Guest Room on a Snow Day

Guest Room on a Snowy Day, 8 x 10",  Oil on Canvas, by Tracy Feldman

Watercolor sketch for this oil painting.

Here is the oil painting I said that I'd create the earlier watercolor sketch I did of my guest room. 

I like both, but I prefer the texture and value range I was able to capture using oils. I also love the way the snowy day view outside the window came. Notice that I added some of the brick colors in the bedspread. Doing that helped visually tie the piece together and using a warmer hue in the foreground also helped draw the side of the bed closer to you. It was that image that initially captured me and inspired me to create a painting. 

I wanted to paint this piece because of how that beautiful snowy view contrasted against the still, formality of the bedroom.  The composition brought to mind Van Gogh's "Bedroom in Arles", and I thought it would be fun to capture the feel of that piece. He used oils, so maybe that is another reason I prefer my oil of the same scene.

What is funny to me is when I went on-line to see Van Gough's work, I realized that while both have a bed, paintings, and a window, they are very different.  But, even so, they still give me a similar feeling. 

Today I am posting this little oil on auction in my daiypaintworks.com gallery.  So, if it appeals to you, check it out.  For the first three weeks, it will be listed on auction -- starting at $25.  After that, I'll list it for sale at its normal, higher, on-going price. 

The Best Laid Plans

Guest Room on a Snowy Day, watercolor on drawing paper, 8 x 10."
by Tracy Feldman

It's funny how things work out sometimes.  Today I opened the door to our guest room and saw such a beautiful snowy scene out the window that I had to paint it right then. 

 Unfortunately, I started with the bed area first and part way through realized that almost none of the view out the window would fit on the page. 

The view that inspired today's work.

 I still like the piece, but I took a photo of what inspired me, so you don't totally miss out on what inspire me.  

I am thinking about painting a small oil of my guest room and putting it up for sale in my dailypaintworks.com gallery.  I think the texture would add another dimension to the work, and  I don't like how the whites of the sheets turned out.  

Day Two of Binghamton Hillside

Binghamton Hillside, Day II, Oil on Canvas, Tracy Feldman

The other day, I posted my initial underpainting for my newest piece, and I said that I'd post images in progress.  Here  is the second one.  Putting down the macro-pointillist dots to create the shadow areas looks interesting.  I needed to stop, however,  to allow the paint to dry before adding the next layers.

Binghamton Hillside In Watercolor

Binghamton Hillside in Watercolor, 13.75 x 10" Watercolor on Paper
 by Tracy Feldman

For the last 20 years, almost every summer begins in our household with us attending a group theory conference (my husband is a math professor).  This year it was held at  Binghamton University in Vestal, New York.

 It might seem like I'd find it boring to tag along to such events, but we've been going for 30 years, and so we've made a lot of friends over the years with whom it is fun to visit in the evenings.

Sometimes the days can be less interesting. This year wasn't -- partially because I brought some art supplies so I could do some plein air painting.

This is one of the pieces I created.  It's an abstracted, almost macro-pointillist painting of the view from our window as the sun rose behind the building.

Underpainting for
Binghamton Hillside in Oils

I love the bands of dark and light and color. I think it unifies the painting and gives it movement.

 I like the image so much, I'm using it as a basis for a larger oil I've started  today.

The underpainting for the oil is here, and over the next little while, I will include images of it as this new Binghamton Hillside (but in oils this time) comes to completion.  

In case you are interested in purchasing the watercolor, like with many of my small works, I'm making it available to buy at auction in my Daily Paintworks gallery.  And, as is typically the case, I'm going to start the bidding at much less than I'll charge at a show or on my website ($25). So, check it out.

The Pride of Chelsea

The Pride of Chelsea, 8 x 10", Acrylic on Canvas, Tracy Feldman

I love doing work that has a twist, or at least more than one way of reacting to it.  This is another small painting that was inspired by our recent trip to Michigan.  Chelsea is a small town that was close to where I spent my summers when I was a child.  When we were little, and we were visiting from New York, Chelsea seemed a lovely, sleepy little town that we'd visit if we were sick (the doctor was there) or for a treat (the soft ice-cream place was there) or to compete in its annual town fair.  
 
It also is the home of a home of Jiffy corn bread mixes.  I never noticed the plant when I was a kid because there were so many other places to look.  But, as an adult, I discovered that the humble little corn bread mix that I have used so many times always was made there, and still is to this day.  Considering how many manufacturing jobs Michigan has shed gives this little plant even more pride of place in this town than it ever had -- even after Chelsea got a dusting of Hollywood when the actor and Chelsea native Jeff Daniels opened The Purple Rose theater and the Chelsea Grill in town.  That's partially why I named this work The Pride of Chelsea.  The second reason for the name comes from the car I included in the foreground.  It's my impression of a Corvette that was passing in front of the plant when I was taking the reference photos for this work.  Michigan is such a car state because Ford and General Motors and Chrysler (and all their sub companies) dominated employment in that state.  Thus Michigan folk are even more likely than the average American to be car buffs, and owning something like a classic Corvette tends to be a major source of pride.  Look at the outline of the driver in this car, even if there's almost no detail: the casual drape of the left hand over the steering wheel and the lounging posture of the driver seem to me to shout, "I am so cool (or at least my car is)".

But, the subject of the painting wasn't the only reason for this piece.  I love the classic one-point perspective where the lines of the buildings and the railroad track all go to a single vanishing point.  I hope you enjoy.  I'd love to hear your impressions.

 As I always do with my small works on this site, I am making this piece available for sale (by bid or direct buy) from my gallery on Daily Paintworks.com.

Beach Inspired Abstract 1

Zentangles Down To The Beach 1- by Tracy Feldman,
11 x 14", acrylic on canvas 

I've decided to start a series of small abstracts inspired by the shapes that one sees when going to the beach.  While they are finished pieces in and of themselves, painting them will give me an opportunity to explore whether I should use them to create larger works based on them.

Beach Inspired Abstract 1 is inspired first by the sand fences we use on the east coast of the US for erosion control.  I have always loved the way the fence slats divide the space and how they create many different little vignettes between them.  For this work, however, I created a painting by simplifying  the form in general (note the lace of shadows), by playing with the color, and by adding zentangle-like elements to the large linear patterns on the abstracted slats.  I hope you enjoy it.  This piece will available through auction in my dailypaintworks gallery.  Check it and my other pieces there.  Also, tell me what you think of this piece.  Do you think it's something I should recreate in a larger format? 

I'll continue my "Dipping into and out of abstraction" discussion later in the week.

Daily Painting -- Oh, You Nut ... hatch

Oh, You Nut ... hatch
Watercolor on canvas
10 x 8"

 Late this winter, I took a number of pictures while on a day out in Lancaster County, and I posted them on this blog and on my Facebook page.  I asked people what they wanted me to paint some day.  I got a number of responses about what people liked, and then promptly got too involved doing business-related things on the web to remember to do that.  Yesterday, I was thinking, "What to paint today?", and I remembered my commitment.  So I looked over the pictures people said that they liked, and this is the result.

This picture is of a white breasted nuthatch hanging from a pine limb at the Lancaster County Central Park. I love watching these natural acrobats zip up and down, and around and around a tree. They're easily distinguished from other small birds because they hang upside down as they quickly circumnavigate the tree to unearth bugs underneath the bark.  I think this behavior of acrobatically arching away from the tree is their way of getting a general look around.

Shuts Enviromental Library
Lancaster County Central Park

For people who are interested in how I make compositional decisions when I paint -- particularly starting with photo references, I've provided the two photo references I used to create this piece.  I'll share the process I went through with this little painting.

I looked over what people said they liked and thought would make interesting paintings.  I also considered comments they offered.  A couple of people liked the pictures of the nuthatch, but when looking at it, I agreed with one comment that said the background was dull.  If you look at the photo of the nuthatch below, you'll see what I mean. The colors are dull and their values too close to that of the bird to be as eye catching as I wanted.

Original of nuthatch

   I quickly realized that a logical alternative background   would be one located within the Lancaster County Central Park where this nuthatch shot was actually taken.

I chose the long view of the park's environmental library (pictured above) as the new background because it was interesting, but also distant enough to remain secondary to the nuthatch in the painting.  If you notice, I chose to paint building and its surroundings in softer focus, and with paler hues than the original to keep viewers focused on the bird.  I also slightly altered where the little evergreen branch was in the foreground, and placed my signature in a way that visually linked the tree limb and the little branch.  In so doing, I provided a visual path down the limb, along my signature, up the branch to the nuthatch.

I'd welcome any comments or suggestions about this -- or future work. If you want to look into purchasing this piece, go to my gallery page on Dailypaintworks.com

Day 1 of Tracy's Daily Painting Project

Welsh Landscape 1 -- watercolor on canvas 10 x 8" (20.3 x 25cm)

Before I started doing this painting project, I reviewed lots of other artist's work to get a better idea of where I wanted to go with this, and how I wanted to handle things.  I saw a lot of great work, and realized,  when looking at different people's sites, I came to understand

that there are many ways to do daily painting "right." 

For instance, some painters truly clearly felt compelled to produce a painting each day. Others were comfortable, instead to commit to creating a fixed number of paintings a week.  Some restricted themselves to working only from life. Others also looked to  photo reference and/or their own imaginations for inspiration.  Some marketed their work on one source, and other's took a broader marketing approach.  Some limited themselves to 30 minutes or less to paint: , others didn't.

No matter what their commitments about how they would work, the daily painters had something really important that united them:  a belief that submitting themselves to the discipline of producing work so consistently over a long period of time would help them grow as artists.  

Craig Nelson, the author of one of my favorite painting boos,  60 Minutes To Better Painting, called doing this giving yourself "brush mileage."  Like Nelson encouraged his readers to do, daily painters see these little daily paintings as serving a purpose different from their larger, finished work.  The process used to produce them is at least as important as the look of the finished works themselves.  I love that idea.

I look forward to using this year to increase my observational, painting, and composition skills as each painting increases my own personal brush mileage.  However, I'm following the folk who produce 3 to  (ideally) 5 new paintings a week.  I'm not committing myself to a set time to do the work because I accept that working quickly is a skill that I'm still in the process of learning. I am, however, going to restrict the size of these pieces I produce.  The works I create must be able to fit in one of the USPS priority mail boxes.  Doing that will make shipping more affordable for buyers and myself.  Thus, none of the pieces will be larger 12 x 14" (30 x 35 cm), and most will be smaller.   For instance, today piece is 8 x 10.  Finally,  I'm planning to produce work in a variety of media because that is something I've always loved to do, and I've been restricting almost exclusively to oil painting in the last year.

Although I really like the idea of working from life,  I'm going to be one of those folk who uses a variety of inspirations for my paintings.  I'm doing this because I have all types of photo references, etc. that I've gathered over the years that I would have loved to tackle.  Now, I have an excuse to do that, and I'm thrilled.  That being said, I'm going to do at least one painting a week from life also because since I normally do paint from photo references, I know can use practice working from life.

Today's painting, Welsh Landscape 1, is based on a watercolor sketch I did years ago when we first visited Wales.  Wales holds a special place in my heart because an English travel agent tried to discourage my husband and me from visiting there -- dismissing the Welsh as unfriendly and strange. As Americans, my husband and I decided that we wanted to make up our own minds, and we are so glad that we did.  We found the people to be warm and friendly, and much of the landscape beautiful and dramatic.  For that reason, my earlier sketch held a special place in my heart.  However, I had just starting to paint, so the materials I used weren't as archival as I use now, and I'm thrilled by the opportunity to revisit the topic.  I'll probably revisit again later in the year as my skills doing fast, small works grows.

I'd love your feedback on this piece and on the way I've decided to approach my own daily painting project.