Peter!

Peter

Oil on panel / 6x8

Remember me? There's been a long, long, LONG hiatus in The Accidental Artist blog, and I do apologize - and hope you all are glad to see this post in your inboxes. 

I finished up my show season in late September, and in October, headed to New England on the Farms & Foliage Painting Trip. You can see the paintings I made by clicking here, and see photos and read stories from the trip on the Farms & Foliage Painting Trip blog, which you can reach by clicking here. 

It was a joyous, color-filled three weeks in New England. I think I landed there in one of the best foliage seasons ever. The leaves glowed as if they were lighted from within.  I had spectacular weather, stayed with great friends and loving family members, and look back on it as one of my best sponsored painting trips. 

Now, I'm busily working on commissions, on the 101 Dogs project - I'm getting near the end! - and I'm applying to shows and planning trips for 2018. Also, I'm taking it a little easy, for just a few weeks. 

One of my projects for the winter is a series of portraits, and maybe portraits with a mixed-media edge. I'm pretty excited about this! My experience tells me these will be hard to sell, if they sell at all, but there's something in my heart that seems to be requiring me to paint them, and so I will, and find out whatever it is that I'm supposed to find out. 

It's good to be back! 

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Coming Up

The Eastern Shore Artisans Guild will hold its 15th annual Artisans Guild Studio Tour  on Thanksgiving weekend. This is a grand event, really fun, which takes you all over the Shore to the studios of painters, sculptors, potters, glass-makers and more. 

I'm not in it this year - but I'll be out there, making my way around, visiting studios and buying holiday presents. 

The tour is free, and it's wonderful! If you live on the Eastern Shore, you must go. And if you're thinking of visiting the Shore - especially to see some art - the Tour is a must! 

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Dog of the Day

It's three of ours! From left, Doc, Lulu and Koko. 

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

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A Final Thought

"A blank canvas... has unlimited possibilities." 

- Stephanie Perkins

Berthe Morisot

In the past year or so, the pull of painting people has become stronger and stronger. And yet, I have doubted myself.                                                                                             Painting with a knife, learning to paint without instruction, focusing on surface and impasto, color and movement, I'm not a natural portrait painter, by which I mean - in my surprisingly traditional self-valuing, judgmental way - that my portraits of humans are not accurate or realistic.                                                                                   To the way of thinking I found I had developed over most of my 60 years, I've realized that to me, this has meant that those paintings, my paintings, are not good. And so, much in the way that I have become comfortable painting houses without doors or windows, porches or chimneys, I became comfortable painting people without many facial characteristics. See Fisherman Joe, for instance.                                                                                                                           But then, happily, I think, for what it says about my own attitude toward myself, I began to want to paint faces - but still, not faces of living people, real people, people I know, people who could talk back, could comment on my paintings, and most especially, people who could be hurt by them, thinking that what I painted is what I saw. In fact, what I paint is what I am able to paint, in the context of what I see, nothing more, nothing less. My judgment, apparently, is reserved for my own self. 

It was at this point that the idea of painting artists came to me. 

The more I thought about it, and the more artists I painted, the more interested I became in it as a project. I'm experimenting with the portraits, with ways of presenting them, with ways of painting them, and with the choices I'm making. I can envision a whole wall of these small portraits, a way of celebrating the artists who helped shape our world, a way of expressing my own voice, and a way of learning and growing. At any rate, this painting is of Berthe Morisot, one of the three women who made some success in Impressionist circles. For more on her, click here.

This portrait of her is 6x12, and is $145, including shipping. 

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Tube Contest

There's a winner in the tube-cap contest! It's Sue Schneider, who guessed 126. The actual total? 128. And I admit, I am amazed. I'd have thought I used three times that much paint! They were the big tubes (225 ml), and as you can see in the middle, one pint of white. At any rate, I'm going to save the lids again this year, just to see if maybe I forgot a month or two (or six?). 

Thank you, everyone, for playing! For winning, Sue gets a 10x10-inch painting, or $100 off a painting of her choice. 

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Dog of the Day

Well, the Dog of the Day from a recent post was not Batty, as I said, but Shadow. Here is the real Batty. They both live with my friend SaraBeth, and Blanco, and they're all good dogs! 

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A Final Thought

"The artist is nothing without the gift, but the gift is nothing without work." 

- Emile Zola

Fisherman Joe

Fisherman Joe
Oil on canvas, 16x16
Please click here to email me for price and availability

A few years ago, when I was just starting out doing shows, I decided to try Florida. I did three shows and bombed miserably, selling just one painting in three shows - and they were supposedly good shows, too.

It seemed I just didn't have the right stuff for Florida - and it was easy to think that maybe I never would.

This fall, an artist named Carroll Swayzee invited me to a show she has put on for five years in Englewood, where she lives. Carroll is a painter, and though I don't know her well, I like her work and her attitude. The show came at a good time for me, and so I decided to give it a try.

So, Jan. 28 and 29, I'll be at the Englewood Bank and Trust Invitational Art show, 1111 South McCall Road., Englewood, Florida. And in preparation for the show, I'm painting some bright, sunny, beachy, Florida-type pieces, like Fisherman Joe.

A while ago, I thought I'd try people, that maybe portraits would differentiate me from the landscape-and-flower crowd. I had a blast, but eventually got sidetracked by the need for BIG art. So far, I haven't had the nerve to do a person BIG - but one of these days, I will. Especially having had such fun with Joe.

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I was looking for something in my photo program the other day, and came across this "event." I took all these photos on THE SAME DAY, from a snowstorm in Connecticut to forsythia and cherry trees blooming on the Eastern Shore. 

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Dog of the Day

This DOD lives just outside Wachapreague - and was not too happy with me, as I drove by on New Year's Day. 

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A Final Thought

"What separates artists from ex-artists is that those who challenge their fears, continue; those who don't, quit. Each step in the artmaking process puts that issue to the test." 

- David Bayles and Ted Orland

"Art & Fear / Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking

Ashton

Ashton

Gouache and oil on canvas, 12x12

I was a bit disheartened after my portraits of Emmett and JJ - not truly disheartened, but a little, but determined to push on - and then I made this painting of Ashton, and it changed everything. I love this painting! It looks a lot like Ash - maybe an older version of Ash, but a distinct version of him. 

Making this piece taught me a lot. Hair makes a big difference. The nose is a good place to start - it's where I start in dogs and cats, so why not in humans? The shadows on his face in the photo I had were harsh and deep, and I was worried about them, but they make this painting. 

For a while, I had a sign posted on my computer that said, "Carrie, Paint the Light." It was a reminder not to paint THINGS, but to paint light, and shadow, and how light and shadow define things.  That very Big Lesson came back to me with this painting. 

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At my site on Fine Art America, you can have my paintings printed onto all sorts of things. You can get actual prints, on paper or metal or acrylic block or canvas. You can get my paintings on pillows, iPhone covers, duvet covers, tote bags (these are really great) - and also on shower curtains. 

During the summer, I stay with my brother and his family often, when I'm doing shows or delivering paintings or visiting in New England. They live in Hartford, which is pretty central, and they have a nice bedroom for me. They take me in, they feed me, they put up with me, share their house and life with me. I know he's my brother, but still, it's a lot. I wanted to thank them, so I had a shower curtain made of a painting I'd made of their daughter and one of their dogs. 

The shower curtain is great - but their bathroom is very narrow, so narrow that there really was no place to step back and look at the painting, as huge as it is. So Rand had a great idea - to put it on Larkin's tree house. Doesn't it look great?

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Dog of the Day

Saw this giant at the SoNo Arts Festival this summer in South Norwalk, CT. 

Happily for everyone, he was very friendly. 

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

"Poor is the pupil who does not surpass his master." 

- Leonardo Da Vinci 

JJ

JJ

Goache and oil on canvas, 12x12

So here is the second of the great-grandkid portraits. In some ways, this was easier than Emmett's portrait. JJ is older than Emmett, and it seems that the younger the kid, the more difficult the portrait (at least for me). 

Kids' faces are still changing! Things are not quite where you'd expect them to be. The forehead on a child is different, in terms of how much space it takes up, than the forehead of an adult, for instance. The eyes seem to be spaced differently. The mouth is in a different spot than it seems to be in adults. None of these are huge differences, but they're all there, and they seem to matter.

Also, JJ's dad, our grandson John, is half-African American. So JJ is a quarter African-American, and has beautiful, caramel-colored skin. It's lovely to look at, but difficult to capture. This painting bears a passing resemblance to JJ, and it was a good effort. 

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Here's Peter in a hat Erika gave him for Christmas. The hat went to Afghanistan with a friend of Erika's, who is in the National Guard. I think it suits Peter to a T! 

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Dog of the Day

Met this girl at the vet a few weeks ago. She was not real happy to be there. 

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

"If people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery, it wouldn't seem so wonderful at all."

- Michelangelo

Emmett

Emmett

Gouache on canvas, 12x12

Before Christmas, I set out to make a portraits of our two great-grandchildren, one still-young grandson and a beloved cat who wandered off one night and was never seen again. 

And I decided to try gouache paints, which are basically very thick, opaque watercolors. Another artist who paints with a knife had suggested that I try them. He said they have the consistency of oils, and the depth of colors, but they dry quickly. 

I learned a lot from the experiment. The gouache paints are OK. I really don't like that they dry so quickly, though in this case, that was what I needed. Given my druthers, I like being able to go out the next day or even the day after that and still be able to change the paint. 

Painting people continues to be a challenge. This one looks a bit like Emmett - but also looks a lot like Clarence, my long-dead grandfather. But stay tuned. My people improve! 

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Busiest Gal in Town 

Wachapreague is so small that our mail is not delivered to the house. We have to go to the post office to pick up and send our mail. Jackie Zang is the postmistress, and she's great. She's funny and cheerful and careful, and she goes out of her way to be kind to me, a frequent mailer. 

Jackie had her hands full throughout December, and especially in the week leading up to Christmas, when our little PO received dozens and dozens and dozens of packages every day, as opposed to three or four. 

Jackie will be very happy when December comes to an end. 

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Dog of the Day

Met these three in South Norwalk, at a rainy show this summer. 

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A Final Thought

"Colour is my day-long obsession, joy and torment."

- Claude Monet

Summer's Almost Over

Summer's Almost Over

Oil on canvas, 16x16

Please click here to contact me for price and availability

September pulls up, quiet and steady and somehow unexpected, no matter how expected. Summer cruises along, and the days are hot and long and sunny and smooth, and all of a sudden, autumn is right alongside, its engine running soft and strong.

It's fueled by shorter days and longer nights, the papery dryness of leaves so very long on the limb. It shows in the lawn crunching  underfoot, and all the garden plants all leggy and thin and tired, no matter how bright their flowers. 

I made this painting from a photograph of my niece, Larkin, and her dog, Archie. The end-of-summer light gleams on the lawn, but an early dusk shades the thickness of the trees and lengthens the afternoon shadows. By next summer, Larkin will be taller, almost a teenager, and almost surely will never feel quite as free and unencumbered - though I hope, of course, that she will. 

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WE TOOK JOJO to the vet yesterday, and while there's not much clarity, we did get what might be the beginning of answers. She's very anemic, which could come about for any number of bad reasons. Her lungs don't look good, the vet said, though whether the problem is cancer or bronchitis or some other infection, that was unclear. 

We came home with several bottles of pills, and are to bring her back on Friday for a recheck. Thank you for all your good thoughts and wishes. It means a lot to Peter and me. 

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Dog of the Day

One of Cath Lenoci's beauties, waiting for something wonderful to happen. Thanks for sending her! Would you like your pet to be the Dog of the Day? Cats, birds, parrots, hamsters, all are welcome. Need not be of the canine persuasion! 

Send a jpg to me at carrieBjacobson@gmail.com

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A Final Thought

"Art is never finished, only abandoned."

- Leonardo DaVinci

Painting People - Like You!

Kathryn

Oil on canvas, 6x6

At the start of the year, I set a number of goals and challenges for myself. One was to learn to paint people, here in 2014. 

That's one of the reasons I accepted an invitation from a delightful young couple to paint their wedding reception AT their wedding reception, in early September. They approached me during a show in Maryland in the spring, and have to tell you that I did ask them if they were really looking at my paintings... and they said yes. 

I had just started thinking of painting people's faces, and had in fact pulled some faces off of Facebook, when my friend Kathryn, who is also a collector of my paintings (look behind her in the photo below), and a very talented painter herself, suggested that I ask blog readers to sen me selfies, and then paint them. 

So I'm asking! Please send me a selfie - I'll paint the first 30 or so that I receive. You'll have to bear with me as I learn and struggle and grow - but I promise it will be fun, or at the very least, interesting! 

You can send your photos to me at carrieBjacobson@gmail.com. Thank you in advance! 

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THIS WEEKEND, remember, it's the Wickford Art Festival! The show is Saturday, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. It's in the cute seaside town of Wickford, RI, and it's a fun show. Click here for more info. 

I'll be in Westport, CT, the following weekend, if you're closer to that end of New England... 

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Dog of the Day

My friend Tiffany, who also collects my paintings, sent this photo of Lizzy, her new dog. Lizzy is 11, and a sweetie. Tiffany and her family adopted Lizzy about six months ago, after the death of Xena. 

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

And as always, thank you for reading, and for supporting me in this new life!