Visiting Santa Fe, New Mexico

As promised in my last post, here are some pics from my visit to Santa Fe.  While my reason for being there was a workshop, I'd never been there before, so I was excited to explore the city.

My first stop was the famous Canyon Road.  Galleries line both sides of the famous street and I stopped into just about every one.

I was very excited to visit Sage Creek Gallery.  I've been reading about it for years and so it was on the top of my list of places to see.  Living in NYC, there are not too many galleries showing the kind of work that I do, but Sage Creek seems to represent all of my favorite artists.  I had a great time wandering around and looking at the paintings of artists that I had only seen in magazines and online.  If only I had a few thousand dollars to spare, there were a few paintings I would have loved to take home with me!


After the workshop finished I had almost an entire day before leaving for home.  On the advice of the hotel shuttle driver, I visited the Santa Fe Farmers Market and The Artists Market.  I'm so glad he suggested I do this as I really enjoyed both places.

I started in the farmers market.  I love visiting markets when I'm traveling and this was one of my faves.  There were vendors with many new to me items.  Of course, I came home with various spices to try out, as well as a few items made by New Mexico artisans ( my favorite: a hot pad done in a map of New Mexico, done by a local artist).

There was also a ton of good food available, too bad I had already eaten!

The Artist Market is out back from the farmers market in the Santa Fe Rail Yard.  If you have ever been to the Rhinebeck Craft Fair, it is like that, but takes place every Saturday.  I walked through twice, and of course came home with a bunch of handmade ceramics.  It was really nice to see a place where artists are supported and have a chance to sell their work.

After the markets, it was on to The Plaza.  It's a bit touristy, but there was some cool stuff there, including an oxygen bar that I wish I'd known about at the beginning of my trip.

One of the best things about visiting Santa Fe, for me, was seeing some sunshine after weeks of gray dreariness.  The sun and blue skies really revived me after our never ending winter here in New York.

I had a great week visiting Santa Fe and can't wait to go back.  I'll tell you all about the workshop in another post.  It was a good one!

Visiting Cuba

President Obama's historic trip to Cuba yesterday had me and my travel buddies thinking about our trip there last year and how much we enjoyed visiting the island.  We all hope to go back someday.  I hope things open up enough between the US and Cuba that we can just go there on vacation whenever we want to.  Cuba is a beautiful country.  Though much of it is crumbling, you can still see the beauty of the buildings and the landscape.  I've written a few posts about my painting trip, but I thought you might like to see some of the photos that I have not previously posted.

We spent our first few days in the older part of Havana.  The buildings were beautiful and the old square was a lovely place to paint.

The architecture reminds me of the French Quarter in New Orleans, but there is a strong European influence as well.

I love book stalls on the street.  We found them when we were searching for the art supply store.

After the first two days in Havana, I spent the rest of my time on the Paseo de Marti, a grand boulevard in the city.  Painting there was so much fun.  People stopped to talk to us all day long, and so many of them were artists.  I got the impression that the art scene was a bit on the DL, but they were still working and doing the best that they could with the limited supplies available.  Everyone that I spoke with was so happy that we were there and seemed particularly happy to have artists coming to visit.  We asked some people what they thought about relations opening up between the US and Cuba and everyone responded positively.  I don't think politics had much to do with it, it was more that they were hoping for money and visitors to be coming into the country.  As a person who lives in New York City and can have just about anything I want, any time I want it, I was shocked at the inability to buy even basic goods in Cuba.  I could see a clear difference in the residents who had relatives in Florida to bring them necessities and the people who did not.  I have no idea how they are surviving, but they do.

There were chess players out every day.  They made chess boards by drawing the squares on pieces of material.

This was my favorite building on the street.  I spent two days painting it.  Even though it is a bit dilapidated, you can still see the beauty in it.

This is getting to be a bit long.  I did not realize how many photos I had.  I will save the rest for another post, but I hope you enjoyed this glimpse into Cuba.  I'm having a great time going through my photos and remembering the trip.  If you would like to read my earlier posts, the links are here, here and here.

As always, thanks for reading!

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.  

I'm Back!

Hello Everyone.  I hope all of you are enjoying these last weeks of summer.  I have to apologize for my unintended blog break.  Unfortunately, I had an accident a few weeks ago and I am just now getting back on my feet.  I hope to be blogging regularly from now on.

One good thing that happened this summer is that I returned to Assisi, Italy for the yearly painting workshop held there by Gregg Kreutz and Art Workshop International.  We had a great time and painted everyday, though in different spots than last year.

I left New York one day early so I could visit Rome.  I had a great time, but it was 95 degrees so I did not do as much walking around as I had hoped.

The newsstand on my corner carries this paper, but it was fun to see it on all the newsstands around Rome #travelgeek

I was having a great time wandering around these little alley ways, but when it was just too hot to stay out any longer, I found a pizza place that advertised air conditioning.  It was really just a couple of fans, but definitely better than nothing, so I went in there to relax and have some pizza.  We have good pizza here in New York, but there is nothing like having pizza in Italy, which I proceeded to do nearly every day of the trip!

The guys who worked in the restaurant were great and we had fun taking pictures.

Back out on the street, I wandered over to a park that was nice and shady.  I came upon this fantastic little place that someone needs to copy here in New York.

The Biblio Bar had books, wine, prosecco, cappuccino, sandwiches and pastries.  It was just the greatest little place.  Even the police came by for a snack!

I think every big city in the world has the same tour buses!

I took this shot of the Vatican on my way back to the hotel.  Luckily, I went there a few years ago because there was no way I could wander around there in the heat.

My painting buddies were waiting for me at the hotel and the next day we traveled on to Assisi to begin the painting workshop.  I actually like two of my plein aire paintings (very unusual for me) and I will tell you about them in my next post.

Glad to be back!!