Dale Chihuly At The New York Botanical Garden

Hi All.  I have a lot to catch up on here.  Lets start with some pics of the Dale Chihuly exhibit at The New York Botanical Garden.  The New York Botanical Garden is located in the Bronx and is the largest botanical garden in the United States.  The Garden was created in 1891 and is now a National Historic Landmark.

I do not remember visiting the garden in the past, but I had a few deja vu moments while walking in from the street and again upon seeing the conservatory.  I think I must have gone there as a child.  In any case, I was glad to be visiting again.  This is Dale Chihuly's first major garden exhibition in New York in ten years, so I was happy to be able to see it.

The Chihuly glass sculptures are located throughout the grounds, which is a really fun way to see the exhibition.  While you are walking through the conservatory or the gardens, the glass sculptures pop up and look as if they are meant to be part of the plant life.

This enormous glass sculpture is just outside the conservatory.  It is hard to show in the photos just how big it is.  After walking past this we made our way into the conservatory.

Persian Pond and Fiori, Dale Chihuly, 2017

I know almost nothing about gardening, but inside the conservatory felt like being in a rain forest (or what I imagine a rain forest would feel like).  In the middle of the pond were more glass sculptures.  I loved how they are situated in order to be part of the natural setting.

White Belugas, Dale Chihuly, 2017

Outside of the conservatory was a large water garden, one of my favorite things ever.  I fell in love with nympheas after visiting Claude Monet's gardens in Giverny, so it was a nice surprise to see them here.

And check this out:  the gardeners go in the water in chest high rubber suits and and boots!  I never knew that water lilies had to be tended to, but I guess water gardens have to be taken care of like every other garden.

Scarlet and Yellow Icicle Tower, Dale Chihuly, 2013

At this point the rain clouds rolled in, but you can still see this amazing glass sculpture.  This one is enormous.  I cannot imagine how they moved it and set it up, but they did and it was fun to just come upon it while walking around the water garden.

Back inside, there were more Chihuly sculptures.

Sapphire Star, Dale Chihuly, 2010

The gardens and exhibit are beautiful, quiet and peaceful.  You would never know you are in the middle of New York City.  The Garden is easily reached by car, bus, subway and Metro-North.  If you are local or visiting New York, go check out this exhibition.  I think you will love it as much as I did!

Travel And Destinations Show At The Art Guild Of Port Washington

Hi Everyone,

Just a quick note to let you know that my painting, Monet's Pond At Dusk, will be in the Travels And Destinations Show at The Art Guild Of Port Washington.

Landscape painting is not my usual forte, so I was thrilled to be accepted into this show.  The show will be up from March 5 to April 3, 2016.  The opening reception and awards ceremony will be this Sunday, March 6th, from 3-5pm.  If you are in the New York City/Long Island area, please stop in.  It is a fun show and we would love to see you!

The Art Guild Of Port Washington
200 Port Washington Blvd
Manhasset, NY  11030
516-304-5797

Travels And Destinations

I'm back with part two of my crazy painting spree.  As I said in my last post, I wanted to enter two shows that had specific themes.  This show was titled "Travels And Destinations".  I have plenty of small studies done on location, but I have never been successful at turning those into large studio paintings.  So, for this show, I decided to do something that I never do:  use photographs.  I normally would never paint from photos, but it was the only way to get these paintings done.  I did have some help from my field studies, so I was still able to capture the mood that I was after.

The first painting was of Monet's pond in Giverny.  Years ago I was lucky enough to spend some time in Giverny when artists were still allowed to paint in his gardens.  I have several posts coming up dedicated to my time there, but for this post, I'll just concentrate on the painting for the travel show.

One day last fall I was feeling particularly fed up with the orchids I was working on and I just needed to paint something that was not going to strain my brain and that would be some fun.  I had a canvas that had less than stellar paintings on both sides, so on a whim I pulled it out and began throwing paint on it for a landscape.  I had some of my Giverny photos in the studio, so I pulled one out and got to work.  I blocked in the canvas and did some work on the sky and the famous giant willows that surround the pond.  After a day of this I got back to work on the orchids and basically forgot about the landscape until the call for this show came up.

I'm sorry to say that I was in such a frenzy painting that I did not document my steps along the way, but here is the finished painting.

Monet's Pond At Dusk, 16x20, oil

My next painting was from the botanical gardens in San Miguel de Allende.  My field studies are too awful to show here, but they did capture the colors and the heat of the place.  Between them and some photos I was able to get what I was after.  I actually did this painting in two days.

I put in the sky and the great cloud shape.  Then I blocked in the greenery and the dirt. Even though El Charco del Ingenio is called the botanical gardens in San Miguel, it is really the desert so I tried hard to get the dry, earthy, hot feeling of the landscape there.

El Charco del Ingenio, 12x16, oil

This is the finished painting.  I am not a landscape painter by any means, but these were fun to paint and I'm happy to report that the painting of Monet's Pond was accepted into the show!

Now that all this crazy is over, I'm back to painting my still life and florals.  I have a few new paintings to show you and my studio is just about finished so I'll have that coming up as well.