Sweet Memories

Translucence ©2009 Karen Mathison Schmidt
18 x 24 x 1 • acrylic on cradled Gessobord
SOLD • private collection, Puyallup, Washington

My favorite flowers. Next to my favorite little decorative tin container. In the bay window, one of my favorite spots. Sweet!

Back at the end of April I sold a little daffodil painting to one of my faithful collectors, who lives up north. She sent me a note saying that she propped up the little painting next to her computer to remind her that spring weather had to be just around the corner. Down here in the South I tend to forget how blessed we are to have daffodils in February!

And now that we're hurtling headlong into that withering season that has us shutting our windows and doors against the humidity (and the bugs!), pulling up a chair in front of the air conditioner with a tall glass of ice cold tea, and counting the days until October, here's a painting to remind us southerners of those cool, refreshing mornings of just a few weeks ago.

Ahhh, those sweet, bygone days of spring. *sigh*

Here are some close-up details. I used a lot of color glazes to add depth of color and enhance the effect of the light in the painting.

The Power of the Artist

work still in progress ...
18 x 24 • acrylic on Gessobord


OK.

So I hope none of you who have been following the progress of this piece had grown too terribly attached to the handles on the vase.

Because – and being the sharp, observant bunch that you are, you more than likely already noticed this – they’re gone.

After my morning painting session I was chatting with my husband over lunch about how I didn’t really care for “those handles on that green vase in my painting,” and he said, “Hey, you’re the artist. Get rid of ’em.”

I said, “Hmmmm.” And I thought about it all the rest of the way through lunch, and then I came back up to my easel and studied the painting for about two minutes and thought, OK, they’re outta there!

Here’s what I did.

These blue handles just weren’t adding anything, so I handed them their walking papers.


First, with a mixture of black and caput mortuum violet, I drew where the left side of the vase would be if the handle was gone. Drawing this line felt a little like making graffiti on a public sign or something. But I got over it.


All I had to do on the right side of the vase was to paint out the handle.


At this stage I noticed the shape of the left side of the vase was a little out of whack; in the first picture at the top of this post you can see that I fixed it so that the vase would look more symmetrical. And I left a lost edge where the highlight on the edge of the vase was the same brightness as the light through the window. And I started adding detail to the empty tin container on the right.

So the title of this post doesn’t refer to anything really deep or philosophical. Just that as artists, we can change our composition at any stage. If something’s not working, paint it out. If something’s missing, paint it in!

If only real life were that easy! :)

Who’m I kiddin’ ?

work in progress
18 x 24 • acrylic on Gessobord


The title of my last post, “Getting close ...” should have been “Getting closer ...”

I have come to accept the fact that in the progress of just about every painting there comes a rough patch wherein I think “Yecchh. Phooey. This is just awful.”

By the end of my painting time on Friday I was almost through that phase with this painting. Not quite, though. But I posted the progress anyway, and Rose Welty left me a lovely encouraging comment. (Thanks, Rose!) Yesterday I spend a little time blog surfing, and I came upon Jeff Mahorney’s very interesting art blog. He has a great commentary on negative thoughts that pop up during the creative process in his post What I’ve learned (After 120 paintings).

Last night I propped the painting up on the mantel in the living room and surreptitiously studied it off and on while my husband and I watched a thoroughly entertaining old Audrey Hepburn movie, How to Steal a Million.

I decided maybe I was trying too hard to rush through the painting and get to the end, and so I was losing the joy in it.

So. Today I moved my easel down to the sunporch and spent a beautiful, refreshingly cool but delightfully sunny late spring afternoon after a morning of thunderstorms ... painting. Taking my time. Stopping now and then to step back, maybe even walk away, go outside and play with the dogs. Being totally and completely aware of my blessings. Not rushing.

There is a time for, and good value in practicing painting quickly, to capture the essence and gesture of a subject in as short a time as possible.

But there’s also a time for taking time. Enjoying the process and getting lost in it. I highly recommend it now and then.

Ever Faithful, revisited ...

Ever Faithful ©2009 Karen Mathison Schmidt
5 x 7 • acrylic on Gessobord
SOLD • private collection, Puyallup, Washington

Here’s the previous version of today’s painting (left). I reworked the colors; I like it much better now.
It’s more spring-y somehow. Also, I thought it had too many flowers ... I was trying to defy the old rule of thumb that an odd number of objects makes a more pleasing arrangement, by putting 6 daffodils in the picture, but it totally wasn’t working for me. It was on the verge of looking like a wallpaper pattern or something. So I painted out the daffodil on the top right – I think it’s a stronger composition. I guess rules of thumb got to be rules of thumb for a reason!