Ohio Farm Revisited

Ohio Farm Revisited
Oil on canvas, 12x24, $300

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My very first painting trip, in 2009, took me to Wisdom, Montana, the second-most beautiful place on Earth (the Eastern Shore earns the top spot). On the way out and back, I stopped in Ohio to paint. 

I was captivated by the land and the light near Sandusky, is in northwestern Ohio, on the shore of Lake Erie. There was a golden quality to that light, a warmth that seemed somehow contrary to what seemed like a thinness to the air. That shiny, golden light brightened the fields and the wide, flat plains of Ohio. It lighted the barns and the neat, orderly homes. The sunsets burnished and blazed on the fields of hay and wheat and alfalfa, which went on in rows forever.   

The quality of that light - brand-new to me - is  something I've come to know, here on the Eastern Shore. Its thinness comes from clarity and cleanness of the air. Its round, golden brightness comes in part from the extra bounce of light off the water. Here's it's the Atlantic, on one side, and the Chesapeake Bay on the other. There, it was Lake Erie. 

I made and sold a lot of paintings from that trip, but a few are still with me. This is one of them - or it was. Even then, I was experimenting with leaving parts of the canvas blank, and leaving pieces of the painting more or less unfinished, the structure and the drawing visible. 

And while I like that effect (the original painting is the smaller one, just above), I think that this painting is better finished, with the canvas filled up. What do you think? 

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MY BROTHER RECENTLY directed me to the blog written by friends of his, David and Kim Stringer. Click here to reach their Memory Stringer blog, which is filled with wonderful, amazing photos; David has his own blog of humor, which you can reach by clicking here.

I have a terrible memory, and so I like to get blogs delivered to my inbox. If I don't, I forget that they exist. It's awful, I know, but it is what it is. I noticed that, at the time, David and Kim didn't have a "subscribe" box, and so I wrote and suggested they add one. 

In conversations about how to do it, the question of comments came up, and it occurred to me that perhaps not all of you know how to post comments. So here's a tutorial. 

Scroll to the bottom of the blog post, and look for a link saying "X comments." In the photo above, it's "0 comments." To post a comment, click on that link. 

A new screen will open, containing a box in which you can make your comment, and a little doodad thing to prove to Blogger that you're not a robot. You put your comment in the box, obey the I'm-not-a-robot instruction, click "post comment," and there you go. 

If you'd like to read my brother's blog - his name is Rand Cooper, and he writes for Commonweal Magazine - click here, and then search for Rand. His posts cover a wide range of topics, from politics to politeness to movies and more. 

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Dog of the Day

Koko and Abby, the best of friends, are also maniacs and morons. The maniac quality, you can infer tell from the wreckage that surrounds them in our living room, in this photo. 

The moron quality you can infer from the fact that this morning, they ate a lightbulb. Or at least chewed it up. It was not a new-style bulb, thank heavens. And I don't know how much they actually ate, if any at all. I do know they broke it into little pieces and scattered it throughout the house. 

The vet said we should feed them right away, and that they probably would be fine. I have my fingers crossed, and would welcome any good thoughts or prayers any of you can send our way. 

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A Final Thought

"A work of art which did not begin in emotion is not art."

- Paul Cezanne

Fee, Fi, Fo, Fum

Fee, Fi, Fo, Fum

Oil on black canvas, 36x60

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I said I was going to paint bigger and bolder, and so I'm pleased to show you this new one! It's hard to get a feel for it on the computer here, but it's five feet across and three feet deep, so you can see how big the images of the cows are.

You might not be able to see very clearly in this photo, but there's a little house and red barn in the saddle of the hill under the mountain in the far distance. That helps give a little perspective, I think. Also, the sky on this one is really wonderfully rich and thick and swirly!

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For a few years now, a friend and I have exchanged photos of the sky nearly every day. It's a project I've grown to love. I really look forward to receiving her sky photos, and to taking a photo myself that says something. This was my photo from Jan. 1. I took it through the new window in my studio. It was about the 1,000th gray day in a row (well, that's what it felt like), and honestly, I hadn't taken pix for a few days. There's only so much you can do with unrelenting gray. The paperweight belonged to my mom, and reminds me of a crystal ball. 

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Dog of the Day

I met this guy at the SoNoArt show this summer; he's the dog of a nice couple 

who collect my art. Can't remember his name, but he was a great guy! 

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A Final Thought

"Have no fear of perfection. You'll never reach it."

- Salvador Dali

Koko - and Happy 2016

Koko

Oil on canvas, 12x12

Happy 2016, everyone! I hope you're feeling the new year beckon, with promises of possibility, whispers of hope, and the thrill of a new beginning. 

There's part of me that would like to say that there's no magic in the start of a new year, that every day is, in fact, the start of a new year, and that the whole celebration thing is artificial. 

But the fact is that the prospect of a new year, artificial or not, excites me! I love the sense of standing on the threshold, looking ahead, dreaming big dreams. And I hope you do, too. 

The appearance of Koko in our lives was one of the many blessings of 2015, and one that continues happily into 2016. Koko helped ease our sadness at the losses of Jojo and Zoe, and she has brought playfulness and energy and the sense of discovery back into our home. 

So, from Koko and me, Abby and Peter, Smokey and Woodreau, Samantha and Puffy, Happy New Year! 

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Dog of the (Hole) Day 

I used to think that the day after Christmas was Boxing Day, but apparently, here in Wachapreague, it's Hole Day. Abby and Koko spent it digging big, dumb holes in our poor yard. Oh, well. We can fill them in - or plant stuff in them! 

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A Final Thought

"The longer you look at an object, the more abstract it becomes 

and, ironically, the more real." 

- Lucian Freud

Good Day Sunshine

Good Day Sunshine

Oil on black canvas, 30x40

Please click here to email me for price and availability

Earlier in the year, I came to the conclusion that I must - must! - make paintings that are bolder, brighter, and even bigger than I've been making. And so, I am on my way. 

When you visit my tent this summer, you'll see fewer paintings on the walls. The colors will be more vivid. The images will be larger. 

 I'm going to concentrate on canvases that are 40x40, 40x60 and 20x60. I will have some 10x10s, and I believe I will have a small bin of paintings on panels and perhaps on paper, or canvas paper. But that's it. 

I will have to get my thick skin on, and be ready and willing to sit there and wait for the buyers to come along. There will be shows when I sell nothing. But that's OK. There are always shows where I sell nothing. My point in this will be to sell bigger paintings for bigger prices, and to stand out from the rest of the people at the shows. 

When I make smaller pieces - and I'm sure I will - they'll be available from me on line, and in some of my galleries. And I will always be happy to make smaller pieces on commission. 

So what do you think? Good idea? Bad one? Am I shooting myself in the foot? I'm interested in any and all feedback. 

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The other day, it was warm enough, even late in the afternoon, to hang laundry on the line. I did have to put it in the dryer for a few moments, but if it had had 30 more minutes on the line, it would have dried! Amazing. 

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Dog of the Day 

It's Koko, sitting pretty in the studio. Most days, she's still too much of a puppy to be a good studio dog. But every now and then, she has a spell of calmness and sits or sleeps out there. 

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A Final Thought

"There is no 'must' in art, because art is free." 

-Wassily Kandinsky

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