Poppies No. 5 - and Driving on the Shore

Poppies No. 5

Oil on canvas, 30x30

sold

While there's a part of me that does get tired of driving long distances to shows, most of me - I do admit! - kind of loves it. 

Every journey is an adventure, even if it involves going to a place I've been before. There's always something new to see, something interesting to ponder, something fresh that I might like to paint. And even though I've complained about driving through Texas, driving TO Texas seems different. 

I've never been to Houston, never seen Galveston and Padre Island and that whole south-coastal part of the state. I'm going to camp in the van at a state park down there for the week between the shows, and I'm really looking forward to it. 

And honestly, I'm looking forward to the whole experience, driving south, and then heading west. Who knows what I will see? It will be an adventure for sure. 

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ONE OF THE THINGS I enjoy, driving around the Eastern Shore, is seeing the HUGE pieces of farm equipment that are also driving around the Eastern Shore. They are really something, these machines. 

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Dog of the Day

He's a new dog in town, and I think his name is Sweetiepie. 

He's a very hairy poodle, who was absolutely frantic to say hello. 

Rouge Bouquet - and Patty's Fabulous Pet Portraits

Rouge Bouquet

Oil on canvas, 18x18

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

I've always loved paintings that seem to outline their subjects in a dark color. Vincent Van Gogh did it sometimes. A whole group of contemporary artists take this approach, including Jessie Mackay, an artist I discovered during the Piedmont Plein Air Paintout.

It's not outlining, actually, but is the canvas showing through the gaps.  You get it either by buying black canvases, or by using black gesso on your canvases, or by toning your canvases with oil or acrylic paint.

Lots and lots of painters tone their canvases, and one of the reasons they do is to have a color show through the nearly inevitable gaps and skips in the paint. I used to tone my canvases, but have avoided tit for years, for lots of reasons.

For starters, it's more work, and it requires planning and waiting. That paint needs to be dry before you go painting on top of it. You can pick one color and tone all your canvases that color, but according to People Who Know, different colors work better under different paintings. So when I tried this the first time, I tried a variety of colors - and nearly inevitably, the canvas I wanted to use was toned in a color I didn't want to use.

Also, and most important, I believe that the bright white canvas makes the paint colors brighter. Whatever light gets through the paint bounces on white and illuminates the colors more clearly than it would, were the canvas toned.

But I decided to try it again, on black. I do like the black canvas for the depth it brings to shadows and to the dark places. And I have to admit, I really, really like the black outlines around these zinnias.

So I will try some toned canvases, and some more black ones - but my guess is that I will continue to prefer the plain, bright, white, untoned canvas. We shall see!

I'd love to hear any ideas or comments or experience from you! Painters, do you tone your canvases? If so, what color? Buyers and viewers, do you see any difference? Do the differences matter? Please let me know!

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MY FRIEND PATTY KIERSTEN lives in Warwick, NY, and is a dear person and a fabulous painter. She and her husband, a photographer, opened their studio to the public last weekend, and Patty put many of her pet portraits on display. Aren't they wonderful? You might have to click on the photo to see them more closely. 

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DONT' FORGET about An Occasion for the Arts, this weekend in Williamsburg. I'm in Booth A8, on the Duke of Gloucester Street. Yes, I know, it is supposed to rain on Saturday morning, and be freeeezing on Sunday - but it will add to the fun and adventure! The show takes place from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. both days. See you there! 

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Day's End for Days Inn

I SAW THEM hauling the sign away a couple days ago. I haven't been back to see what hotel chain bought the hotel. When we arrived here, it was a Quality Inn. Then it was a Days Inn. Now?

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Dog of the Day

I saw this guy in High Point, NC, last weekend. His human said he was part chow, part German shepherd. We had a dog of the same mix, Kaja, and she looked a lot like this, except that she was red with black markings, like a shepherd. 

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

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THANKS FOR READING! Your support, comments and friendship mean a great deal to me. I'd never be doing this if it weren't for YOU! 

Zinnias - and a Mean Town

Zinnias

Oil on canvas, 30x30

Please contact Lori at Center Framing & Art for price and delivery/shipping/pickup info! 

These zinnias are my newest experiment in florals. The paint is thick and deep and rich, and the colors just sing. I had a great time painting them, and I'm honored to have them displayed so prominently at Center Framing and Art in West Hartford Center, CT! 

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ON MY WAY to Indiana, I drove along the so-called National Freeway, Interstate 68 from Maryland into West Virginia. It was a scary drive, because the highway climbs way up into the mountains, and the clouds were so low that, until I crossed the summit, it was like driving in the thickest fog I'd ever seen. 

Just before I got onto I-68, I left the highway to get gas. I found myself in the town of Hancock, MD. This little town really got me thinking. 

Like so many of the towns in that area, it's built on a series of hillsides. And it was probably built when mining was big. That would be my guess, at any rate. 

I couldn't get back onto the highway near the exit where I got off, so I had to drive through the town to return to the highway. The more I drove, the worse I felt for the people who lived there. 

It's not that it was a terrible, dilapidated town. It wasn't a ghetto, or a testament to poverty. I've seen those towns, and they are sad. But this, this was sadder, in a way. It was a town with no future. The thought that this was a mean town came to me - not that the people are mean, though they might be. But the town itself is mean, in what I'd guess is the Victorian sense of the word. 

I compared Hancock to other small towns I've known and lived in, including Wachapreague, and found myself returning again and again to the idea that the town was so mean that it would be next to impossible for anyone to dream of much more than leaving - and even that would be a stretch. 

The experience, though brief, hit me hard. And it left me feeling grateful that I didn't grow up in a place like that, and never had the misfortune to live in a place like that. 

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Shows, shows and more shows! 

The zinnia painting (I love it!) along with a whole bunch of my best paintings, are on display right now, and for sale, at Center Framing & Art in West Hartford, CT. That's the window, below. 

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Also this week, I brought work to the Denison Pequotsepos Nature Center, in Mystic, CT. Elissa Bass and I had a fun time hanging my teeny paintings and some larger ones, too. The photos below show how it came out. The show will be up through July! 

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And I have two new pieces at Art Gallery H in Tubac, AZ. Here's Audrey Hoffmann, one of the owners, sitting in the midst of my paintings. The new paintings  are on the wall 

closest to  the sunflower painting. 

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I WILL BE in Annapolis, MD, this weekend for the Annapolis Arts, Crafts and Wine Festival, which takes place at the Navy-Marine Corps Stadium. 

Don't know my booth number yet, but I'll post it here when I do. 

THE FOLLOWING WEEKEND, I'm in the New Milford Historical Society Arts Festival, with my friend, the fabulous jeweler Cynthia Battista. It should be a fun show, and I always love seeing Cynthia and Kevin, and their dogs Zack and George. 

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Dog of the Day

Met this guy - a youngster, four months old! - in a parking lot in Pawcatuck, CT. 

He might look fierce, but he was a dear.