Sunflowers, Tuscany - Supersized!

Sunflowers, Tuscany

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So this is the big version of the miniature painting I posted yesterday. I really love this painting. It has great texture - lots of paint! - and the addition of the blue and purple shadows in the foreground really make it sing for me.

Starting in the summer, I began painting the sky in a different way, in short strokes, with colors I usually wouldn't think of for sky - Naples yellow, ochre, different tans and browns and even greens sometimes. And then puffs of clouds over all of it. These skies make me so happy! They have depth and shine and movement, and it is so much fun to paint them.

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A week ago, I learned that I've been accepted into the Paradise City show in Marlborough, Mass. This show is in March, and is even harder to get into than the Memorial Day show that I will be doing in Northampton, Mass. It is so very exciting to know that I'm going to Marlborough, too! And the acceptance came on a day when I really needed something wonderful to happen.

Life is treating me so well these days, I am grateful, so grateful.

Sunflowers, Tuscany

Sunflowers, Tuscany

Oil on gessoboard panel, 4 inches by 4 inches, in wide black frame

Contact Center Framing & Art at 860-233-7804 for price and shipping options

I had the chance to paint yesterday, and I relished it. There's heat in the studio now, too, another huge step forward! 

Today, I am painting this same painting, but large, 30x40. I started it yesterday, and so far, so good. There's something magical about the start of a big painting, about those first strokes, those first shapes on the huge white canvas. I always love them when they are just started, and there is always a little part of me that wants to leave them like that. Next time, I will take photos along the way and post them. It's pretty interesting. 

For any of you who have enjoyed my fictional serials in the past, I'm writing another one, for the Patch site I run. The site is montville-ct.patch.com, and the story is "The Best Present Ever." 

If you read it and you like it, I'd be eternally grateful if you'd keep reading it, chapter by chapter, and also tell your friends about it. 

If you don't like it, let me know, and let me know why, so that I can improve. 

While you're on the site, please look around, and tell me what you think. I would appreciate it!

Nigel

Nigel

Oil on canvas, commission

Hey! My last post, the wedding scene, was my 500th Accidental Artist posting. I bet I could see the fireworks and hear the marching band, if only it were night and I had my windows open.

I want to thank all of you who have been with me all this time. You've given me the support and the love I've needed to keep painting and keep posting, and not a day goes by that I am not thankful for all of you, and very, very grateful.

I am seeing my way clear to paint these days, in dribs and drabs, as my mother used to say. Often, I do everything I think I need to do to clear a few hours to paint, and then news happens, and whoosh - there go those hours.

But today, I have nearly the whole day, and tomorrow, too - and I have the commitment in my soul to keep going.

Looking Ahead

Looking Ahead

Oil on canvas, 40x60. Commission

I was thrilled to get this commisison - a big painting, tonal, abstractish.

Then I started my Patch job and I thought, uh-oh, I won't be able to do it! I should turn it down!

But I found a way. And I love the painting, just love it.

I've been reading a book that encourages the reader to be courageous, to go places and do things even when she can't see the resolution. Especially when she can't see the resolution.

These are the only times that we are alive, the author says. The past is unchangeable, nailed down, never growing, never changing. As soon as we do that to the present, we deaden it. The thing to do is to go on,  even if you're scared, even if you can't tell how it's going to come out.

Then, you will be at peace. Then, you will be living life with courage.

I'm just reading and thinking and absorbing, searching maybe for ideas, but not necessarily for truth. I will say that living like that is exhilarating. The past three years have been like that for me, and I have loved each minute, and lived a better, richer life than I ever had before. The new gig is much like that, as it is a startup, and it is the unknown, the brave new world.

May we all find the courage to be courageous!

Waiting

Waiting

Oil on canvas, 12x12, $350

This dog was waiting outside of town hall in Montville, Conn., a place I find myself often, these days.

He (I think it was a he?) was the size of a giant schnauzer, but was marked like an airdale. He was hanging his gigantic head out the window of a tiny, rust-ravaged little pickup. He looked fierce at first, but a smile broke on his face when I approached, and he practically begged me to pet him. Happy as he was to see me, though, his clear mission was to wait for the one he loved.

Every time the door opened, his huge head turned toward it, hope in his big eyes. Every time it was not his human, he turned back to me, disappointed. I was a poor second, but I would do for a while.

Isn't this how we all are? We spend our lives waiting just to be with the one we love. We wait to find him or her, and then we wait to commit, and then, committed, we wait for him to catch up or to turn around and beckon. We wait with as much hope as this guy, putting everything into it, knowing, finally and surely, that at last, something is true.