Steer

Steer

Oil on canvas, 16x20

Interested? Email me for price and delivery/shipping info

Man, have I been busy! I guess we all have, between Thanksgiving, and Christmas shopping, and work, and raking, and house-cleaning and yard sales, and all the other million things going on - whew!

I have had some time to paint, but not much time to take good photos or do blog postings. But this evening, I can snatch a few moments.

I am just loving this steer - and have a question for you all. Those of you who've been reading this blog for a while know that I am often tempted to leave big swatches of canvas blank - and sometimes, I actually go through with it.

What about this steer? Would you like to see a nice bright background? Or are you liking the blank canvas around his face? I'd love to know.

***

And now for a bit of self-promotion!

On this so-called Cyber Monday, I'd like to ask you to consider buying art - from me, or from another local artist - to give for Christmas! My 10-inch by 10-inch series, "Passages," offers really quite lovely and interesting landscapes for $100 - why not check them out? You can see them all by clicking here. 

And if you want to just look around the website (I've redesigned it recently), you can do so by going to jacobson-arts.com!

You can pay by check, cash, credit card or PayPal - and there's still time to pay over time, and have the piece by Christmas or Hanukkah.

And really, while I am asking you to consider buying a piece from me, I am mostly asking you to consider buying a piece of art by any local artist. There are shows of local art, appropriate for the holidays, at the Lighthouse Gallery in Groton, at the Wallkill River School Gallery in Montgomery, NY, at Hygienic in New London - and in many, many more places!

Art makes a great present, and buying a piece from a local artist is a wonderful thing to do on so many levels.

Thanks for considering it!

Clinton Marsh Revisited

Clinton Marsh Revisited

Oil on canvas, 24x48
Please contact me for price and shipping/delivery information

After all these years writing this blog, you might think I have a good idea what I'm doing. Most days, I think you'd be right.

But yesterday, I uploaded the photo, thought about changing it, hit a button, wondered - hmm... - then got interrupted before that "hmmm" turned into a whole thought - and I was off and running on my 4:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Patch day - and thoughts of my blog never returned until this morning, when I opened my email and saw notes from eight of you...

Ah well, 'tis the season, eh? The season of forgetting, of making lists and losing them, of setting out with the best of intentions and the worst of directions, and ending up someplace you never thought you'd be when you got up this morning.

This painting has been sitting on my easel for weeks, unusual for me, as I've snatched time from the rest of my life to finish a portion here, a portion there, and finally, it is done, and I love it. Absolutely love it. Yes, it's different from my regular colors, but it is still bright, bright enough, with that soft bright light that you get off the water on an overcast day. I'm really pretty happy with it.

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In other news, I sold the Miata on Sunday. Yeah, I know. Many of you remember when I bought the little car, and how much fun I have had in it. But it needs stuff. It needs a new roof, it needs a new driver's seat, it needs a new paint job. The motor is fine - great, really - but the rest is beyond me and my means right now - so when a nice, nice man at our yard sale asked it if was for sale, I gulped and said yes.

I cried as I drove, with the top down, to deliver it. Cried because I loved my little car, loved driving it in impossibly cold and impossibly hot days. Loved driving it back and forth from New York to New London when my mother was dying. Loved driving her around in it, and hearing her laugh as the wind blew on her chemo-hairless head. Loved driving it out into the countryside, zipping around the curves, pulling into teeny parking places - and feeling young and reckless and like a girl who would have a convertible.

I cried, also, I know, because I don't want to think of myself as a girl who wouldn't have a convertible.

And so, I will not. I am still a girl who would have a convertible, even though I am now a girl who has a minivan.

Autumn in Old Mystic

Autumn in Old Mystic

Oil on canvas, 10x10,

Cindy/Amy and I had a lovely autumn day in East Greenwich, RI, on Saturday, and I had intended to go right home afterwards, truly I had.

But I had a canvas in the van, and I had my paints, and I saw this autumn scene in beautiful Old Mystic, and I had to stop to paint.

The light was almost gone by the time I finished, and I was stiff with cold. But a day with painting in it is a better day than a day without painting in it. And I love this little gem.

I've reworked our website, including the 100x100 project, and I even have nearly all of the Outer Banks paintings up, too! 

So please check it out, let me know if you have ideas for improvement. And might I suggest that art by a local artist such as yours truly makes a fantastic Christmas or Hanukkah present... 

Red Afternoon

Red Afternoon

Oil on canvas, 10x10, $100

The colors might not have that stupendous, overwhelming blaze of color that they have had in other years, but where you find them this year, they are spectacular. The reds and yellows are particularly brilliant - and the graying, mostly bare trees around the red and yellow bushes make the colors stand out even more.

I've put all the 10x10 paintings I've made so far on their own page on the jacobson arts website. The page is still a little bit under construction, but all of you who read this blog are invited to take a look before it's finished. It's fun to see them all together!

Only some of the Outer Banks paintings are up on the site, and I have just realized that I don't have photos of all of them. They're all at Center Framing and Art, 56 LaSalle Road, West Hartford Center, if anyone lives nearby and wants to take a look.

Outside Rodanthe

Outside Rodanthe

Oil on canvas, 10x10, $100
sold

Today is Election Day, and I am moved, as I always am, by having the chance to participate, to vote. I do know how geeky this is, but I can't help it. Democracy resonates with me, and as I vote, I think of the line of people who have come before me, over the centuries, to vote, to fight for voting, to die for the right and the principles behind it.

I confess that more than once, the act of voting has brought tears to my eyes.

I have spent the time since I've been home finishing the edges of the paintings I made on my trip, fixing smears and spots that were marred in transition. Nothing major happened, but at the end of a trip, nearly every painting needs something.

The work brings me back to these open skies, and grass-covered dunes, and the sense of standing on the edge of something unseen and exciting. I love that my paintings make that fresh again.

Oyster, VA

Oyster, VA

Oil on canvas, 10x10, $100

sold

Yes, I know, I've gone from Oyster Inlet, NC, to Oyster, VA. Pearls, both!

The day I painted this, it was violently windy, windy enough to defeat my stick-on-the-car apparatus not once but twice! (I think the art gods were punishing me for being cocky about it, actually).

So on this windy day, I decided to explore, and ended up in a place called Oyster. The road ended pretty much where I was standing.

This painting is an experiment. I wanted to do something fast, and abstract (I guess it is a little abstract), and I wanted to try mixing the paint with wax. So I did all that. In contrast to the shine that many of my paintings have, the wax surface, which is very high, has a dull, matte finish. At first I didn't like it, but the more I look at it, the more appealing it is becoming.

I couldn't find anything that told me how many people live in Oyster, but it is 3 feet above sea level, a fact I find amusing.

The world headquarters of Jacobson Arts is in Gales Ferry, CT

Oyster Inlet

Oyster Inlet, NC

Oil on canvas, 10x10, $100

sold

Man, was it windy this day! I thought I would not be able to paint, but I found shelter behind these big dunes and the van, and was able to get this small piece done before the wind did me in. I do believe there is sand in the paint in this one.

It does occur to me that the days I like to paint in most are the days that make it hardest to paint... wind, rain, snow, storms, that's the stuff I like best. Oh, sure, I like a fine and sunny day, but there's something so enticing about weather and wind and movement!

Knott's Island

Knott's Island

Oil on canvas, 16x20

Please contact me for price and shipping information

I found myself enchanted by the ferry boats in the regions of North Carolina I visited on my painting trip. The very best was the ferry from Cape Hatteras to Ocracoke Island. It took about 45 minutes, and had a relatively circuitous route, through what I imagine were rocks and shoals and who knows what else under the surface.

A few pelicans flew by, and a cloud of seagulls followed, and while I am pretty sure they were there because the ferry's engines were stirring up good stuff to eat, I never saw one of them dive or grab anything from the water.

The ferry from Currituck to Knott's Island was not as long a trip, or as interesting a one, but it was still fun. A school bus full of kids pulled up onto the ferry beside me; the trip was part of their daily commute. Can you imagine going to school on a ferry?