Pond Pads

"Pond Pads"
14" x 11"
Pastel on canvas panel
I've painted this scene at least twice before. I love the dark shadows and the reflections in this pond. I've wanted to paint it with pastel, so now I have. It was as fun as I hoped it would be. 

I'm testing old subject matter and new alike, with my black canvas and hard pastels. I'm also wearing nitrile gloves to keep my hands from looking like a car mechanic's.  Oh, what fun!!

Carol

Brushstrokes@comcast. net
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Warm, Wet and Wild

"Warm, Wet and Wild"
6" x 6"
Oil on hardboard
Okay, it may be a bit suggestive, but what would you have titled the painting, if you had painted a couple dozen warm-weather water lilies in the wild?  Uh-huh.  I thought so. 

This is from a lake up in Wisconsin where my daughter's family has a summer cabin. It's the place where I get to kayak down close to the source.  It's about time to go there again… once the lake thaws.

Carol

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Sunday With Daniel

"Sunday With Daniel"
9" x 12"
Pastel on paper
I went with my painting pals to the Daniel Wright Woods again, but this time, instead of taking my oil paints, I brought a box of pastels and a pad of colored paper. I began painting on the textured side of a sheet and hated it. I untaped it, folded it and stuffed it into my Ed Hardy backpack.  I flipped the paper to the smoother side and redrew what I had already planned. The guys had a good head start on me, but I managed to finish all but a few waterlilies by quitting time.  

I'm enjoying pastels about as much as any medium I've tried.  Even though I've posted others, this is my second pastel painting.

Carol

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Daniel Wright Lilies

"Daniel Wright Lilies"
10" x 8"
Oil on hardboard 



















Daniel Wright offered a terrific variety of greens again today. But this week the waterlilies were visible from where I stood. I walked part way around the pond and found several other places where these aquatic ballerinas were pirouetting en masse.  

 The weather was, once again, perfect for our Sunday morning outing.  I'm getting a lot of practice painting clusters of trees.

Carol

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Waterlily Study

"Waterlily Study"
10" x 10"
Oil on hardboard
This is another DPW Challenge photo that I used to post on that site.  I struggle to paint from other people's photos, as they don't have the same outcome in mind that I choose when I shoot my photos.  Yet, I did it.

Now here's a tidbit for you.  I left about 50 primed panels in Iowa last week when was there. Yup, a whole tote full of them, PLUS the paintings I did while I was gone. In the confusion of leaving the WONDERFUL Andrew Orr workshop, my tote apparently became invisible and eluded my final gaze.  They are being shipped to me, so in the meantime, I'm using the few remaining panels I have in my studio to make my posting deadlines.  Sheesh!

Carol

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Serenity Pond II

"Serenity Pond II"
12" x 12"
Oil on wrapped canvas
I revisited this pond today—in paint only. It's quite frozen and gloomy in reality. Every feature that made it worth painting in the first place has died. Replaced by grey sticks, grey sky and grey ice.  No, it's no longer a place of serenity, but dread.  So I cheered myself by deceiving myself into a late summer mindset.  What harm is that?

The first time I painted this, besides using a smaller square format, I used a different palette of colors. It's not better or worse, just different.  I'm tempted now to enlarge it one more time to a 24" x 24" piece and do it in great detail.  I just may do that.

Carol

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"Lily Lake Revisited"
6" x 6"
Oil on hardboard
The banks of my darling Lily Lake were tidied since I last passed her curvy shoreline. Her trees were pruned, and some removed. The lilies, however, are still abundant off shore, as usual.  

Lily Lake has been and will continue to be subject matter as long as she contains water. I hadn't seen her in three months, so today when I passed, it was like visiting a ... friend.

Thank you for stopping by and visiting me today.
Carol

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Choppy Water

"Choppy Water"
6" x 6"
Oil on canvas
The storm hit and passed before I could leave, so I stayed and painted a couple more quick studies. The water lilies fared well; both blooms and their pads. Water rolled off the tops like they had been waxed, and then the sun came out. 

Lily Lake became turbulent before my eyes.  She's normally like a mirror.  It was interesting to see her roil and settle again. This thirty-minute sketch was one of several I did that morning.

I appreciate your calm presence here.
Carol

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It Feels Like—Home

"It Feels Like-Home"
12" x 12"
Oil on wrapped canvas

I've been thinking about water lilies, but my thoughts have migrated to the under-side of the pad. What goes on under there? Is there a small universe, a microcosm to which we dry folks are not privy?  Does it feel like—home to creatures we never see? 


I've wanted to paint from this photo for a while, but hadn't chosen a blue or a palette of greens.  Prussian, Viridian and cadmium yellows did the trick. Oh, and I sponged on the blue.

Thanks for visiting today.
Carol





Windy Peninsula

"Windy Peninsula"
8" x 10"
Oil on hardboard



The wind that afternoon floated me to interesting places without much effort. I sped past a bed of water lilies in full bloom, rendering their photos a blurred mess. But as I was ready to round this peninsula wind from two directions stopped me here in front of this narrow strip of land. 

I have a favorite brush for painting pine trees.  It's not particularly expensive, or of high quality like my British Rosemary & Co. brushes. Nor is it as inexpensive as my cut-up sponge pieces, yet it paints the limbs on pines with a finesse that I've sought for years.  

Thank you for drifting by today. 
Carol

Serenity Pond

"Serenity Pond"
6" x 6"
Oil on gessoed hardboard
I needed to come to clarity this morning, so I allowed my mind to travel to a place where I had found it easily before.  This little pond knows many of my secrets.   


I painted this with three brushes I've never used before, plus my Colour Shaper.  It seems to have worked.  I'm going to do another while I'm inspired!

Thank you for walking with me today.
Carol

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Little Lily Lake #2

"Little Lily Lake #2"
17" x 15"
Oil on panel 
I love this little lake!  I pass it every week and it's so close to the road, with an easy to access parking lot, that I stop to photograph it every time I pass.  The water lilies are on the shallow parts of the lake.  The fishermen are on the deep parts.  It's a still lake, so the sky is always looking at herself in this natural little mirror. 


Lily Lake is already and will continue to be subject matter.  I have photographed her in all her glory for a few years, and still find her to be compelling.

Thank you for pausing to take a look at my art.
Carol

DPW
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Water Lilies

"Water Lilies"
8" x 8"
Acrylic mixed media
In a world where lilies bloom in shades of sapphires and rubies, and their leaves are burnished in coppers and golds, tranquility is as common as sand.

I changed the color of the lily pads to match a particular copper paint I wanted to use, and the blooms went along for the ride.  I accepted their choice in the matter and accented the piece with a spiral sun-like swirl.

By the way, the "Adam's Grapes" painting was not spotted by my son.  He missed the opportunity to receive the piece as a gift from his ol' Mom.

Thank you for looking.
Carol

DPW
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View From the Bridge

"View From the Bridge"
16" x 20"
Oil on gessoed panel


The greens had become weary of themselves.  It had been a long season of verdant perkiness.  "Enough already," I heard the distant shoreline whisper, "let's get on with the show."

Fall at the Chicago Botanic Gardens is such a luscious departure from the spring and summer green that I find myself photographing the landscape more than the flowers come fall.

I thought this would be a nice painting on which to end the year.  Thank you for being nothing but kind to me as I've put my "stuff" out here on a daily basis, for almost six months.  I appreciate all of you. 


Carol