Feels Like Home

Feels Like Home

Oil on black canvas, 16x16 

Please click here to email me for price and availability

I get mental blocks about the names of things - and sometimes of people, too.  I seem to have a particularly slippery spot in my brain for the names of shade plants. I just had to look up "hydrangea," which is what these are, in the painting above.

I can describe them completely, in terms of color, scent, the feel of the blossoms and leaves - but I can't seem to hold their name in my head.

The same holds true for astilbes and hostas. I love all these plants, love to see them, love to grow them, love to paint them - but I just can't remember them.

Maybe part of painting for me is to strengthen my visual memory, in places where my brain memory just doesn't make it?

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Wickford Art Festival

Unless the hydrangea painting sells beforehand, I will have it with me at the Wickford Art Festival this weekend, July 8-9. I'm Booth 82, on Elam Street at the junction with Spinx. It's such a fun show, in a beautiful little town. For information, check out WickfordArt.org.

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Dog of the Day

Cute! 

Want your pet to be the Dog of the Day?

 Send a jpg to me at carrieBjacobson@gmail.com 

(ps, your pet doesn't have to be a dog...) 

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A Final Thought

"Color is my daylong obsession, joy and torment." 

- Claude Monet

Say a Little Prayer

Say a Little Prayer

Oil on canvas, 36x48

Please click here to email me for price and availability

When I started painting this large floral, I wanted to paint a chaos of color and shape, a song of blossoms and springtime, a poem of shade and bright sun - and I think I got there. I love the little stream winding through the foreground, and the small surprise of the three daisies in the middle of the garden. What do you think? 

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I AM GRATEFUL for all the big things, my husband, my family, my faith, my success. And I am grateful for small things, too. The smell of lilacs, the tenderness of a sleepy little dog, the delight of a beautiful iris garden in a neighbor's yard. I hope you are feeling lucky and grateful today. 

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Dog of the Day

 It's Doc, suspicious, thoughtful, scheming, shy, devilish. One of my favorite dogs, ever! 

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A Final Thought

"The beautiful is always bizarre." 

- Charles Beaudelaire

April Dogwood

April Dogwood

Oil on canvas, 15x60

Please click here to email me for price and availability

Often, I already have the idea by the time I choose the canvas, but sometimes, the shape of the canvas leads me to the idea for the painting. 

That was the case with "April Dogwood." I've had this canvas for a while, and have been saving it for something special.                                                                                           Recently, I moved it from the shed where I store many of my blank canvases to the studio, where I paint. I sold a nice cowscape at a recent show, and thought that perhaps a good longhorn would suggest itself.                                                                                           I was taking a break, gazing out the door of the studio when I noticed branches of our pink azalea reaching out past the corner of the house. I knew instantly that that was what I needed to paint on this 15x60-inch canvas. 

It's an unusual painting for me. It is delicate, and subtle, though I will say that, up close, it has lots of colors and lots of texture. I love the rhythm of the branches, the three-dimensionality of the dogwood flowers, the feeling of spring it gives me. 

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Thank you! 

FOR EVERYONE WHO participated in my April sale, everyone who took a look, thought about buying a painting, sent their friends to the sale, or bought a painting, thank you! It was a grand success. Seven paintings from the sale sold, and one buyer bought another painting from the website. I found plenty of ways to improve the process, and have some great ideas for the next sale. If you have ideas, please feel free to email them to me - carrieBjacobson@gmail.com. 

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Dog of the Day

(See above! It's Koko!)

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A Final Thought

"The painter has the universe in his mind and hands." 

- Leonardo DaVinci

You Go to My Heart

You Go to My Head

Oil on canvas, 18x18 

Please click here to contact me for information on price and availability

I've been heartened lately - in fact, more than heartened... excited, amazed, thrilled! - by the rapid sales of three recent paintings. I posted two on Facebook and sent one out in my most recent newsletter, and they all sold.  Two were florals much like the one above, and the third was the floral-focused landscape to the left. 

Peter, my dad and my stepmother all have been urging me to paint more florals, but I've resisted. I've loved the florals I'd made, but in a way, I felt I was at the end of the road with them, much like the paintings of food, the underground, birds, palm trees and on and on. I wasn't feeling challenged, wasn't feeling there was much to discover. The rush of adventure and experiment that I love so much, that is at the heart of my painting, seemed to have gone. 

That all has changed. And while I don't know specifically why, I think it is just because I've grown as a painter. The paintings I made on the Big Skies Painting Trip, and that sustained immersion into painting and solitude, led me to new places and taught me things I hadn't known I didn't know. 

And lo and behold, it's all spilled over into florals, in a happy confluence of what I'm enjoying painting, and what people seem to be wanting. 

I've found that if I paint simply hoping to sell, the paintings seem to lack some bit of life, some invitation to buy. They don't engage the viewer because, I think, they didn't truly engage me. I was painting with a purpose that should be secondary but had wiggled its way into being primary, and that tamped down the life of the pieces.

But I need to sell my art. I can't just paint them and keep them, or paint them and give them away. So I need to make paintings that sell. And in these florals, at least for now, I think I've found a strange and exhilarating balance of my delight and yours. 

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IF YOU CAN come to the Paradise City show in Marlborough, Mass., March 24-26, you can see these florals in person, and let me know what you think about them. Do they interest and inspire you? What do you like, and what don't you like? 

For more information about the show, and to get tickets for discounts on admission, please click here. 

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Stuff I've Seen

Here's Ted, who's shown up in my booth at shows from Michigan to California! He came to the show in Tubac, dressed to the nines, as always, and was as kind and upbeat as ever. 

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Dog of the Day 

It's Blanco, a huge sweetie, who lives with my friend SaraBeth in Tucson. 

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A Final Thought

"A writer - and, I believe, generally all persons - must think that whatever happsn to him or her is a resource. All things have been given to us for a purpose, and an artist must feel this more intensely. All that happens to us, including our humiliations, our misfortunes, our embarrassments, all is given to us as raw material, as clay, so that we may shape our art." 

- Jorge Luis Borges

Foothills

Foothills

Oil on panel, 6x8. $75, including shipping

I'm trying some smaller pieces for 2017 (and the end of 2016). Some of these will be on panels, like the one above, and suitable for framing. 

Others will be on paper, and will arrive matted, and again, suitable for framing. I might even try framing some, but my hope with these is to keep prices low. 

The small paintings are much harder for me than the big ones! Strange, eh? Most artists have a fear of large canvases. For me, the small pieces are a struggle. That's another reason I'm going to focus on them in 2017.

I'm also going to be bringing some prints with me to the shows - but if you want prints at any time, you can go to Fine Art America (fineartamerica.com), search for me, and order prints in whatever sizes you like! 

What do you think about this idea? Is $75 a reasonable price, in your world? 

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I really should have gotten off the road and checked this one out! 

Maybe I'd have found D.B. Cooper living there... 

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Dog of the Day

I know I've featured this creature as a Dog of the Day before, 

but she (or he) amuses me endlessly. 

Want your pet to be the Dog of the Day? Please send a jpg to me at carrieBjacobson@gmail.com

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A Final Thought

"The first step to controlling your world is to control your culture. To model and demonstrate the kind of world you demand to live in. 

To write the books. Make the music. Shoot the films. Paint the art." 

- Chuck Palahniuk

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The Dreams I've Seen

The Dreams I've Seen

Oil on black canvas, 16x16

Please click here to email me for price and availability

 Oh, OUCH. The scene to the left was what I saw on Sunday, when I left Hartford, CT, to head home to Wachapreague. Honestly, it seemed like a late, lame April Fool's joke. While the snow stopped an hour or so past Hartford, the 32-degree temperature kept me focused on the surface of the road, and the potential for black ice.

Then on Tuesday morning, it snowed here in Wachapreague! Just too much.    

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THE WEATHER ALSO figured into my weekend plans. It rained most of the day on Saturday, so there was no painting outside Center Framing & Art in West Hartford Center, CT. I had a nice time, even so. I got to spend time with some people who really love my paintings and came in specially to see me and talk with me. It was great! 

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Dog of the Day

Saw this old guy last week at the Island House restaurant here in Wachapreague. It was a bit cold to be dining outdoors, but the dog and his human thought it was just perfect. 

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A Final Thought

"Creativity takes courage."

- Henri Matisse

Kinney Azaleas - and Paradise City

Kinney Azalea Path

Oil on canvas, 12x48

Available at Center Framing and Art, West Hartford Center, CT

Just down the road from the University of Rhode Island are the Kinney Azalea Gardens, a paradise of color and bloom and the sweet promise of spring. 

Lorenzo and Elizabeth Kinney started the gardens in 1927 at their home on Kingstown Road. According to a website about the gardens, Lorenzo's father - the first professor of botany at URI (then the Rhode Island College of Agriculture and Mechanical Arts) - helped launch the project, with plants from the Lowland Rhododendron Farm. 

These days, there are more than 800 types of azaleas and rhododendrons on the property. They come in all sorts of colors, orange and yellow and white and of course the amazing pinks and reds that are more typical. 

The bushes bloom generally during the middle of May, and while I haven't been there this year yet, it is possible that the gardens are still in bloom. You can also buy azaleas and rhododendrons there, too! 

There is no fee to walk the gardens. Donations and plant sales provide the funds to keep the gardens up and running, so if you go, please leave them a little something! 

For information and particulars, please click here. 

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THE AZALEA PAINTING IS one of the ones I will have at the Paradise City Arts Festival this weekend, Saturday through Monday, at the Three-County Fairgrounds in Northampton, MA. You will find me in the Morgan Barn, the smallest of the three buildings at the fair. 

This is a wonderful show, filled with top-quality art and craft, including paintings, sculpture, jewelry, clothing, furniture, glass and lots more. Local restaurants are part of the show, too, so you can count on having a good lunch! 

There is a fee to enter the fairgrounds, and you can get a $2 discount by printing a coupon you can find on the Paradise City Arts website (http://www.paradisecityarts.com/), along with lots more information. 

Hope to see you there! 

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 Dog of the Day 

I met these chow mixes at the art festival in Arlington a couple weeks ago. They were as cute as can be! 

Want your pet to be the Dog of the Day? Send a jpg to me at carrieBjacobson@gmail.com

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A Final Thought

"Art is a collaboration between God and the artist, and the less the artist does, the better." 

- Andre Gide