New Painting: Hydrangeas In A Ginger Jar

Hi All,

I'm thrilled to be back to painting and have been spending a ton of time in my studio.  I was also painting for a floral show that I wanted to enter, so things have been a little crazy the last few weeks.

I decided to do some hydrangeas in the ginger jar.  I didn't plan that in advance.  I tried out a bunch of different vases and the ginger jar is what looked the best, so that is what made it on to the still life shelf.  I was not sure what else I wanted to add to the set up, so I just started out with the flowers in the vase, knowing I could add more later.

The block in went surprisingly well.  Trying to get the symmetry of the ginger jar usually drives me up the wall, but this time it just needed a few tweaks.

This was the magic moment when the flowers started to look like hydrangeas and I knew the painting would work.  I also added a few blooms to the shelf, but ended up changing those around as I went on.

 
The start of the ginger jar pattern going in.  I also painted out the pink hydrangea on the shelf, though it did go back in on the other side as I did not want to have an even number of flowers.

I lost track of how much time I spent futzing with the highlight on the jar. I painted it on and wiped it out many times over several days before I felt it was right.

Here is the finished piece.  It was almost impossible to get a good shot of this painting, so when it dries (which is taking forever now that New York City has turned into a tropical rain forest), I will varnish it and take out the pro camera.

This is the first painting that I have completed since last February and I've since finished another.  I'm so happy to be back in the studio!

Hydrangeas In A Small Ginger Jar

Back in December I painted a small painting for the 10x10 fundraising show to benefit The Art Guild of Port Washington.  It was the yearly fundraiser and there were so many beautiful paintings for sale.

Since the canvas was small, I decided to use my small ginger jar and add some hydrangeas.

While the original set up was cute, if you've been following this blog, you know I like to fill my canvas with flowers  The single bloom was just not working for me.  Luckily, the hydrangea bush is right outside my studio, so I simply clipped a few stems, stuck them in the vase and got to work.

Now things started moving along.  It was at this point that I knew the painting would work.  Always a great relief.

The pattern going in.  Always a scary time!

And here is the finished piece.  Painting for a fundraiser is always nerve wracking.  I really wanted this painting to sell.  I told my husband that if it didn't, he had to buy it ( and that exact thing happened in an episode of Midsomer Murders, so I'm not totally crazy!)  Luckily, it did sell and the fundraiser was quite successful.  We had a great night for a great cause.

Big News: Prints Of My Work Are Now Available At Blake And Taylor!

I'm very excited to announce that prints of my work are now available at the Blake And Taylor shop in Brisbane, Australia!

Let me back up a bit and tell you how this all came to be.  Last winter, Ellie Ramsay, the owner of Blake and Taylor found me on Instagram and as she was visiting New York City, inquired about setting up a studio visit.

Though I live in New York City, my studio is on Long Island.  Ellie, along with her husband and daughter, took the train out to see me.  We had such a fun day together.  They selected five of my paintings to be shipped to Australia, so that Ellie could turn them into art prints and greeting cards for sale through her shop.

These are the five paintings available as art prints and greeting cards.  Ellie has a great eye and we tried out different combinations until she found a grouping that worked together.

If you click over to Blake and Taylor, you will see the prints for sale (with FREE worldwide shipping!).  I also wrote a short piece for each one describing the inspiration behind each painting.  I'm always interested in the creative process, so I hope you will enjoy reading about mine.

I hope you will check out my prints and if you are local to Brisbane, please stop in to Ellie's shop.  It is a wonderful, creative place.

I have met so many wonderful people through Instagram, both online and in person.  It's amazing to me that a few years ago, none of us would know about each other, and now we can connect with people around the world!

Blue And White Hydrangeas

I finished up two new paintings yesterday.  Since we are having our usual cold, dreary, rainy weather here in New York, I'll talk about the floral painting first.  I started these hydrangeas back in March, so this one took a bit of time, but it was worth it to get it just right.

I actually started out by just putting in the vase, shelf and background.  At this point, I was not even sure what sort of flowers I would be painting.  I just wanted to get things going so that when I did find the flowers I wanted to use, I would be ready to go.  At this point, the weirdest thing happened.  A few people (unsolicited) told me that I should just keep the painting as is!  I could never imagine doing so.  I'm not a minimalist, especially in painting.  I want the whole canvas covered and I want color on the canvas.  So when I happened into Whole Foods and saw this big bouquet of hydrangeas, I was excited to put them in the painting.

I simply outlined the placement of the flowers and the leaves, and then got to work filling it all in.

This is where I left off the first day.  After that, it was just a matter of layering on paint until the hydrangeas looked the way I wanted them to.  I also ended up darkening all of the leaves.  As I got further into the painting, I realized the leaves were competing with the flowers so I made them less prominent.

At this point, I put some debris on the shelf and thought I was done except for the pattern on the vase, but it was not to be.  After contemplating the painting for a few days, I decided it needed something more on the shelf, so I took one stem (from a new bouquet) and painted it in.

As you can see above, I also painted in the blue pattern on the vase.  That went on quite easily, but I was still having aggravation with the shelf.  I just couldn't get it to look the way I wanted it to.

This is where I left off the first time.  I thought the painting was done and I signed it and posted to Instagram.  However, there was still something nagging at me.  My original vision for this painting was flowers "exploding" out of the vase and even though I liked what I had done, the painting did not feel finished to me.

Luckily, Gregg Kreutz made a Facebook post that pointed me in the right direction.  He said that if you listen to the painting, it will tell you what to do.  Bingo!  When I listened to this painting it was shouting at me "PUT SOMETHING ON THE LEFT SIDE OF THE VASE!!!".  So that is what I did.

 
After thinking about it a bit, I decided to use a white hydrangea since the vase had blue in it.  I wanted to make sure that the colors stayed balanced and a blue flower would have been too much.

At this point I thought I was done with the painting (again) and cleaned my brushes and put everything away, but something was still bugging me.

So, this is what I did:  I put some white paint on my easel (the palette was already clean), got out my small palette knife, and just started putting straight titanium white on the left side hydrangea.  The right side of the flower was facing the light and needed to be pumped up.

And here we are, the finished painting.  I swear I'm not touching it again!  It needs to be varnished and if we ever have a non rainy day again, photographed outside, but for now I'm so happy that it is finally finished.

As I mentioned earlier, I also finished a new still life yesterday, so I'll have that for you next.  I know this was a long one, so thanks for reading!!