Paintings Made in Baltimore

More of the art backlog from the last few years.  These paintings were created after I moved to Baltimore.  I'm sure there are more, but these are the ones I could easily extract from the stack in the art closet.  All are acrylic on gessoed heavy paper.  

Screenwriter Anita Loos

Kitchen Dancing

Water Witch

Doris

Violets

Balloons

2022 Furniture Resurrection Projects

The home I bought in 2022 was an estate sale, and came with So Much Stuff, much of which has been useful.  I have tools and nails for almost every occasion and didn't need to buy, for instance, a new lawn mower.  Some less than-beautiful-items were also left behind, many of which were tossed (the nasty white shag rug went away fast), some sold (several small tables and two southwestern chairs that were stashed in the attic), and some were restored.  Below are before, during and after shots of three such repairs.  

Potter's End Table

In the basement, I found a simple wood table, covered in dust and clay, and some knife marks, as it was likely used by a potter who at one point probably used the basement as a studio.  I still have a 1950s era kiln in the basement, and may always, since it is enormous and heavy.  Since the table (like most of the dated, but solid furniture left behind) was made of all wood, I decided to refinish it.  Twas my first refinishing attempt in quite some time. 

Before: 

During (a LOT of sanding):

After:

It came out a bit more orange than I would have like, but otherwise, I was quite pleased.  It spent a long, long time outside as polyurethane stinks for a long time, I can report.  

Coffee Table:

The coffee table had not been relegated to the basement, so it was cleaner, but had peeling layer of clearish finish, and that was about it.  I forgot to take a before photo, so in-process will have to suffice. 

During:

With the stripper on it

After sanding:

First coat of orangy stain (neighbor's cat supervising), which was followed by a darker stain to tone it down:

After: 

Porch Chairs:

The porch chairs had been left outside for a long long while, and one was split in the middle.  But some glue and several coats of exterior paint, and they've got new life and use again. 

Before:

During:

After:

Sketchbook

So on this blog, it looks like I haven't been making any art for a long, long time. 

In reality, I just haven't been posting.  

Evidence: a peek into my lumpy and sometimes awful sketchbook, largely centered on trying to draw people that look like actual people.  

Progress is uneven (some are strange, and some I clearly abandoned before they got very far) but there is progress, so I'll take it. Drawing is never going to be a strength, but I find it increasingly relaxing.  Paying attention to shape and light and detail is never a waste.  

Katherine, Women in Shakespeare series

Once again, I've been neglectful in posting, so to catch up, here is "Katherine," another in the Women in Shakespeare series.  I painted her sometime in October.  She is, ahem, not much like the movie star photo reference, but she has some personality that I enjoy.  As always, any painting is progress forward.  

Katherine
acrylic on paper

Hopper Homage

This painting started out as a quick small sketch copying Edward Hopper's Hotel Room, but when I moved on to paint a larger, simplified version, I added my own spin, inserting the window and checkered floor and shifting to a cooler toned color scheme.  It's retains Hopper's sense of isolation but has become instead more institutional, perhaps a hospital or a dorm room. Freedom exists on the other side of that window. 

The Exeter Experience
acrylic on paper
17 1/2" x 23"

St. Catherine with a Toothache

This painting was an attempt to copy a section of Caravaggio's painting Saint Catherine of Alexandria.  Sadly, in my version, she looks like she has a toothache, which is not exactly the martyring for which she is renowned.  If she indeed existed (historians debate this point, and if so, who she might be based on), she was likely beheaded in the end, as were many of the people she converted.  Caravaggio, meanwhile, caused a stir by choosing a model who was a prostitute to portray the virgin saint.  

St. Catherine
acrylic on paper
17 1/2" x 23"

No Longer a Self Portrait

A while back, I attempted a self-portrait sketch which ended up not particularly appealing on multiple levels.  Sometime in 2020, I ran across it again and opted to paint it and modify her into someone else.  She came out a wee bit odd looking too, but I like that the blue background that somehow makes her feel a bit old fashioned.  

Crafty Easter Bunny

Poor Lila is stuck with an honorary auntie who doesn't much like shopping, but does get crafty at times.  So she ends up with odd holiday treats like the mutant bunny below: 

Legless, armless bunny with
beady eyes and bow

But bunny has a tail!

Nothings says happy Easter like a
weird little basket

Assortment of 2020 Abstracts

Abstracts painted in 2020 (who knows when? 2020 was a blur):

Abstract - Map Reading
acrylic on paper
15" x 22"

Abstract - Chaotic Universe
acrylic on paper
17 1/2" x 23"

Abstract - Compass Bloom
acrylic on paper
17 1/2" x 23"

Abstract - Seasonal
acrylic on paper
17 1/2" x 23"

Abstract - Blue
acrylic on paper
17 1/2" x 23"

Abstract - Trapped Dragonfly
acrylic on paper
17 1/2" x 23"

Beatrice & Lavinia

I've been remiss in posting artwork (or anything else).  And so, without further ado, created sometime in 2020, two more paintings in the Women in Shakespeare occasional series: Beatrice and Lavinia. 

Beatrice
acrylic on paper
17 1/2" x 23"

Lavinia
acrylic on paper
17 1/2" x 23"

Miranda

It's only taken me a four years to get back to the Shakespeare series - and I'm not sure this one is done.  But it's closer anyway. Meet Miranda from The Tempest.  Composition inspired by John Waterhouse's painting.  

Miranda, acrylic on paper, 16" x 27"

New Pandemic Hobby

Too late to join the mask-making movement, I discovered an old Singer sewing machine in my aunt's garage.  A testament to the sturdiness of its construction, after dusting it off, it fired right up.  This did not solve the larger problem in that I have no idea how to use it, but I've made some minor strides by practicing making Barbie clothes.  (Yes, I spend time with a 6-year-old).  My mother (an expert sewer and maker of well-constructed, lovely Barbie clothes back in the day) would have been entertained by my efforts, I suspect.  I certainly appreciate her skills in a new way given my recent attempts.  

Fruits of my labor so far: 

The Ballgown

Made from an old pillowcase, I used a pattern I found online...and made quite a mess of it.  The top had so many seams going back and forth that it looked almost embroidered.  I was working without a model (no, I don't yet own my own Barbies), so the initial attempt needed some crucial modifications.  The 6-year-old and her mother added in straps so the top would stay up -- and also all the beads, because hey, glue guns are fun.  

The Pinwheel Skirt

This one, I didn't use a pattern, instead making it up, which worked moderately better than I would have thought.  But the waist top is still a lump of crooked tangled thread, and I likely should have hemmed the bottom all at once, rather than piece by piece before connecting them. And the seams don't lie flat because I didn't sew them twice.  And I broke a needle. There was some swearing involved. But I did figure out how to wind the bobbin and thread the machine, so progress nonetheless.  I also had a borrowed Barbie to work with so I could adjust the size appropriately.  

The Slinky Purple Faux Velvet

This was a free-for-all patternless event which worked somewhat more than I would have guessed largely because the material is an old shirt that stretches, and I was able to cut it out so that I could keep the original bottom hem (rather than my inevitably crooked lumps).  Adding in some darts meant that the dress actually stayed on.  The feather boa (fluff taken from the top of an xmas gift bag) perhaps changed the style a bit from Starlet Barbie to Hooker Barbie, but I couldn't give up the boa once I'd found it.  The 6-year-old repurposed the boa into a cat toy, which is probably for the best.  

Painting in Arizona

I visited my sister and her husband in Arizona over Thanksgiving, and had time for a sisters painting fest, which involves painting, listening to loud music, and occasionally busting into some random dance moves. Results of my work became increasingly eccentric, from a (for me) pretty decent desert-y landscape based on the view from their sun room to the weird underwater beginning of, I'm not sure...a children's book perhaps?  Ideas welcome.

Cochise, AZ
acrylic on canvas board
11 x 14

Big Fish, Little Fish
acrylic on canvas board
11 x 14

First Flamingo & New Abstract

If you live in Florida, eventually you are required to paint a flamingo.  So I did & presented it as a gift to a flamingo-loving relative.

Meanwhile, I also amused myself with some abstract fun.

Last Paintings from Class

Miami

The remaining painting classes were, happily, more personally successful.  In a small miracle, I employed perspective in a painting deliberately.  While the the figure is once again a wee bit weird, the sense of that sidewalk disappearing into the horizon works -- and I even know how to do that again; the magic of good instruction at work.

And then, oh happy day!, we had a day of just playing around with abstracts.  I'm so much more relaxed when it doesn't have to look like anything, can just be an exploration of shape and color.  Apparently, this is mildly unusual, and people who can paint objects with more realism and detail can get hung up letting things loose in abstracts.  Not me...I may not yet understand the balance in abstracts, but I do love trying.

Untitled

My thanks to Jared Peters and the Charlotte Street Arts Centre for a great class.
https://www.jaredpetersart.com/
http://www.charlottestreetarts.ca/

Painting Class

After not painting for close to a year, I'm back in a painting class.  It's a great class, although sadly, my painting remains rudimentary.  Still, I'm mildly encouraged that I am starting to see things in a painterly way again, to see the blocks of color a bit, even if I can't capture that.  And yes, I still can't draw.

Here's what we've been up to in class so far:

Class 1: Cupcakes and Apples

Yes, the cupcake is completely mutant, but trust me, icing is more confusing than you might think.  I completely ignored the ridges on the cupcake holder too because various attempts at that were hideous.  Let's just say: I'm rusty.  I was content to drown my sorrows by eating the cupcake model.

Apples, happily, are less confusing, although these are both still bizarre.  The first apple I painted in class.  The second was an attempt at home (with a different apple model, and also different paint colors).  Neither is terribly thrilling, but it got me thinking about value again.

Class 2: Portraits

My people still look like cartoons.  And I can't draw.  And the proportions of her face are wrong in both paintings, and so neither looks like the the original photo.  I tend to have all kinds of weird little dabs of color, rather than blocks of color or conversely, smooth blending of color, so it always looks a mess to me.  Twas my day to get frustrated and compare my work to the really rather gorgeous paintings other classmates were painting. I got over myself by the next class, regained my sense of humor, and got off the comparison trolley to hell, and back onto the, well, painting is fun, just enjoy. Apologies to my sister, the unwitting model.

Class 3: Landscapes

I spent most of the class working on the first landscape, and getting confused as to how to handle the detail and failing to capture, among other things, the color of the water.  But it's a pretty place (Bruce Peninsula in Ontario) in real life.

The second painting (road to Maroon Bells in Colorado) I did very quickly which is some ways worked better, as I got out of my own way.  I'd thought to make it more finished at home, but decided against it, since I'm not terribly attached to it. I like looking at beautiful landscapes in real life, and taking millions of photos, but I didn't have much of an emotional connection to these landscape paintings.  I think I need to take some time choosing not just a pretty place but also considering what I want to say about it more next time I attempt landscapes.

Heat Wave

I grew up in suburban Maryland, a mile outside of Washington, DC, a city known for the stupefying heat and humidity of its summers.  Since I was the youngest in my family, my bedroom was the last to graduate to a window air-conditioning unit.

During the day, in truly sultry weather, my sister and I would hide out in her room in the attic, which boasted the largest, loudest, most powerful air conditioner I’ve still ever seen.  A behemoth of a window unit, it took over the whole window, and was installed permanent year-round because no sane person wanted to risk lifting that monster.  In my parents’ room, meanwhile, a more ordinary window unit hummed along with vastly more energy efficiency on oppressive July nights.

In my room, an aging window fan moved the humidity around, the effect much like being the jet exhaust of an airplane.  The room stayed stubbornly hot, but the noise and wind provided distraction.  I remember nights lolling on top of the sheets watching shadows on the ceiling, sometimes with my nightgown wetted down with tap water and the idea that evaporative magic would leave me cooler, not just clammy.  I knew if I turned the blasting fan off -- and I did sometimes when the noise failed to outweigh the swirl of air -- I’d hear the summer crickets and frogs, the occasional car driving by, the rustle of wind through the crabapple tree in the backyard, perhaps a rumble of thunder to go with flashes of heat lightning if a storm lurked.  The sense floated that unlike the climate-controlled inside, I was sleeping outside, awash in the elements, that I was part of nature and velvet night, in the wild zone of secrets bestowed upon those awake while others slept. 

For the last three days, here in my adult life in Fredericton, NB, a heat wave has consumed the city, with highs reaching into the mid-90s.  Floridians (as I have been and will be again) experience this as a matter of course, but not so in the Canadian Maritimes.  As proof, I offer up that my apartment, like many in the city, does not have air conditioning.  For the past several days, I’ve closed the blinds and windows in the morning in the hopes of holding the cool captive inside through the heat of the day.  The apartment and I have shambled along by day mildly cooler and certainly darker and mustier than the great outdoors. 

It’s evening now on the last day of the wave.  The windows are open wide and still humid but finally cooling night air is drifting in. I have the ceiling fan at the 2^nd highest setting because at the highest setting it swings from its stalk and makes noises that suggest it might launch itself from its mooring.  The night and the breeze on my skin, the few sounds of a neighborhood mostly quiet, leaves me homesick for summer in my childhood bedroom, for that loud fan and the favorite pillowcase with a cartoon walrus on it, for the shelves crammed full of books and board games and stuffed animals, for the wooden dressing table from my mother’s childhood bedroom and the fish tank in the corner with the one stubborn algae eater sturdier than all the goldfish carted home from the elementary school carnival.  I am homesick for summer in the bedroom with the unquestioned, unacknowledged comfort of my mother sleeping in the next room.

In my adult life here in Canada, July 4^th marked the 5-year anniversary of my mother’s death.  I miss her every day in some little way, Mom being woven into the fabric of my every day of childhood, that is to say, the time that I was becoming a person, and so here I am, always a little frayed and unraveled without her.  I often drink my morning tea from the same blue and white ceramic mug from which she drank her coffee.  Some days, holidays and anniversaries and heat waves, remind me more of the details.  So here is what I want to tell you: once or many times – childhood memory being murky the way it is –  my mother and I sat on the screened-in porch and watched torrential rain fall in heavy sheets.  Wind pushed bursts of water through the screens turning it to mist, the storm spray and deluge offering a shared exhilaration and providing a temporary respite from the long slog of a hot summer in suburban Maryland.