The Artist's Garden Exhibition At The Florence Griswold House And Museum

In my last post I showed Florence Griswold's historic home and property, but the main reason for my visit was to see The Artist's Garden exhibition in the museum.  I made it just under the wire on the last day and I'm so glad that I did.  It was a beautiful exhibit and one of the best I've seen in a long time.

It is about a two and a half hour ride to Old Lyme, CT from New York City, so we jumped in the car and made our way up there.

It was a gorgeous day out and it was nice to get out of the city for a few hours.

Aside from being a beautiful exhibit, it was very educational.  I had no idea that there was a Garden Movement or that it inspired the American Impressionists after having spent time in Giverny.  I knew that they had visited there, but I did not know that there was a formal name for what was happening at the time that they began returning to the United States.

As the article above states,  the creation of public parks and private gardens happened during a time (1887-1920) of great political and social change.  When these American artists came back to the US they started their own gardens as a source of creativity, in and out of their studios.

Robert Vonnoh, November, 1890

Theodore Robinson, Autumn Sunlight, 1888

Willard Metcalf, The Eel Trap, 1888

Willard Metcalf, Dogwood Blossoms, 1906

The above photo, The Garden Path, by Frank Vincent DuMond was started on a trip to France in 1897.  In 1892, DuMond started teaching at The Art Students League of New York and frequently took his students abroad and later taught as a summer instructor in Old Lyme.

Daniel Garber, St. James Park, London, 1905

Bessie Potter Vonnoh, Water Lilies, 1913

Sculptor Bessie Potter Vonnoh switched from bronzes of mothers and children to large garden sculptures and fountains to meet the demand of art consumers and gardeners.  The model for this painting was the daughter of Frank Vincent DuMond.

Harriet Whitney Frishmuth, Joy of the Waters, 1920

I love these two sculptures and I've developed a bit of an obsession since seeing the exhibition.

Anna Lea Merritt, An Artist's Garden, 1908

An Artist's Garden is one of my favorites from the exhibition.  Anna Lea Merritt was a writer and painter and an expert on artistic gardening.  Merritt believed that being a gardener made one a better artist and referred to her garden as a teacher and an outdoor studio.

John LaFarge, Hollyhocks and Morning Glories, 1884

The exhibit also had a few stained glass pieces.  The piece above was done by John LaFarge.  He embraced the style of the Impressionists and found a way to express himself using glass.

Theodore van Soelen, Summer Morning, 1915

Daniel Garber, Sun in Summer, 1919

Harry L. Hoffman, Childe Hassam's Studio, 1909

Another favorite of mine, Childe Hassam's Studio, by Henry L. Hoffman.  Miss Florence allowed the artists to take over various old buildings on the property and use them as studios.

Childe Hassam, Summer Evening, 1886

Clark Voorhees, My Garden, 1914

Philip Leslie Hale, The Crimson Rambler, 1908

The Crimson Rambler by Philip Leslie Hale was my absolute favorite of the show and I'm not the only one who loved it as the museum used the painting for their publicity materials.  The crimson rambler was imported from Japan to the United States in 1894.  According to the article next to the painting, the blooms here are bigger than the flowers actually grow, possibly suggesting that Hale idealized the flowers as well as the woman in the painting.

William Chadwick, On the Piazza, 1908

On the Piazza shows Nan Greacen on the side porch of the Griswold boardinghouse.  The point was made several times in the exhibition and even in the house tour that very few women artists were welcomed into the art colony, as women were preferred to be models and muses.

Jane Peterson, Spring Bouquet, 1912

Louis Comfort Tiffany, Peony Window Panel, 1908-12

This peony window by Louis Comfort Tiffany was made by Tiffany Studios for the Richard Beatty Mellon residence in Pittsburgh, PA and is part of a larger 10 panel landscape.  I would love to see the whole thing as you know peonies are my favorite flower.

These six flowers were popular in American gardens in the late nineteenth century and appeared frequently in art work from that time. The rose, phlox, poppy, iris, peony and hollyhock were used in informal gardens in suburban and country homes.  In my opinion these flowers are still popular with artists including myself.

There were many more paintings in this incredible show.  As I said, it was one of the best exhibits I've seen in some time.  And I must give a shout out to the front desk staff at the museum.  They could not have been nicer or more helpful.

Art and flowers are two of my favorite things so it was great to see a show devoted to both.

New Paintings Added To The Site

Hey Everyone.  I'm back.  After a less than pleasant few weeks I am back in my studio.  I finished one painting today and another is well on the way.  I will have a post up tomorrow about the finished painting, but for now, here are some paintings that I have added to my drop down menus.

Orange And Yellow Roses, 9x12, oil

Valentine's Day Roses, 16x20, oil

Peonies In A Blue And White Pot, 12x16, oil

Brass Pot With Peaches, 16x20, oil

Orchids, 18x24, oil

See you next time with the new painting.  Happy to be back!

Painting Peonies

We are still digging out from the big blizzard here, so I thought I'd continue writing about spring flowers to distract myself from the giant snow mountains that are all over the city.

My terrace after the blizzard

Back in June I started a still life with a big bouquet of peonies.  There is a seller in the Union Square Greenmarket that sells the most beautiful peonies for the month of June and then they are gone.  The past few years I've been lucky enough to paint some of his bouquets.

After picking out my flowers I got to work blocking in the painting.  I had to work quickly as peonies can be very short lived.  Luckily, the flowers went in easily and I was able to finish them in about three days.

However, the rest of the painting was a different story.  I worked on the painting and it seemed to be going well, but when I thought it was finished, I was not completely satisfied.

Starting to add the pattern

The shot above is where I ended last summer.  I felt something was not quite right, but I did not know what it was, so I decided to let the painting sit for awhile.  I've done that before and the solution usually comes to me.

A few months later I finally figured it out.  The vase was too flat.  It was not looking as round as it should be, so I knew that it needed to be repainted.  I also decided that the background needed another coat of gray.

As you can see here, I really pumped up the shadow on the right.  That helped so much with the vase appearing to be round.  I also re- did the blue pattern and made an important change to the blue band around the top of the vase.  Instead of making the pattern all the same, I made the pattern shrink as it went to the sides of the vase.  These changes took away the feeling of flatness that was holding the painting back from being finished.

This is the finished painting.  I'm very happy with it now.  I often have this situation with flowers.  They go right in and the rest of the painting takes months, but it's fine if it happens that way.  As long as I was able to paint the beautiful peonies right away,  I don't mind waiting on the rest.

Port To Port, An Art Exchange Exhibition

Hi Everybody.  Hope all of you are enjoying these last few weeks of good weather.  It is so nice here I may get myself out to do a bit of plein aire painting this week.

I wanted to let you know about a fun exhibit that is happening on Long Island.  The Art Guild Of Port Washington and the Greater Port Jefferson-Northern Brookhaven Arts Council are swapping gallery space this week.

The GPJAC artists are exhibiting at The Art Guild and The Art Guild artists are showing their work in the GPJAC space.

I am a member of The Art Guild, so I have two paintings hanging in Port Jefferson this week.

Peonies In A Glass Vase, 16x20, oil

Dahlias In A Ginger Jar, 12x16, oil

These are the two paintings I have hanging in the exhibition.  The reception for the show is Sunday, October 18, 2015 from three to five pm, at the Port Jefferson Village Center.  Port Jefferson is a lovely town on the water and a great place for a day trip,  so if you are in the area please stop in at the reception.  We would love to see you!

Port Jefferson Village Center
101 East Broadway
Port Jefferson, NY  11777

Port to Port is a signature event of the Arts Alive LI 2015 October Arts Month Celebration.

Hope to see you there!

Peonies Update

Hi Everybody.  I hope everyone is having a great holiday season.  I've been painting away and I recently finished one of my "updates."

I cannot find the photo of the original painting, but it was pretty much what you see here.  There was one more orange on top of the bowl of oranges and a not very well painted peony laying in front of the vase.

I painted this many years ago.  A friend brought these peonies from her garden for us to paint.  I always liked the flowers, but was never happy with the rest of the painting.  It was the best I could do at the time, but when I recently pulled it out I knew I could make it so much better.

As you can see above, I started by fixing the dimensions of the vase.  It was not quite perfect so I took out the old T-square and worked on the vase until I was happy with the shape.  Next I repainted the background.  It wasn't horrible, but a few more coats of paint definitely made it look a lot richer.  I also got rid of the bowl of oranges and the peony that was lying in front of the vase.

Next up, I painted out the pattern on the vase.  It took a few tries before I was happy with the color of the whites and the shadow, but that is the great thing about oil paint.  If you are not happy with something you can just paint right over it.

I also pumped up the color on the flowers by making the darks darker and the lights lighter.

After all of that was done, it was time to put in the pattern on the vase.  This was going to be tricky as the vase does not belong to me.  My plan was to fake it by using a pattern from one of my vases and hoping for the best, but then I got very lucky.  I was looking for something in a cabinet at the Art Students League and I was stunned to see the vase sitting right there!  I brought the canvas in there, painted in the pattern and brought it right back to my studio.  I was thrilled to be able to use the original vase and it looks so much better now than when I originally painted it.

At this point, I needed to do something about the rest of the painting.  I considered re-doing the bowl of oranges, but I was never thrilled with that in the first place, so I decided to do something completely different.  A friend gave me a pretty compote and I thought that would go nicely with the vase.  I added some red grapes as I thought they went well with the flowers.

I added a few more oranges and decided to change the grey shelf to the color of the brown one in my studio.  While I was doing that I changed the shape of the white cloth as well.

This is the finished painting.  It took about six years total, but I'm so happy with it now.

And just in case you were thinking that painting is a glamorous way to spend your time, this is just part of the mess that had to be cleaned up on that last painting day!