Groton Reservoir - and Let's See Your Tree!

Groton Reservoir

Oil on canvas, 30x40

sold

One of the great things about living in Ledyard, CT, was being near the Groton Reservoir. I painted it often, and in all seasons. Some of my very favorite paintings from the years we lived in Ledyard are of the reservoir - and this is one of them. 

It is one of the first large paintings I did with a palette knife, and while it had some of the feeling I was hoping to communicate, it was lacking something - a little life, a little breadth, a little color? So I went back in and worked on it again, and this time, whatever was missing is there.

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May We See Your Tree?  

In Saturday's entry, I posted a photo of our Christmas tree.  My friend Bonnie Brankey, a wonderful artist,  sent me this photo of her tree. Could we share our trees, or our Hanukkah bushes, or our holiday-decorated pink flamingos - or whatever you decorate? 

Please send a jpg to me at carrieBjacobson@gmail.com, and I'll post them here on the blog on Christmas Day. 

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Dogs of the Day

 Gotta love 'em! Want your pet to be dog of the day? Send a jpg to me at carrieBjacobson@gmail.com

December Sale!

Spring in Bucksnort, Tennessee

Oil on canvas, 9x12

     Sold

Hi, everyone! Hope you had excellent Thanksgiving Days with your families, your friends, your neighbors, or just by yourself if that's how you choose to celebrate. After a great pre-Thanksgiving holiday get-together with my family in Connecticut, I came home, and Peter and I had a lovely, quiet day taking it easy and being grateful for so very much. 

In clearing out my studio over the weekend, I found these wonderful paintings in a box, under another box. They are older paintings, and some don't have the heavy surface that I generally create now - but they are excellent paintings, ones that I love, and in sizes that I don't use much any more. Most are not framed; I included the frame in the ones that are framed. I am offering them to you all here for pretty low prices. 

If you buy any of these paintings before Friday, I will pay the shipping!  

The "View Cart" button is at the bottom of the page. 

Afternoon in Clinton, Arkansas

Oil on canvas, 11x14

Sold

Arizona Desert

Oil on canvas, 12x12

Fog on the Reservoir

Oil on canvas, 6x12, framed

Shady Garden

Sold!

Sunny Garden
Sold!

Winter Storm

Oil on board, 12x12

Storm Lifting

Oil on masonite, 6x6

Sold

Time to Shovel

Oil on board, 6x12

Sold

Spring's Thin Bones

Sold

Winter Flamingos

Oil on canvas, 6x12, framed

sold

Heavy Coat

Oil on board, 6x12,

Sold

Please click here to email me for prices of any paintings not marked "sold"

Reservoir Sunrise

Reservoir Sunrise

Oil on canvas, 24x24

Please contact me for price and delivery information

I have stumbled on an idea that's really jazzing me. It's to take a shape, an easy shape, and make all the strokes in the painting follow on the lines of the shape, no matter what the content.

So in this painting (you might be able to see, if you click on it and look at it large) I've painted the hills and the reflections of the hills all in the same circular stroke pattern as the sky around the sun. Cool idea, huh?

Of course, this will become more difficult as I put more complicated stuff in the paintings (houses, trees, cows), but it will be a challenge, and is bound to improve my skills. Meantime, it's really fun! And I absolutely love these paintings.

My next plan is one with all shades and tones of blue - maybe a moonscape.

Reservoir Dusk

Reservoir Dusk

Oil on canvas, 16x20
Call me at 860-442-0246 or email me

if you are interested in buying this painting

It is my birthday, and with this new day, I thee declare: I am, I have been and I will be.

With this day, I thee declare: I will do better, I will be better.

With this day, I thee declare: I will listen more and insist less. I will love more and be less fragile. I will hope more and be less disappointed. I will do my best to forgive and forget.

I will spend this year, this fresh new year, in a brand-new marriage with life, and all that makes it lovely and worth living.

And yes, indeed, I will paint.

I Know Something More

I Know Something More

Oil on canvas, 16x20

Call me at 860-442-0246 or email me

if you are interested in buying this painting

Our house in New York stood on a rise about 30 yards from the western bank of the Neversink River. Most of the time, this was wonderful. We swam and fished in the river, listened to its rolling sound, watched the birds and wildlife that lived along its shores.

But when the river flooded, it was a nightmare. It would come around in front of our house and cut off our access to the road, potentially trapping us there, on what would be an island surrounded by raging river torrents.

We were flooded out many times, and a couple of those times, the flooding was severe. One flood left 60 houses in our neighborhood condemned; we were a federal disaster area. Everything in the basement of our tiny home was destroyed that time. The river opened a crater in our driveway, deposited two feet of silt and sand, and pushed all the small trees over at an angle. Debris was caught in branches higher than my head, and we found dead fish in our yard for months.

I grew afraid of heavy rain. A sound I had once loved, rain falling on leaves, I grew to hate. I came to despise the Weather Channel and everyone on it. I could feel anxiety and even panic grow as the storms strengthened.

And even now, even though we are gone from the house, even though we live nowhere near a river, the fear still courses inside me. This heavy, heavy rain has reawakened anxiety that I thought was gone forever.

On another note, a sunny one, I made this painting last week - it's my third go at these tall trees on the reservoir in Groton, and I think it's not the last. I love the way the setting sun warms the banks, the trunks, the limbs, and how the reflections shimmer in the sunny depth of water.

On the excellent-news front, all three of the paintings I submitted to the all-animal show at the Schuler School of Fine Arts in Baltimore were accepted. All three! Yippee. I couldn't be happier. I'm going to have the chance to visit an old friend there, and I'm going to stretch things out a little and do some painting on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, one of my favorite places.

Thank you for reading!

I Know Something About Love

I Know Something About Love

Oil on deep-cradled canvas, 12x36, $200

These days have been a gift of spring, and I have come alive again. I have painted without a care, without a thought, warming in the sun like a turtle on a rock.

I worship in the cathedral of the outdoors, and pray with words as bright as colors, as loud as birds singing on the wind.

Here are some disconnected bits:

I got into the Mystic Outdoor Art Festival! This is very exciting for me, as it is a festival I've seen nearly all my adult life - and never dreamed I'd be accepted.

Also, the Paradise City Festival in Northampton, Mass., is fast approaching, and I received a magazine that the promoters send out. Yikes, the work is fabulous! That festival is May 29-31. I'll let you know more about both when I know more.

"Range Rovers," which many of you received as a blog post just a few days ago, I painted for the February show at the Lighthouse Gallery. I don't know why my posting was delayed for a month. On a similar note, three Christmas cards and a invitation to a January show, all dated Dec. 23 or 23, arrived in the mailbox just last weekend. The postmistress has no idea what could have happened.

Time warp, anyone?

Tall Pines

Tall Pines, Groton Reservoir. Oil on stretched canvas. sold

I've been looking at these tall pines ever since I found the shortcut to downtown Groton. They tower over the reservoir, dark and alluring. They are a little more massive than what I've painted here, a little more foreboding.

Still, I like this painting, which I did about 99 percent with the palette knife. The fact that the trees have a slightly different feel, a slightly darker aura than what I've painted, well, that's fine. It gives me gold to mine again, on another day.

That's one of the best things about painting. There's no end to the iterations and efforts I can make. Even if I were to set out to paint this exact same image, it wouldn't end up looking the same. I love the variability, the random differences, so much like life, and yet, so contained.