Blueberry Symphony
Original Sold
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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
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
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
