Neighbors - and Your Thoughts

Neighbors

Oil on canvas, 18x18

sold

Honestly, it's a little difficult to pinpoint why I love these empty paintings so much. First, I think, is the strength of the light. It is unimpeded by trees or hills or mountains or backgrounds. The light in the paintings is direct and bright, and the white of the canvas emphasizes that directness. 

Second, I think they appeal to me because they invite me, and anyone looking at them, to complete them. In your mind, it could be a sunny day, or the light could be coming underneath the clouds on a winter afternoon. There could be cars, or an ocean, or mountains in the background. There could be anything - and your mind and mood and spirit will supply that anything. 

I do like this one with the little bit of sky. 

Here's what some of you said. There are more comments on my Facebook page (click here to check them out). 

Galen  Like all art , it is an opinion. Does someone's opinion make it good/better? It is totally up to the artist.

Catherine

I like the painting, however, I don't like just bare canvas showing through - even a color wash ? would be preferable to ME!!!! Bonnie I don't think every painting has to touch  All sides and down to the frame  I leave some of my watercolors with A lot of white space.   I think it adds intrigue and makes the viewer wonder about  that white space  Ron van Gogh I didn't see a comment box on my screen, but for what it's worth, I really like this painting the way it is. Tiffany I love the houses. Can't tell there beach houses. It's kinda neat that you can put them anywhere. But I would not buy this painting. Heather I have to say that I really like the sketchy lines, and the whole thing is growing on me more and more.  I like the composition.  I like the extra space. Maxine I liked the painting..for me, you said what you wanted to say. Paula You are remarkable; loved the beach houses. It's finished. What's next?  *** Dog of the Day Muppet Ammenheuser lives in Nashville. His owners decided to get him, a purebred Bichon, after meeting our dog, Gus, about 17 years ago. *** Happy Birthday!  July 3 is my brother's birthday! Happy Birthday, Rand!  *** Don't forget the Amagansett Fine Arts Festival, coming up this weekend in Amagansett, NY!

Beach Houses - Finished? Unfinished?

Beach Houses

Oil on canvas, 24x24

sold

Those of you who've been following this blog for a while know that I've long had love affairs with "unfinished" paintings.  Click here to see a landscape that I left "unfinished," and here to see a cat I left "unfinished."

Interestingly, older female artist friends accosted me about both of these paintings, and I argued with them that the pieces were finished, and left them that way. 

This one, "Beach Houses," is the start of a series, I think. My idea is that where there IS paint, it will be heavy - but beyond what is absolutely necessary for the painting, there will be no paint, or just sketchy hints. My thought about this painting was that I would add a blast of swirly, heavy sky, at the horizon behind the houses - but then I got this far and thought that perhaps I should just leave it. 

So what do you think? Like it? Hate it? Think it screams for more paint, more finishing, more sky, more land? Or is it intriguing and inviting and minimal, just as it is? 

(That brings up something that's amused me for years. I was in a bookstore, when they still were plentiful, and saw a whole series of books about simplifying one's life. If the author knew what she was about, wouldn't there have been only one book?) 

Peter says he thinks this painting looks unfinished, and he really hates the blue sketchy lines. He says he'd like them better if they were tan. My friend, the remarkable painter Ronet Noe, says she likes this as it is and is sure someone will love it and buy it. 

Please click the comment box below to let me and other readers know what you think about this painting. I am truly interested. 

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Dog of the Day

What a face! I met this dog at the show in Frederick, and knew he was destined to be the Dog of the Day. Want your pet to be the DOD? Click here to send me a jpg!

All-Day Sunflowers - and tremors about Amagansett

All-Day Sunflowers

Oil on canvas, 24x24

sold

This weekend, I am enjoying being home, and painting with delight and anticipation for the show next weekend in Amagansett, NY. 

It's a show I am honored to be in. The work by other artists looks fantastic - so fantastic that it gives me tremors of fear: Will my paintings measure up? Will they appeal? Will they sell?

After a bout of soul-wrenching terror this morning, I've decided that the answer is YES - and to top it off, I think my paintings have a sense of fun and delight that I don't see in most other paintings.

Does that communicate itself? I think it does. I know it's what I feel when I paint - and I have heard person after person remark about it as they stand in my booth and look around.

That's the very best thing for me. If someone looking at a painting can feel the joy I felt when I was painting, then I've done what I've set out to do - and I am happy, and grateful. And confident!

For more about the show in Amagansett, click here. And if you have friends on Long Island, please suggest that they go!

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I lived in Boston for 10 years, and I know how crazy the drivers are there. Maybe it's because of signs like the one above, asserting that you're going both south and north at the same time. 

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Dog of the Day

Ah, Eunice. She might not be a dog, but she is the DOD today, enjoying herself on Smokey's bench. She is an old girl, 15 or so, and slowing down - but she has learned to enjoy life. 

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

My First Parrot - and Pooch-A-Palooza

 African Gray Parrot

Oil on canvas, 12x12, commission

So how DOES one paint a parrot? Well, after dancing around the question for a long time, and being scared about trying, I finally just dove in, deciding to paint a parrot the way I paint everything else.

And this brings up an interesting question: Is it harder to paint some things than others? An artist I respect greatly told me that it was just nonsense to think that way. If you can paint a dog, she said, you can paint anything.

I am not so sure. I can paint a dog, but I can't really paint, say, a Victorian mansion - at least not in any way that looks - to my eyes - like a Victorian mansion, with all that makes it Victorian and lovely.

The issue, at least to me, is one of detail and complexity, and my skill and interest in those aspects of painting. I'm just not interested in finding and taking on the most complicated thing I can paint. To a large degree, I'm interested in finding and taking on the most simple.

In my paintings, I am forever editing things out - windows, porches, chimneys, trees, bushes, telephone poles, collars, backgrounds, roads. I try to paint the simplest part of what is. The core of the thing, not the fancy edges.

Once, I tried to paint a falling-down mill building along a river in Rhode Island. I'd known the building when it was more or less whole, but by the time I painted it, the roof had fallen in, and parts of the building had disintegrated. My painting, to my eyes, was a failure. I painted what I saw - but what I had loved about the building, what had attracted me to it all those years ago, was its wholeness, its proud and simple stance at the very edge of the river. And that was no longer there.

So for me, I guess, at least now, I seek the iconic, the unchanging, the core. And in that regard, painting a parrot is much like painting a dog.

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POOCH-A-PALOOZA was fun, but not too profitable. Still, I saw lots of dogs, met lots of dog people, and had lots of time to sit and paint. And sweat.

Here's a shot from the event:

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BEFORE THE START of the show, I had the chance to spend time with my friends Cynthia Battista and Kevin Ireton, in New Milford, CT. Cynthia is a fantastic jeweler (click here to see some of her beautiful stuff), and Kevin is a wonderful writer and editor, and an amazing and careful carpenter.

I enlisted Kevin to revamp the van, make it smarter and more solid, and look what he did! All the long, difficult tent pieces go underneath a solid, strong floor, and everything else fits with astonishing ease, leaving me tons more space!

While we worked, one of their dogs, Zack, took a moment to study one of my paintings. Later, he told me how much he liked it, and that he was going to go home and measure his space to see if it would fit.

***

DURING THE SHOW, I stayed with another wonderful couple, Kathryn and Paul Yamartino, two of the nicest folks I've met on this journey. Kathryn is a talented painter with amazing marketing ideas for artists, and Paul is a great guy and really good cook, and they and their three happy dogs welcomed me for the weekend.

The Dog of the Day is Kaya, who spent a lot of time with me while I was there, including snuggling with me on the first night. She is one of the sweetest dogs ever!

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

Jilly - & Summer, & a Podcast with Yours Trooly

Jilly

Oil on canvas, 12x12, commission

The hot afternoon had rolled into dusk, humidity kicking up in its wake. To the east, over the ocean, the solid gray sky had cracked in places, showing blue. But in the field beyond our yard, a line of heavy, tropical rain made its way toward us. 

Peter called me, and we stood in the doorway and watched it head across the field. It approached as a grayish line, looking almost like a living thing - a herd of deer, a flock of geese. The torrents slammed and bounced off the ground, and we could hear it coming, and then in an instant, the rain was pounding on the doorstep, soaking us, soaking everything, and passing then just as fast. 

Summer starts on Friday, but it felt to me that it rolled in with this downpour, sudden, tropical, refreshing. 

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ON TUESDAY, I had a fantastic opportunity to do a podcast with Connie Mettler, on Art Fair Insiders, a site that would interest any artist - or fair-goer. Connie had read about the "Tubac and Back" trip, and thought it was an interesting idea. 

She invited me and a wonderful artist named Scott Coleman to talk about our other-than-art-show projects. Among Scott's many ideas and achievements, he did a project that involved painting a cupcake a day (well, six a week) for a year.  They are just fantastic! 

You can hear the podcast by clicking here. Here's the actual link, too: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/artfairs/2013/06/18/art-fair-alternatives--part-i-two-painters

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Dogs of the Day

These two were in a little carriage at the Boardwalk show in Virginia Beach. 

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

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DOG LOVERS! If you're in New England, please come this weekend to Pooch-A-Palooza in Canton, MA. It promises to be a weekend of dogs, dog-related stuff, dog-related fun, and who knows what else? 

Click here for more info! 

Texas Morning - and the Virginia Beach Roller Coaster

Texas Morning

Oil on canvas, 24x36

Please contact me for price and delivery information

The Boardwalk Art Show at Virginia Beach ended up well for me - but it was a real roller coaster. The wind blew hard again on Sunday, so hard that I had to take paintings down, and move large paintings close to the floor - a bizarre look, but necessary. 

Most of all, I am glad it's over! And I'm looking forward to Pooch-A-Palooza, this weekend in Canton, MA. If you're in the area, please come by. And I expect you can bring the dogs, too! 

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SOMETIMES I FORGET to talk about why I love the paintings I've made, or why I made them in the first place. It occurred to me that while I told you all that I really love "Reflections,"  I didn't ever say why. 

I've never wanted to be the kind of painter who replicates reality. I like seeing works by painters like that, and I am always amazed by their skill. But I want to make paintings - not photographs.

I have a natural tendency toward realism, but I like to push it towards abstraction. It's fun for me to work abstract bits and pieces into my paintings. Purple cows, blue trees, mosaic skies. 

I have tried and tried to make good abstract paintings - and they have been pretty uniformly terrible. So I love "Reflections" because it is pretty abstract - and also realistic. This painting was a leap for me, and it is a signal that there's something new coming in my work. And for that alone, I love it. 

I also love the painting at the top of this blog. The cows themselves were amazing, the morning was brilliant and hot and clear, and that tree alone was worth the detour from the highway. In this painting, I like the bulk of the cows and the twisty curve of the tree - and that one blue cow in the background, staring. 

How about you? 

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Dog of the Day

This Maltese pup is about the cutest dog EVER!!!

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

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Hahahaha

                                                        How can you not love this guy?

Tilghman Fall - and a Harrowing Show

Tilghman Fall

Oil on canvas, 16x20

Please contact me for price and delivery information

This is a painting I began years ago, on a wonderful painting trip to Maryland. I had gotten about 90 percent through the piece when absolute exhaustion overtook me, and I stopped, knowing where I was going, and figuring I could finish up when I got home. 

Well, I never did. 

A couple weeks ago, I found the painting and finished it. I added some stuff, changed the house, altered the sky, fooled with the light. 

There is a point at which, I realize, I stop trying to make the piece look like whatever it is - a dog, a tree, a landscape - and I shift to making it look like a good painting. This comes at different points in each piece. This time, it came a couple years later. 

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THE BOARDWALK ART SHOW has been good - but harrowing. 

Set-up was Wednesday, and it was brutally hot. I know there have been issues with vandalism, so I set up the tent, but didn't put any work in until Thursday morning.

Again, it was hot. Torrid. Blistering. Ninety-seven degrees - and with storms in the forecast. 

At about noon, the organizers sent word around that the show would close early because of the weather. I took all my paintings down, packed them away in the van, and added buckets of sand to my already heavily weighted tent. 

My tent held in the 60-plus-mph wind that tore through the Oceanfront - but 33 others did not. The storm ripped them apart, tumbled them into the ocean, tore them to pieces, and demolished work that artists had left inside. 

Friday, the blow continued, and the tent shook and strained while paintings flapped and slapped and slammed against the walls, and the rugs puffed up in unstoppable waves. 

But today, Saturday, was excellent, in terms of weather, and people and sales. So - yay! And Sunday is another day. 

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I DID NOT WIN a prize from the judges in the show, but I still have a chance. If you get this before noon on Sunday, please click here to vote for me for the People's Choice award. It's an honor, and it comes with $1,000, and YES I AM A SHAMELESS HUSSY!!! 

I am in Booth 2423.

Thanks! 

 Here's my booth at the show

And here's me, featured in the booklet that people walking the show use to find their way! 

Here's me in ANOTHER new hat

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Dog of the Day

For some reason, I seem to think that all the dogs I took photos of were named Oliver. Maybe I am just tired.

This little bichon, Oliver or whatever his name is, was sweet and happy and loving and full of joy and mischief!

Want your dog to be the Dog of the Day? Send me a jpg!