Pennsylvania Farm

Pennsylvania Farm

Oil on canvas, 18x18

sold

I was driving back from the show in State College, PA, this summer, and thinking about my fall painting trip, when I saw a beautiful farm like this one. In a flash, my plans expanded from painting New England autumn to painting New England (and more) autumn and New England (and more) farms.

That way, if a big storm rips the leaves from the trees early, or if autumn comes in September or November, I still will have plenty of subject matter. Farms are farms, beautiful in any kind of weather.

But what is this trip, you say? The Farms and Foliage Painting Trip is a sponsored plein-air journey that I'll be taking - ideally with you! - in October.

Here's how it works. You buy a painting in advance (they start at $125) - and you get to come along on the trip with me. I send you regular blog postings of my journey, with photos of the places I go, the people I meet and of course, a dog of the day. When I start painting - all on site, by the side of the road, painting what I find - I will include a photo of the painting, and the painting in the landscape. And I might send you some other goodies from the road, too!

When I get back, I'll put my paintings up on a web page, and you'll choose your paintings in the order in which you signed up.

For more about the project, and to sign up, visit the Farms and Foliage Trip page on the Jacobson Arts website. You can get there by clicking here!

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Dog of the Day

Well, Dog Person of the Day, really... That's my friend Carol Baney, on the red couch in our living room, covered with Koko, Doc and Lulu. Anyone who visits has to put up with our canine family, and I can tell you, it's a lot. But when they're not barking at Carol, they're delighted to have another lap to climb onto! 

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A Final Thought

"Artistic talent is a gift from God and whoever discovers it in himself has a certain obligation: to know that he cannot waste this talent, but must develop it." 

- Pope John Paul II

Flowers and Route 13 Farm

I felt I had to give you all a break, and so in addition to "Flowers for Jojo III" (left, 12x36), I'm posting "Route 13 Farm," above oil on canvas, 20x20. Please click here to email me for price and availability. 

I am on my way back from grief over the death of my dear dog Jojo, but it is not a steady climb

I will say that these broken-color paintings I've been doing seem to be helping me mend. Helping me cope.

This is how painting came to me, as a way of recovery, when I was 50. I was struggling to cope with my mother's death, and I was failing. Painting came into my life unbidden and unexpected, and it lifted me, helped me get my head above the grief. It helped again, months later, when my boss died, and again, four months after that, when the job I'd thought I would have forever was eliminated.

It is not a surprise that painting is rescuing me again.

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I'M HEADING OUT this week to High Point, NC, where I will participate in the Piedmont Plein Air Paintout, Sept. 17-20. This is a fun event. Twenty-five artists will paint on site from Thursday through Saturday around the pretty town of High Point, then sell the paintings, still wet, on Sunday.

On the way, I will put new paintings in J. Gallery in High Point, and with JWV Artists in Charlotte, NC.

The next weekend, I'm in Dayton, Ohio, at Oktoberfest, an art and, yes, beer festival at the Dayton Art Institute. 

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Dog of the Day

Smokey had been with us for about a year when we brought Jojo home, and they became friends instantly. Smokey is part chow, part shar-pei (we think), and Jojo taught him to play, entreating and inviting him again and again and again and again, until he finally got it. 

For the past 10 years, Smokey has slept nights in the doorway to our bedroom. I believed he was guarding us. But since Jojo died, he has moved out of that doorway and set himself down within eyesight of the back door. 

I think that all these years, he was protecting Jojo, not us. And now, I think, he keeps waiting for her to come back. 

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A Final Thought

"It is not the language of painters but the language of nature which one should listen to. The feeling for the things themselves, for reality, is more important than the feeling for pictures." 

- Vincent Van Gogh

Farm on the Ridge

Farm on the Ridge

Oil on black canvas, 24x24

Please click here to email me for price and shipping information

A couple years ago, I was in a plein-air paintout in upstate New York. On the drive there, I realized I was getting really, really sick. I stopped at the home of a friend (a scheduled stop), and got enough medicine and care to get me on my feet for the rest of the drive. 

Feeling somewhat better, I stopped to paint a farm on a ridge. Halfway through the painting, I realized all was not well, still. I ended up leaving of the event early, and skipping a show the following weekend. 

When I looked at the painting I'd made, I did think that maybe I should get sick more often. One of my collectors bought that painting, but I decided to paint is again, as part of the Red Barn series. 

I love the colors in this one, the light and dark reds, the high blue sky and the autumn-gold fields. I love the deep shadows in the front, and the collected buildings, huddled together on the ridge. 

And I love feeling healthy and well! 

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Dog of the Day

It's Jada, who lives with Elissa and her family in Stonington, CT. 

They adopted Jada, and I've always been so glad that they did. 

She loves them - and it is mutual - but like so many rescues, she's not an easy dog.

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A final thought

"To succeed in life, you need two things:
ignorance and confidence." 

- Mark Twain

Down the Fence Line - and Still Point Gallery

Down the Fence Line

Oil on canvas, 18x18

So far, my recent question about flower paintings vs. other categories of paintings I make has elicited interesting and varied responses.  Some people like flower paintings best, others like landscapes, others like my animal paintings. No votes yet for cowboy paintings! 

I'm in the midst of this farm series - the Red Barn series - and I really like it. I've always loved farms, and at one point, thought I might like to be a farmer. Then I realized how much work it is! 

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A FRIEND AND FOLLOWER of this blog told me about Still Point Art Gallery's regular online shows. Today, one of my paintings - "I Do" - is on the home page! All of you artists, sculptors and photographers in there might consider entering these shows. It's $25 for three images, and I believe it's fairly competitive. 

The work is shown on the website and in a lovely magazine that you can see online, or order on paper. Still Point publishes a variety of books, in addition to having the online gallery. Click here to reach the gallery's homepage. 

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Dog of the Day

Saw this dog outside the Island House restaurant, 

while Jojo and I were walking. He makes me think of Sam. 

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

"There was such a glory over everything. 

The sun came up like gold through the trees, 

and I felt like I was in heaven."

- Harriet Tubman

Pulaski Farm - and the Joys of Being Home

Pulaski Farm

Oil on canvas, 20x20

I'm home, and I'm so glad to be home! 

The Origins Painting Trip was wonderful. I made paintings that I really like, I spent great time with my dad and stepmother, and with friends in and around Tubac. And I learned a lot, painting on the Navajo reservation where I was born. It was enlightening to be on the reservation for an extended period, and it was a little depressing, as well. 

The show in Memphis had its moments, but only one sale, so that was a bit of a bleak ending to the trip. But I got home safe and sound, and am overjoyed to be with Peter again, and with the dogs, and to be sleeping in my own bed and painting in my little studio. 

The spring and summer show schedule is starting to get fleshed out, and I'm happy to have a few weeks to paint and build up some inventory before it all starts. 

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Here are a few of the paintings from my trip! 

Rocks, Fort Defiance, 10x10

Off Navajo Road, 20x20

Light and Shadow, 10x10

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Dog of the Day

It's Jojo, the dog of my heart. Was she ever happy to see me when I got home! And it was mutual. 

Delmarva Farm - and a DelMarvelous Show!

Delmarva Farm

Oil on canvas, 10x10, $100

Sold

I was painting this farm - half-hidden by the soybeans, nearly ready to be harvested - when the farmer who owns the place came by.

He'd farmed there all his life, he said, but had sold off a lot of the land recently, as he was 78, and slowing down. Right now, all he has is 300 acres. Soybeans is what he mostly grows, and corn, too, and he rotates the crops year by year.

His kids don't want to farm, he told me. His wife had been a schoolteacher, and his kids had gone on to get higher degrees, and schooling he'd never had. One was a teacher, and the others were in business.

And he was happy, he said, that they had decided not to farm. 

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THIS WEEKEND, I'll be at the Brandywine Arts Festival in Wilmington, DE. It looks like a nice art fair (DelMarvelous, even!), and I've heard it's good, though I've never been. I'll be in Booth J03, frighteningly close to the entrance (sometimes a great place to be, sometimes a terrible place...). The show is Saturday and Sunday; admission is $5, and children under 12 get in free. The entry price includes admission to the zoo, another frightening thing for me, as I really don't like zoos. 

So if you are in the area, please come by. And if you're not, please send your good thoughts my way! 

My next show is the following weekend, in Leesburg, VA. I did that show last year, and while I didn't do well financially, I had a great time, and got a number of commissions. Click here for more information on the Leesburg Fine Arts Show. 

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Dog of the Day

Here's Django, who lives with Ashley Harper-Oberle near Austin, TX. I met Ashley through this blog, and we've become online friends. She writes Zen Daughter, a blog that I like very much, and it's been a real pleasure to get to know her. 

She and her kids named the dog Django because they liberated him from the pound - and in Texas, that's a life-giving move. 

He is half Great Pyrenees, and half golden, she writes, "nine months young and a big bundle of love."