had to really focus and work hard, with the Tiburon festival the weekend before, it was a challenge to keep sourcing the energy. All the while, I was wondering what the heck I was going to name this big piece. Then one morning, really early, I was listening to a playlist of songs on my iPod, my comfy headset making gorgeous sound and k.d. lang's incredibly emotional version of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah started playing. The lyrics refer to a "broken hallelujah" and the title dropped out of the music. "Hallelujah" - praise God, yes! I am so fed by color, light, astonishing beauty, even and especially amidst scratches, teary water drips and brokenness. The process of naming these paintings - especially the more recent florals - is truly led by the spirit - well, actually all of life is really - I just have to remember it.

August 2011 - 40"x60" - Watercolor on paper

Offering

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In 2011 I had a show at the Two Bird restaurant in the San Geronimo Valley, where I grew up. On a visit to the restaurant, a woman bought my painting “Honey Bee and Rugosa Roses” (actually it was the artist proof, the original had already been claimed). Thus we became connected so I could include her as I shared what I was painting and where I was showing. When I sent out a postcard with “Blush” announcing Open Studios in 2013, she called me asking if the original were available. These two paintings started her collection of my work. Later in 2013 she joined our Friday painting group and has become a Friday regular.

In October of 2014 she invited the Friday group to paint and have lunch at her house, in her garden, instead of in Larkspur. She provided an enormous spread of yummy food not just for lunch, but also coffee and goodies for when we first arrived. I’ve come to know her as one of the most gracious and generous and loving people I’ve ever met. She invited us again the next October. One of the gifts offered to her were these hydrangeas from another faithful Friday artist who grew them in her garden.

We were all captivated by the range of intense colors, so out they went into the garden to rest on a piece of Italian tile set on the corner of a wall-mounted fountain so we could take photos. I led a Saturday on painting water, so I drew this one to have at the ready as a demonstration piece. I painted it off-and-on over six months, setting it aside to work on other things. Once I returned to it, though, it had me. It’s the most intricate and complex thing I’ve painted so far. I painted the flowers last, which was a trip around my palette with all the colors. So much fun. Though the colors are intense, there is something somewhat softer, less vibrant than much of my recent work, making it soothing.

I continue to challenge myself with one-word titles. The one that came to me for this one is “Offering” which combines “gift” and “contribution,” both of which I am enormously blessed by – from our hostess that day - and in my life as a whole.

November 2015 - June 2016 - 29"x38" - Watercolor on paper

Lustina

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24"x30" - $495
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7.5"x10" - $75

Steve-o and Annette Lamott are, as she says, a miracle. They met the first time in 1996, she had a huge crush on him. She gave him her phone number on her business card, he never called. Instead he met someone else, married her and had a daughter. She carried on and raised her daughter not finding anyone special enough to be with. He divorced in 2006. They went hiking with a mutual friend and stayed friends for 7 months until they kissed in March of 2007. This is time he fell madly in love with HER and her cat, Ginger. They married on May 30th 2010. It was a beautiful, joyous wedding. She gave me a centerpiece to take home. I set it on our front stoop in the late afternoon light and took some photos. Somehow I couldn't see the painting-to-be in it right away.

October of 2013, I was bent over, my belly flat on the large work table at Light Rain, reaching forward, de-curling a print and my body said to me "orange, I want orange." I'd just finished two pieces with lots of green-blue-violet-pink-red and I was left with a hunger. I'd just bought a new paint, Daniel Smith's quinacradone sienna and this was the image to take on. The terra cotta pot was the color I was craving. This was a wonky winter, with two bouts of flu and new mugs to market, I did a big weekend event 10 days before Christmas. I exhausted myself and found myself without the energy to paint more than I liked, which carried into the new year. I'm grateful for this lovely painting to have been the piece sitting waiting to be worked on. It was never "that old thing." It was a promise of life and color and a celebration when I came out of it. Here it is, feminine and earthy and overflowing, at the same time, patient for life to unfold in its own time. Steve-o calls Annette his "Lusty Latina." "Lustina" it is.

October 2013 - February 2014 - 29"x39" - Watercolor on paper

Blush

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This vase of peonies is sitting on the sill of a window in the stairwell of my parents' house in Woodacre. Through the window is a bank of flowering plants just above where my brother and his wife were married and 8 years later where my husband and I were also married. My family had this house built when I was in junior high - I remember the day I came after school and I could sit in my own room (before that I'd shared with my older brother). There were no walls anywhere yet, just plywood sub-floor. There is such history in this place.

Painting it came in three distinct phases. I spent quite a while on the garden-background - sculpting the paint into the soft shapes outside the window. Then came the faceted glass and the stems inside, which I thought would be a fright to do, but instead was quite fun and surprisingly easy. I stalled out painting the right big blossom. The photo image was murky and my drawing was unclear. But once I found my way through it, the big flower on the left I painted almost all in one Saturday. It's a large painting - the same size and dimension as "Touched by the Sun" and has a similar standing in the light quality.

Our friend Sara from across the street (who is also the minister who married my husband and me) was visiting and I asked her what I should call it. When "Blush" came out of her mouth I was amazed! I had been thinking the very same word! It's in honor of the shy part of me that was so easily embarrassed. I had terrible stage fright and my face turned red when I was in the spotlight. Though I don't suffer in the way I used to - I'm so grateful to be mostly healed - that sensitive part of me is still here. Instead of wishing it away, I've learned to honor this part of myself. It's now safe to be really seen.

March 2013 - 41"x29" - Watercolor on paper

Still

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Every house I’ve lived in as an adult I’ve planted rosebushes – as many as possible.  In the house we are in now the sunniest place is the side yard, where we have to walk around the house to get to.  One day around Eastertime 2014, I found myself on the side yard and saw there was one single rose, in full bloom along with one cluster of lilac – from a bush that had yet to bloom, even after several years in the ground.  All the rest of the roses were in tight buds, weeks away from flowering.  These two blooms showing themselves so early and so all on their own just had to be picked and painted.  I set them in a simple small vase and brought them to a sunny spot up on the railing of the upstairs deck and took several photos.  I started the painting in June in order to demonstrate for a “Finding the Color in Whites” workshop in July.  I layered cobalt blue and cobalt teal blue with yellow and a bit of pink in the shadow - bringing color (and thus life) to it.  But then it sat with just the background and the railing painted until the spring of 2015 when it seemed time to pick it back up.  Painting the glass was fun, reminding myself to do what I say all the time, “paint what you see.”  I then moved on to the lilacs. Ho, Nellie!  I like detail, but this is crazy detail!  I’d paint for two hours and have done only two or three square inches.  I picked my way through it, shape, by shape, blue-violet to red-violet.  The rose is a Peace rose, which gave me the working title for this painting – I thought I’d call it simply “Peace.”  But when it was done, it didn’t seem right. I have been thinking that there’d be a painting at some point that I’d call “Still.”  Like “Rest,” “Still” has more than one meaning – there’s the calm, quiet, not moving sense as well as continuing, enduring.  Somehow both of these fit for me.  Looking at this painting (when I’m able to  see beyond the parts that still bother me) I feel the reminder to be still and still be.

April 2015 - 30"x22" - Watercolor on paper

Summertime

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22"x30" - $495
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No matter how much we want to, some experiences cannot be repeated. I'm thinking about a meal eaten in a bar with a girlfriend in Paris. It was fettuccine with cream and smoked salmon which was delivered to us from the brasserie across the street by the bartenders because they didn't want us to leave and we were hungry! it may have been the drinks and the footloose mood but that pasta tasted amazing! Ordering the same dish on trip back was so not the same - not even close! I feel this way about some of the paintings I've done! (What a way to introduce a new painting, huh?!) I was playing around with roses and my camera in an attempt to paint another small painting like "Full Circle" which has been so well received and one that I love so much, I'm keeping the original myself. This lovely green glass cup was a gift from my sister(-in-law) Annie and is perched on the top of the fence in our side yard. When I was looking for something to demonstrate in my "fuzzy background" class, this one called out to me. The composition needed some work first, though. I took elements from two different shots and combined them in Photoshop until it sang to me - yes, paint me! But it was just not to be small (11"x15") like Full Circle. I could actually see it all painted on a full sheet (22"x30"). Some things just can't be repeated! They have to be their own thing! The past few summers have seemed to just zoom by. At the end of them it has felt to me that we hardly had a summer. I was determined to take time to enjoy this summer. Part of that was spending a few days with my dear Sister Mary at a special place in Bolinas and worked some time on this painting while enjoying the spectacular view of the ocean. Back home, finishing it up, my playlist included Gershwin's "Summertime." Listening to this song it seemed like the right name. The livin' is easy. My reminder to take time to enjoy, to rest, to enjoy the summer sun.

July 2013 - 22"x30" - Watercolor on paper

Full Circle

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11"x15" - $150
6.5"x8.5" - $60

This is a deeply personal painting. In the late summer of 1995 I left a very difficult 14 year marriage. Days after leaving I wrote in my journal I wanted to live and work in Paris. The next spring I moved to Paris to work for a small software company for six months before helping to establish their San Francisco office. While there, one Saturday I was looking at a Victoria magazine that had been forwarded in my mail from home and saw a candle from a shop called Dyptique. I could see the address in the label on the candle in the magazine - it was a short walk from my apartment. I went that day and bought a rose-scented candle. When I came back to Marin, I was fortunate to be able to buy myself a little house in San Anselmo, where I planted many rosebushes. The candle had since burned to the end and the glass cup made a lovely little vase. I set up this still life one weekend and took several photos. Then I met my real love.  We married, endured a bout of cancer together.  It wasn't until facing my grief at not being a mother, while spending a week at a wonderful spa in Mexico where I re-found my loveliness, that this painting came out of me. To Paris and back - to myself.

August - December 2004 - 11"x15" - Watercolor on paper

Grace

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20"x15" - $250
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One day last summer, in the midst of all the art activities, I found a moment to pick some roses and put them on the deep window sill in my studio. It was evening, the sun starting to sink, I noticed the light streaming through the vase alongside a candle holder and a purple heart paperweight - both gifts from dear friends. The light and colors stopped me for a deeper look. I captured it so that I could bring it out with paint this winter. This painting describes my appreciation for so much - beauty, light, color, roses and treasured relationships. I loved painting the reflections on the sill and the light coming through the 200 year-old live oak in the front of our house. This painting won an Honorable Mention ribbon at the 2008 Marin County Fair Fine Art Exhibit.

February 2008 - 30"x22" - Watercolor on paper