I’m back at the easel tonight. After supper I spent a couple of hours dithering with the forest. The overall painting is beginning to pull together but has a ways to go. I don’t want to lose the loose, painterly feel but the devil is in the details, as they say. 
It’s been a real blessing today that I could just sit and paint all morning and into the afternoon.
For this particular painting it’s one of those situations where when you’re ready, and the time is right, and the image is right, … it just starts to fall into place. When it works it makes it all go faster. I have been having so much fun working on this that I almost forgot to take another picture and bring you with me.
This has been more of the foreground detail playing with the water, as you can tell. There will no doubt be a little more dithering with those areas but I’m going to set that aside for now. With the background atmosphere layed in, the next step is the silhouetted mid ground trees’ detail.
I am getting tired for today so that may happen another day. Hope you’re enjoying the watch.
Just adding an update to show you what’s been happening to the painting this morning.
As you can see, I am beginning to define the structure of the landscape so there’s clearer definitions between sky and land and water. This is also the time I have to think about atmosphere. I want my base colors to be deeper in tone and able to recede. Highlights come on top of those later.
Secondly it’s important to think about scale. That gets easier as I add the smaller detail but at this point I have to get the allusion of perspective, disappearing into a horizon. Still pretty fuzzy, but I’m sure you can see the definitions now.
Hope you are enjoying the process.
It has been a while since I have brought you along through the process of a painting so I thought I would take photos periodically on the one I just started tonight.
There was a sale at Michaels so I bought a new canvas. 
It’s a big one for me. I have a pretty good idea of what I want to paint so tonight was laying out the blocks of color and envisioning the picture on the surface in place. 
Feel free to stop back and watch the progress over the next days or weeks to come …depending on how much time I get to paint.
…and I have so much to tell and show you.
I know I am notorious for not posting here more often. I apologize for that. Sometimes it’s as simple as, “I get busy doing. and not writing about doing.” That may not have anything to do with my art abilities, but certainly reaffirms that I am no good at self marketing.
I have been painting in the studio, painting on trunks and boxes, painting en plein-aire, and illustrating a children’s book (although I cannot show you those illustrations until both the patron and at the publisher have moved forward with the printing). I have a summer scheduled wall-to-wall full of history, art, and travel. I just got back from a long road trip through the western USA seeing amazing scenes and painting a few. It was fabulous and I have photos to keep working in the studio.
Oh yes, I am still working full time as an academic librarian but summer is when the students are minimal on campus and it’s the perfect time for staff vacations. Keep your eyes peeled and I will try and post events that are coming up on the calendar. One heads up is -the tall ships are coming to Kenosha, Wisconsin the 1st full weekend in August and I plan to have an entire art show in my historical marquis. I’ll tell you more about that event later but save the date if you’re interested.
Oh my, I cannot believe how time has gotten away from me.
It seems like only last week instead of last month, that I was at Oshkosh, Wisconsin for the Echoes of the Past trade fair. That was a fun weekend -although the weather was certainly against us. We had snow and sleet and awful wind that made it hard to get to the building each day, but it was fun nonetheless, once we were inside. I enjoyed seeing old friends and meeting new friends. I am happy to have been able to go and share my paintings.
The first painting that I’m showing here is actually the painting that I worked on while on site – something I try and do whenever I am invited to bring my artwork to an event. People seem to enjoy watching my process and hearing what I am thinking about while I paint. And I must admit, I really enjoy interacting with the public, too.
One new friend I met at Oshkosh was a young lady (hello “A”) who had some wonderful pointers about how various parts of the landscape should be done. She was quite familiar with Bob Ross and his painting style and so we talked about how I should paint the trees especially. I added the birch and pine trees on the right side in honor of our conversations. Thanks, “A”.
The Second painting you see here is one that I started in the fall and kind of dithered with but hadn’t finished. I’ve been doing a lot of wishing for a cabin for my husband and I to retire to someday that I wanted to paint what we thought that cabin might look like.
Originally, the painting depicted a fall scene with fall leaves all over the trees and ground. It was almost garish with the color and I found I didn’t like it at all. In January I picked it up again and painted out all the colored leaves, added snow, and put it aside again because I was so irritated with it. One final time I went back to the painting and decided to complete it. I wouldn’t call it a great painting but it was important to finish it and think about all that I learned in the process. Equally important was the need to share challenges, struggles, and degrees of success or failure.
You see, pride makes an easy trap for me to avoid posting pictures of paintings that I’m not so fond of. Art is so very subjective and that remains true even for the artist for their own work. When I talked to some of the people at the trade fair in February I realized that only showing my best is doing a disservice – it is deceptive. It gives the impression, especially to a young, emerging artist who may be watching me, that I don’t ever do medium work or even fail. It’s important to remember that I keep painting even if I don’t like them all, or if some are much slower to complete, or sometimes just needing to stop because it just keeps getting worse and I can’t fix it. It’s OK to fail with a painting and move on. It is not OK to quit painting.
Another point worth making is that I may not love a painting when I’m done with it because of any number of personal reasons, but it may be exciting for someone else. I think any one who is creative knows that we can be our own worst critics.
The Third painting that you see here is a larger painting and the most recent, and depicts Spring in the deep woods. It’s depicting that time when Spring rain showers come and go pretty quickly and leave everything slightly damp. I can smell the old leaf clutter from the fall, that musty sweet smell of the Earth bursting with small flowers and the acrid wet scent of rock. All of the trees have the light green shades of 1st leaves …and yet the sun is drowsily warm.
Winter is passing and I have another painting on the easel. I look forward to what it can teach me, where it can take me in my imagination, and what new challenges it can gift me. Enjoy the coming spring and its adventures.
There is something unique and exciting about the new calendar year, isn’t there? Each year as we prepare for the holidays, we are anticipatory and excited – driven to reach out to friends and family and co-workers until we hit an exhausting pitch of social engagement. Now, more than at any other point in the year, we have high hope that we can make things different in the year at hand. We foster a frantic desire for wrongs to be righted, hearts to be mended, and balance to be restored. We start diet’s, we make plans, and we dream dreams.
I am admittedly one of those dreamers. I chose to skip the frenzy and retreat to the comforts of home and hearth with my spouse and our favorite relaxing activities. For me that includes time at the easel so I began two paintings the day before my holiday break with a plan to finish both by the time I returned to the campus. One was a 16″ by 20″ and one was a 24″ by 48″.
The larger painting is a tavern allegory and has been fun to dither with off and on the entire holiday break. That painting is almost done but not ready for showing yet.
The smaller painting, however, I worked hard at for the first day and then set it aside because I wasn’t quite sure how to pull off what I wanted to do. Today, on this wonderful first day of the New Year, I set aside the large piece and went back to the smaller canvas with its night scene. This was the right day to finish it.
Although the setting is out on a large body of water it is not a painting about loneliness. While portraying a time deep in the night, it is not a painting about fear or darkness. Nor is it a painting about apprehension.
It is a painting of peace, and trust, and faith and promise. It is a study of still nights and calm waters. Typical of my work, it is also about light and the love that light often represents. For those who are troubled by any number of the challenges this world presents, may this New Year bring you peace and hope. For those who are preparing for an especially difficult journey, rest assured, all will be well.
I give you, Hope’s Nocturne.
I’ve been away painting plein aire for several weeks while on vacation, and have had such fun. I also took dozens of pictures that I will be using as resource material for some time as I paint in the studio.
Now that I am back in the studio I would like to show this piece that I’ve been working on. It will still be part of the Outlander series, specifically book 3, although it is not actually a particular character from the Starz series.
Painting this work brings up a topic I would like to talk about here – the idea of using photos of people and places that either I take or I have the release forms from the models or the photographer for. I think there is a slight confusion as to whether I’m going to reproduce that photo exactly as it stands. Although I certainly am capable of doing that, it is not the job of the painter to merely reproduce a photographers work in oil. What I will do instead is use the spirit of the photo. I may use the stance of the person. I may reference the way the light has fallen on the figure. I may reference a mood.
Unfortunately, some of my models are disappointed that they cannot immediately recognize themselves. I am truly sorry if at any point I disappoint you by not reproducing the photo just as you saw it. Let me say, however, I would encourage anyone who has allowed me to use their image to instead feel proud in your contribution to what my work is. I could not do what I do as well as I do it if I didn’t have these reference tools.
This being said, the painting that I’m showing you here today is referencing a photo of a young woman named Nora who very graciously released her image, as did the photographer who took her picture. Thank you both very much for the opportunity.
The show in Saint Charles went very well. I had mostly new works and all of the new work was very well received. Right afterwards I heard about a show coming in April that looked like a good challenge for me, although it would again delay me getting back to the landscape.
I am happy to say I am going to be entering a competition. The Portrait Society of America has a portrait show with a deadline this coming week. In an effort to fulfill the criteria and submit an entry, I had to paint a new portrait suitable for that show.
My first choice was to paint a self portrait, something I have been encouraged by many of you to do for some time. This was a surprisingly difficult task. In order to capture a good likeness I felt that it was important to be accurate. What I discovered was that scrutiny makes for a severe look and if I do paint my image accurately, I must not just reveal my flaws but focus on them – something no woman really wants to do.
When that was completed, I decided that since a person can enter 3 pieces for the entry fee, I should keep painting. The 2nd portrait is one of my husband. It is gentler and more playful, and done in a way that compliments my portrait. It was my thinking that these 2 portraits would probably have a permanent home on the wall of our house and so should hang well together.
Surprisingly, not too many day after I finished these two, I woke one Saturday night with an image in my mind that I wanted to put on canvas quickly. I began the painting of the young man, a pre-teen boy in fact, during one of those times at 2:00 in the morning when you wake up with a busy mind and need to do something fruitful.
Lucky for me, I was still off work the next day and so was able to paint for an hour or so during the night and proceed to complete the painting the next day.
The lovely inertial that painting at this pace has left me with, carried me into another portrait and a landscape to complete the month’s cadre. What a fun and productive month this has been.
I have decided to enter the competition with the portrait of myself and my husband and this fictitious young man. Since entry for shows are now digital, I will submit this week in time to be eligible.
All of these new works will be in my booth this next weekend when I attend the Echoes of the Past living history show in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.
Kelly E. James 