The Breakfast Room

This is the beautiful Huntting Inn in East Hampton, New York, a place to find gracious hospitality in one of America's sweetest and oldest villages. It is also home to the greatest American steak house, The Palm Restaurant. Now, I am honored to say, it is also the place where you can find and buy some of my paintings. They are hanging in the Inn's sunny breakfast room and I couldn't be more delighted. If you're ever strolling down Main Street in East Hampton, or planning a visit to The Palm for a delicious dinner, please stop in the breakfast room and have a look.

Bottled Daffodil

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Another day, another daffodil. My front garden is bursting with these lovelies - yellow, white and orange heads standing proudly as harbingers of spring. I'd love to paint them all!

Daffodil Blues

                                               
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So I am continuing to paint in the blue cast of north light. I am also making an effort to stop painting before I over work the piece and kill its spontaneity. I cannot explain the frustration I feel and cannot count the number of times when I've had something really glorious going on on the canvas and then just lost it because I didn't stop. Its like I know it is done but I put the brush back up to the canvas for that last dab, which inevitably turns into one more dab and one more dab and one more dab and stops at boring. So, for the next few paintings at least, I am going to stop sooner. If I am going to err, it will be on the side of almost done rather than over done.

Fish Plate

                                               
So I guess this is a bit of a fish story, with pictures to go along with it. My daughter, Edwina, was home from college this week and we planned to paint together. She said she wanted to paint a fish. Here's where she is so great for me. I never would have thought to paint a fish. So, off to King Kullen I went to buy a fish with its head still on. Here's the fish... a porgy... and as the check-out girl remarked, a nice size one!

I wanted to share with my daughter one of my most trusted painting tools... my color charts as outlined by the great Richard Schmid in his book, Alla Prima : Everything I Know About Painting. Here's the fish with the charts... cobalt blue and tera rosa:

It is a very good thing that we set up outside. That porgy was not only a good size, he was also very stinky.

This painting is available for sale in a beautiful gold frame. $395.

Lilies in Blue

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I am still working in north light and am loving it. I grabbed this bunch of white lilies from the grocery store and set them in a tall cobalt blue vase that I bought in Florida years and years ago. The combination made for a beautiful still life... and to add to the joy of painting such a vibrant arrangement, was the incredible sweet scent that went with it.

A Cool Pear

                                               
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I recently had a little exchange with plein aire artist Roos Schuring regarding her thoughts on still life painting. At this point in her career, she is fully invested and enthralled with the concept of painting out of doors, but at one time painted from photographs and studio set ups. I am breaking away from full reliance on photographs and I am just beginning to adventure outside. I asked her what aspects of still life study she thought would benefit my growth as a painter. She suggested I set up a still life in natural north light. So I did. She was so right! I have fallen in love with cool light... it is so elegant and quiet. Now that is a cool pear!

Oh Pear

                                           
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My husband never travels for work, but he was out of town this past week. That meant only one thing to me.... I could paint at night!! I have always loved the feeling that the track lighting gives to my kitchen at night. So, one night, with the house to myself, I set up in the kitchen and painted a pear. As part of my commitment to expanding my painting style, I was going for big strokes, pretty color, speed and I wanted it all alla prima! Loose and painterly are what I am longing for nowadays... and I quite like this effort.

Boats and Clouds

                                               

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This is a far cry from the daily 6"x6" oils paintings I have been creating over the past several months. This painting is 30"x40" and was quite a challenge. I have become very accustomed to working to completion in one session. There is nothing more frustrating than trying to come up with the color you used on day one, when it is now day six. I worked from a photograph here. I am excited to try painting this same scene from life in a few months.... as soon as it gets a little warmer and there are more boats in the harbor. I am not sure if I can manage a 30"x40" painting plein aire! but the idea of working beginning to end in one session outside sounds very appealing.