Roma

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There’s so much here in this painting!

There's the trip to Europe with my family, the day walking around Rome with my sweetie and our nibling HLeigh, then the idea and the process of painting it…

In 2017, the year my sister-in-law Vernona turned 50, she organized a trip to Europe. She, my brother Joe and their four kids were doing a grand tour. When my parents signed on, I lobbied my Joe to join them - for at least some of the trip. I had a feeling it could be the last time we got to be in Italy with my dad. As it turns out it was. We savor the time we had there with all of them. And will especially treasure the time with my papa.

The trip included a trip to Rome. Dad wasn’t able to walk much, so one day, Joe, HLeigh and I set out wandering on foot. We made our way across central Rome to the Campo dei Fiori – a square that has a rich and varied history. It was the site for papal excecutions and book burnings centuries ago and has been a daily market for fruits, vegetables and fish since the 1860’s. Now it seems to be more a tourist spot than where Roman citizens do their shopping. The vibe reminded me of Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco.

We had breakfast at a café on the periphery and then took a walk around the square. There were some beautiful displays of produce and flowers amidst the souvenir and scarf vendors. I took photos of the splashes of color wherever I saw it, HLeigh took a drink from one of Rome’s many ever-flowing fountains and we headed on.

The prompt to actually paint it came in the summer of 2020 when “Zinoasis” - a large square painting of zinfandel grapes - sold to someone out of state. I took the painting out of the frame to ship it in a large tube, leaving me a really nice frame that needed art.

I was going to just do a straight painting of it but then on a hike it came to me to paint it through the map of Rome, just as I did the flower stall through the map of Paris several years ago.

The first thing was to figure out what part of the map to use and at what scale. My math head came in handy to figure out the scale of the Paris map painting – 2.7 kilometers, square. And HLeigh’s friend Livia, who is a bona fide native Romana gave me feedback on the section of the map.

Now for the real challenge! I chose to draw and paint it just as I did “Paris” – no contour drawing for the actual shapes. The only pencil lines on my watercolor paper were those of the map. Each plum, tomato and apricot were eye-balled from the map superimposed on the reference image. And I avoided the lines of the map with my brush; no masking fluid!

I do believe this is the most difficult painting I’ve done to date. I had to make each object read as contiguous and three-dimensional, even as each one was painted in separate sections. And those baskets put me through it!

The name of this one follows the lead of “Paris” Rather than call it “Rome,” I decided, when in Rome… call it “Roma.”

A fun bit of synchronicity: the beautiful frame that has been waiting for this painting is made by an Italian company called Roma.

29”x29” - Spring 2021 – Watercolor on paper.

September

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Walking back up our street after a hike up the neighborhood hill with the dog, I saw fruit on the plum tree. Not unusual, plum trees do bear fruit. But this was in September! Normally the plums are gone by at least mid-August. The leaves were starting to turn colors already.

The sight of the autumn leaves along with the reds, pinks and even violet colors in the fruit, still moist with the morning - was just beautiful. So, I came right back with the car, a ladder and my camera to take a bunch of pictures.

All of this was 5 or 6 years before any painting happened. None of the images were painting-ready from the get go. I spent hours and hours in Photoshop collaging, removing, adding. I loved the colors and the leaves. Still, something was missing.

A Saturday workshop on fruit had me hunting for something to demonstrate on - and I thought: what the hell? I started it for a workshop late in 2017 and then it was usurped by other paintings that insisted on coming through first.

As happens, after it sat patiently unfinished in my studio, I found renewed energy for it. It was high summer and I needed something colorful to work on. The background was fun - a particularly lively fuzzy background where I felt free with color and shape. This is the first thing I've painted where there were out-of-focus elements in both the background and the foreground.

The magic in this painting continues to be the fact that there was still fruit so late in the season. It's not happened since - I've been paying attention. That was a special year. I'm happy that it's been memorialized. Cherry plums in September. August - September 2018 - 29"x29" - Watercolor on paper

One

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Years ago I read on a poster - one filled with ideas for living a good life - to pick a piece of fruit from a tree and eat it. How odd that we need to be reminded of this; so many of us are disconnected from where our food comes from. I’m so grateful that I was raised on two different plots of land in Woodacre, California – both planted with fruit trees. Since I can remember this has been my reality – that I could go outside in summer and pick a sweet snack from a tree. Even without fruit I can recognize many kinds of trees from the shapes of their leaves. Since I’m all about connection, this makes me feel right and good.

This was a little Fuji apple growing on a dwarf tree out at my parents – where they still live in Woodacre. This painting came from a photo that jumped out at me because of the pattern of light on the upper edge of the apple. But I had to have my way with the colors. As lovely as the soft greens and pinks are, my color sense is far more vibrant – it’s what I do!

I had just finished Global, my eggplant painting. Its leaves had given me fits to paint. Now another! But once I got through the leaves the apple was so fun to paint and it only took a few hours. It felt like play to loosely brush on the colors, layering pinks over greens – with of course a little cobalt blue on the front edge.

I often start thinking about the possible names of paintings early – sometimes even before I start to paint. This one has not jumped out easily or clearly. There are all kinds of ways to be clever with “apple” – both with common sayings and in its deep and ancient symbolism. But none of that felt right. It’s a simple painting and doesn’t call out for much in its name. I toyed with simply calling it “Apple” - good enough for a technology company. But this one needed to be even simpler. It’s a single apple. Just One. It’s enough.

August 2016 - 22"x22" - Watercolor on paper

Always

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When I was in Healdsburg last September (2014), after setting up, I went to park the truck on a side street a few blocks from the venue.  On the walk back, I came upon a gorgeous Fuyu persimmon tree in someone’s front yard, loaded with fruit.  The next morning I took a break to go take some pictures.  Full of sun, bright green leaves and orange/yellow-orange fruit, none of the pictures I took called to me to be painted.  The next month, I was up there again to lead my first art retreat weekend.  When I was headed out Monday morning, I went to see if I might take more pictures of the tree – I’d not forgotten about it!  It had rained softly Sunday night, and things were all covered with droplets.  This image from that morning was the one that wanted to be painted.  But the background was not exciting – it was the grey of the street beyond the tree.  So I went to work in Photoshop to collage in another image from further back.  I know this makes it not “real” but it’s a much better painting for it!

The “fuzzy background” on this one was really fun to paint – especially the lower right corner. I played with painting wet-next-to-wet and adding in colors that were not really there, more hinted at – purples, blues, pinks.  It was the most fun I’ve had painting one of these backgrounds ever!  I worked on this painting quite sporadically from the start of November. Between teaching some weekends, producing and selling my first calendar, holiday sales events and then family holiday celebrations, it didn’t get much of me.  So, I didn’t finish until the first part of February.

I was lamenting how I started it in the autumn and it was meant to be painted then – it’s a fall painting! Then, it sifted in that it seems the perfect painting to be working on just before Valentine’s Day.  It’s all here:  two, cheek to cheek, still sprinkled with the tears of rain. The name for this painting had not popped out until one of the last nights I worked on it.  Continuing with my intention to find one-word names – if it’s the title of a song, even better – I poked around on iTunes looking up words that were coming to me:  “promise,” “embrace,” “vow.”  They all have songs written about them, but none were it. Then I landed on “Always.”  There are several songs with that title – Bon Jovi has one, and Atlantic Starr, but the one that fit was written by Irving Berlin in 1925 as a gift to his bride-to-be, Ellin.  Here’s Sinatra’s version. It strikes the right note for me. All-ways, in all ways.  The real always of being together and loving each other, one day at a time.

February 2015 - 29"x29" - Watercolor on paper

Persimmon Sun II

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Sometimes things get painted because they're next. I had drawn this months ago when I was in the mood to do another persimmon - again one from my neighbor's tree down the street. This image came from the same visit as "Persimmon Sun." I had just finished "Dazzling," the painting of the two hibiscus flowers and was in Tahoe and didn't have anything else drawn, I had this with me so I started in on it. I loved making the background - all the circles and abstract shapes. I had fun playing with the shapes and colors. It happened really easily without worrying too much about how much I was reproducing the exact image. This is the third persimmon painting from Jen's tree - each three years apart. I can see how my style is changing over time - as is life. Jen is no longer living, there is a new family living in her home now with little kids, full of activity. All the while, the tree is still making these beautiful orange fruit and leaves each fall. Things end, things begin and things carry on.

August 2012 - 22"x22" - Watercolor on paper

Family of Lemons

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Out in our narrow side yard is a Meyer lemon tree. Planted by Paula Spencer, the previous resident of our house, this tree is indefatigable. There is hardly a time in the 11 years we've been here that I've gone out there and not found a yellow lemon for whatever I'm cooking or eating. Times when either Joe has pruned it severely or hard frosts have burned its upper branches, I've really worried about it, only to have it come back and be more prolific than ever. Several of our close neighbors know they can come in and get one or a few anytime they need to (don't tell anyone!). This is the side of the house where we keep the trash cans and recycle bins and it's also where we come and go when we are leaving on foot. I take our dog Bo on a hike nearly every morning and go by this tree. I love that the tree is where it is when the blossoms are blooming when I walk by - the scent is so lovely. I took the photo that became this painting because I was struck by how unusual it is to find blossoms and ripe yellow lemons right in the same branch. Add in beautiful light and interesting leaf shapes and this had to become a painting. Then when I started to draw it, I noticed there are also tiny baby lemons. The name came to me thinking about the last line in "Wild Geese" (the same poem I quote from on the home page of this site): "...announcing your place in the family of things."

August 2012 - 22"x22" - Watercolor on paper

Persimmon Sun

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A visit back to my neighbor Jen's persimmon tree the fall of 2008 was a bright sunny day. I arrived none to soon. The birds had started to help themselves to the ripe persimmons - many of them were half-eaten.

Persimmon Rain had been such a special piece, a favorite of many people. Could I paint another to follow it? But this was a whole new story to tell. The colors in the sunlight - especially of the leaves - were brighter, more yellow. And I loved the composition of this image. So, why not?

I struggled finding my way through, painting that first persimmon painting. I learned so much about painting in watercolor in the three years between them. Painting this was like traveling over somewhat familiar terrain with a clearer view of what was to come.

I love painting branches. It is fun watching them become three-dimensional. I painted the persimmon last and grappled with the light and shadow - I wanted the light to glow on the left edge, while also be in shadow.

It is quite amazing to me, magical even, how these paintings end up taking shape, and become real things.

June 2009 - 22"x22" - Watercolor on paper

Persimmon Rain

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On the street leading up to our house in Fairfax, California, a persimmon tree hangs over a neighbor's fence. At the time I painted this, my husband, Joe and I had been living in this neighborhood for several years. Every fall, as I went by it, I thought I want to paint those persimmons.

In the autumn of 2005 I got brave and knocked on the door of the persimmon's house and introduced myself. I met our neighbor Gen Racek, who now passed away, was a spry 90 then. Camera in hand, I asked if I could take some photos of her persimmons.

It had just rained, so I had the added benefit of water drops for enchantment. One of the images jumped out of the set of photos. The imperfection of the leaves and the splotch on the side of the persimmon made it so interesting. Then there was that on drop at the tip of the leaf - perfectly placed.

The leaves were a challenge. I had no idea what I was doing. I just stayed with them, looked carefully at the image and tried to paint what I saw, approximating the intense detail of the tiny veins of the leaves with dabbles of my brushes.

My friend Brenda fell in love with this painting even before it was finished. She said it reminded her of her deceased mother's love for her. The original now hangs in her dining room - it became the first painting I sold. Brenda's response to this painting and her support of my making art has propelled me forward as an artist.

October 2006 - 22"x22" - Watercolor on paper

Pomegranates, Jacinta’s Garden

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In October 1996, at the end of my half a year in France, I traveled throughout Europe for two weeks with two of my brothers, Matt and Mike. We met my parents on the Croatian Island of Brac, where my grandparents were born.

Brac is a rocky, arid island dotted with olive trees; the water that surrounds it is crystal clear, and life is simpler than ours at home in California. One perfect autumn afternoon we had lunch at my mother's cousin Jacinta's home. She cooked us a special meal of potato gnocci with a rich meat sauce.

A stroll out to her back terrace after lunch treated us to the gorgeous view of the sea and the mainland beyond. The tree growing these pomegranates was between the terrace and the view. The view and the tree can be seen in a painting I did a decade later - my self-portrait, Home.

Like the island, painting this one was rocky for me. I was almost never pleased with the results of my painting efforts. I experienced first hand how an artist's life takes discipline. Though this is an early painting of mine, something in me kept me sticking with it. I finally finished it on the first two days of a solo painting retreat in August of 2007. I kept saying to myself "this is like being in a difficult labor, this painting just does not want to be born!"

It was great to at last be able to say "Whew! It's DONE!"

This painting stayed in my inventory for a number of years. As I developed as an artist, my vision refined. I realized part of what had bothered me - the composition was off. It seriously needed cropping. I took four inches off the bottom and right side, focusing the eye more on the main fruit. I had to save - and frame - the sweet little detail of the twig and the curl of the leaf on the lower left tip as a memento of the original painting.

August 2007 - 22"x22" - later to become 18"x18" - Watercolor on paper

Apricots in the Sun

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These apricots grew on a tree in  my sister-in-law, Anne and her husband Gary's backyard in San Anselmo, California - the same garden where grows the tree that grew the peaches that became my painting Tropical Peaches. And - this is the same tree that grew the apricots I used to make the fruit tart in the painting Fruit Tart.  Connections are everywhere.

I began this painting while I was underway painting Southside Lily Pond. I needed a break from the dark and muted colors I was using to paint the murky pond water.  I craved painting with bright, vivid color.

I started in with the background on the lower right using even more intense and bright color than my eyes saw in the reference image. With the scale of the fruit in this painting these fruits may be hard to recognize as apricots. In fact the fruit I've painted here is often mistaken for peaches - which doesn't matter, really. Some years this tree produces the most amazing crop - buckets and buckets full of juicy, squishy, jammy apricots - the generosity of nature.  It also reveals Gary's faithful care of the fruit trees in their garden.

July 2008 - 30"x22" - Watercolor on paper

Tropical Peaches

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One summer early in my painting life, as fruit started ripening on trees in the gardens of loved ones, I couldn't wait to get out with my camera - I had a hankering to paint stone fruit. When I got a call from my sister-in-law Annie, telling me their peaches were really ripening and I'd better get over before they all got picked, I high-tailed it over there.

It was mid-morning; the tree was blasted with sunshine. I climbed up on Anne's husband Gary's ladder, completely entering the peach-tree-world, heavy fruit and curved leaves hanging all around me. The streaks of light I saw in one image in the digital camera viewer stopped the action. No doubt this was the one to be painted.

It was a challenge to represent the light and still portray the shapes and shadings of the fruit and leaves. Painting volume requires light to illumiate the subject in a certain way in order to reveal form in three dimensions. The diagonal light made this tricky.

Most of this painting was done while we were on Kauai the following October. It appears Kauai worked her magic through my brushes and me with the colors and light. The painting ended up with a tropical vibe. I love the blues and purples - and the intricate design that the tree and the light provided. Pattern, shape and color carried the day with this one - and it was fun to paint.

Isn't that a perfect pruning cut in the lower left-center? Thanks, Gary for growing and tending such an amazing garden.

November 2007 - 22"x30" - Watercolor on paper

Queen Anne Cherries

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I love stone fruit growing from trees - as painting subject matter, it provides me with delight and enchantment. I'd already painted peaches and apricots. Next, I was on the hunt for some cherries on the tree to paint.

It was June 2008 when my friend Brenda called to tell me that people were flocking to the self-pick orchards in Brentwood near where she lived. They were quickly stripping the cherry trees, so if I wanted some pictures of cherries, I'd better get out there quick, she told me.

Life is always so full. The thought of dropping everything and driving an hour and a half each way in who-knows-what kind of traffic, to take photos of cherries made me nuts.

That very evening, as Joe and I walked to the store in town, my eye was caught by color off to the left. I looked over to Jen's yard, the source of several previous paintings, including the persimmon tree and some Graham Thomas roses that became Blossoming Hope.

The tree RIGHT NEXT to the persimmon tree is a Queen Anne cherry tree, and it was full of shiny red and yellow fruit. Next to that is a Bing cherry tree. Bounty right here in our neighborhood. A walk down to a garden fewer than ten houses away gave me all I the cherries I could ever paint.

This is such a message that life really can be simple and easy - and full of delightful surprises.

Shiny cherries posed the painting challenge on this one. It's tricky to shift color and keep the surface appearing smooth and continuous. The blues and purples I used in the peach tree leaves in Tropical Peaches gave me the permission to paint blue leaves in this painting too. I love how all the colors came through so bright and clear.

April 2009 - 22"x30" - Watercolor on paper

Blueberry Symphony

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My friend Karen has a weekend home in Nevada City, Califonria. Our mutual friend Vicki and I spent a weekend with Karen there in July of 2009. After successful rescue ending a scary brush with possible catastrophe - involving Karen's spaniel, George, Vicki and a deep culvert of rushing water - all of us still a bit wet and dirty - Karen and I visited a blueberry farm. I'd never seen blueberries farmed in large scale like this.

The bright summer sun illuminated the various colors the berries pass through on the way to our cereal bowls and pie plates. Just like the Zinfandel grapes in my brother Mike's tiny San Anselmo vinyard, the berries start out green and end up blue, becoming yellow and then red on their way.

The next November I shared the image with a collector from Oregon who I had just met at the Sausalito Art Festival that Labor Day Weekend. Seeing it, he asked me to paint it for his wife for Christmas, an ambitious undertaking to get it done, framed and shipped to Portland in time.

As I was working on it, I appreciated connecting it with them. It's a rare treat to paint from an image I had experienced and taken, while knowing who will be giving the painting a home - as opposed to working on a commission where that is often not the case.

As I was finishing up, my friend Brenda's teenage son Quincy played Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata on the piano over the phone to me. I was blown away - he's quite a musician. I e-mailed Brenda the painting when it was done and Quincy gave it its name. Vicki says it's apt as she sees lots of dance-like movement. I am touched and gratified by all that others see in these paintings that come through me.

December 2009 - 22"x22" - Watercolor on paper