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.

Crown of Crocus -- Springtime in my Garden

Crown of Crocus - 10 x 10" Watercolor on Canvas board by Tracy Feldman

This little watercolor on canvas board is a celebration of spring --when it finally decided to grace my garden.

The fall before these lovely little flowers emerged from the winter soil, I had rearranged the planting bed they were in. Clearly, I hadn't realized that the crocus bulbs were under the rearranged rock border.  What a delightful surprise then when they pushed the rock aside just enough to emerge.

This image really appeals to my Reality With a Twist sensibilities. The oval rock reminds me of a stylized head, and the crocuses (and their vegetation)  look like a crown (and hair) gracing the rock.  As soon as I saw it, I knew I'd eventually paint it, and knew too what it would be called. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did painting it.  I'd love to know what you think.

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 ($35). So, check it out.

Peaceful Day for Lucky & Techno Troubles for Tracy

Peaceful Day For Lucky - 11 x 14", Watercolor on Canvas by Tracy Feldman

I'm so glad that I'm I'm back to posting on my blog.  I have been working for months to change my art website: converting it from a pure gallery site to a sales and gallery one.  Boy, does that take more work and knowledge to do it well than I ever imagined.  Fortunately I had gotten some initial advice on doing it from Cory Huff of the Abundant Artist, and my graphic artist sister, Danni O'Brien has been working with me and holding my hand as I've faced various challenges.

As a newbie to website design, I assumed that getting on a hosting platform and buying the services of a website building program (I'm using iPage and Weebly) would allow me to get a great site up and running in no time. How wrong I was.  Perhaps I would have been correct if I only had a few pieces, or worked in a very limited range of standard painting sizes. But my sister helped me realize that without first figuring out a logical organizational structure for the site, the galleries, the pages, etc. would have resulted in my site being a confusing, hot mess to visit.  And that is a formula for scaring visitors off, not for converting visitors to buyers.  So, I've worked with her to better the techno aspects of doing things.  I also have had to write descriptions of paintings, and work on figuring out all of the techno details, hoops that one has to jump through before selling online is even possible. I've had to learn new terms and to think about how to get paid, and what to do about shipping works that can be very large.  Boy, that involved more techno details than I originally thought. And, when it is done and up, I'm going to have to get much better than I am at the techno details of art promotion. Thank God there are people out there to help, like Cory, and Danni, and my friends,  Deb Watson and Tony Crocamo, and all sorts of helpful web advice about doing that.  I'll keep you guys posted about where I am on this.

During the months I've been doing this work, I've actually  been painting quite a bit, but not even posting the small pieces on my Daily Paintworks website because I felt guilty taking time to do that when the website still wasn't done.  Recently, I've come to realize that was not a logical thing to do.  So, on April 19,  I decided I needed to start posting on my blog and putting my small works back up again on the Daily Paintworks site for auction. That will give folk, I figure, a chance to get my pieces for maybe less than they will pay when I finally post them in the Small Works Gallery of my website.  But, when I went to do that, I ran into techno problems because I had converted from a personal to business PayPal account (in order to do sales on my website).  That required me to reauthorize Daily Paintworks to register sales for me.  I worked with the folk at PayPal and David Marin at Daily Paintworks for over a week to solve the problem, and I discovered something important that I want to share here.  Pop-up windows may be a pain when unscrupulous sellers hijack your monitor.  However, they are key to enable if you want to take full take advantage of the features of sites you actually do want to deal with.  So, if you click on a button in a site and it doesn't seem to work, do this before calling the site's techno support.  Check the preferences in Safari (or whatever browser you use) and if pop-ups are blocked, authorize them and go back and check on the faulty-seeming button.  I humbly can share that that might save you lots of time I wasted for myself (and others) this week.

What about today's painting?   I started painting "Peaceful Day for Lucky" at my friend Deb Watson's house.  She's a wonderful watercolor artist.  I hadn't remembered to bring anything for reference material, and she suggested I search through some of her reference photos, and one of those images evolved into this work. I loved the peaceful feeling I got from the scene.  It reminded me of scenes I'd seen many times in the west of Ireland. but the contrast and coloring were too similar in the photo.  So, I simplified the composition and adjusted the lighting and coloring to make the horse stand out.  I am very happy with the result, and I hope you are too.  I'd love to hear what you think.

As usual, I'm going to put the piece in my Daily Paintworks Gallery, so if you're interested in it, check out the auction there. I'm starting it at $50, but if it's still around after the auction I'll raise the price to what I"d normally sell my small works for ($100+ -- the actual price will depend on the work's size, media, and whether it is framed or not).

Litchfield Birds

Litchfield Birds - 11 x 14" - Watercolor on Canvas by Tracy Feldman

Boy, it's been a long time since I've posted on this blog.  I've been  working on a big commission and redesigning my art website.  The latter has turned out to be much more complicated than I thought it would be. But I realized I missed blogging, and posting things on my DailyPaintworks site, so I have been working on small pieces to post here and there.

This painting was inspired by our March trip to the Litchfield Beach Resort in South Carolina.  Not only did we have a place overlooking the ocean, but the resort grounds were beautiful and filled with wildlife.  On one of our evening walks we ran across this pelican and Snowy Egret taking in the evening sun.  For compositional reasons, I added a Great Egret landing on the lawn behind the pelican.  As in the past, I'm  going to post it on the DailyPaintworks Website on Auction.  I'm going to start the bidding at $50, and if no one buys it at auction, I'll raise it to its normal price ($150) and put it in the Small Works gallery on my new website.  Hope you enjoy it.

Arvgarden B&B

Arvgarden B&B, 6 x 12" Oil on Canvas by Tracy Feldman

I just completed this little oil painting today.  It's of a lovely B&B we stayed in this summer when we were vacationing with Arny's sister and brother in law (Elaine and Larry).  It's in Wellsboro, PA.  We were in the area to visit what we in Pennsylvania like to call the Grand Canyon of PA.

I love the story of how the place got its name: Arvgarden.  The couple who started it  told their children they were moving from Philadelphia to the rural place were the mother had grown up to build a Swedish style home on a farm that they'd use as a B&B.  The response they got was, "OK, but you're spending our inheritance", so the couple decided to name their place Arvgarden -- which means "inheritance farm" in Swedish.  It is so cool that they made a private joke out of the name.

   I hope you enjoy this piece as much as we enjoyed staying there.  As usual, I'm going to put the piece in my Daily Paintworks Gallery, so if you're interested in it, check out the auction there.

On the Motivation and Joys of Painting with Friends

In my Studio, October 28, 2014

My husband, Arny, got a new iPhone 6+ and to see how good its camera was,  he came down and took a shot of me in my studio painting.

    I'm working on a small oil that I'll talk about later.  It's one of three small works I'm wanting to have in good shape before tomorrow -- when I'm having a painting date with a friend.  My friend is Deb Watson,  a wonderful artist and teacher. Check out her webpage to see her work, and get great watercolor painting tips, and lessons.  

     We have known each other for years, but we hadn't talked in a while.  She is a real go-getter, and her career reflects that.  I reconnected with her a couple of weeks ago, after my opening because I wanted to she how she was doing and get inspired by her energy and enthusiasm.  As usual, talking painting with her was a blast, and reenergized me.  She too seemed to have a good time.

    While she does oils, she's primarily a master watercolorist -- my original love in painting. She has done some work in oils, but not as much as I, so we'd thought it would be fun to set up a regular painting time where we could do our own work, and benefit from the enthusiasm and skills of the other.

     Last week was our first meeting.  We met in her studio, and talked a lot about stuff she is thinking about, then I sat down and did some sketches for a couple of little paintings.  Although I didn't get any farther that day, it inspired me to work on stuff this week, and I've almost completed the two works I started, and today began a third one.  Although I'd been painting abstracts recently, Deb's work has inspired me to return to my original love, realism, this week.   I think we're going to play with oils, but maybe she'll need to work on her watercolor stuff.  Either way, I am really looking forward to painting with another artist, I always find it increases my motivation and creativity.

    The picture you can see me working on is a little oil of a wonderful farmhouse B&B we stayed in with my sister and brother in law (Elaine and Larry) in August.  It's called the Arvgarden B&B in Wellsboro, PA.  We loved it, and loved using it as our base of operations so we could explore Pennsylvania's version of the Grand Canyon.  I'll put it up later today and make it available on my Paintworks website for auction and sale -- and later in the week I'll do the same with the two other small works I've been working on.  Look for them.

     I

Breaking Patterns by Making Art

        This weekend was the opening of my art show, New Works Big and Small by Tracy Feldman.  I was there for my opening and also for Lancaster's Art Walk.  There were lots of people at the opening and OK traffic during the Art Walk event.  I sold some small pieces, and had a good time, and got a lot of positive feedback. The show stays up all month, but I didn't sell any of my big pieces over the weekend.

The Topology of History, 32.5 x  26", Oil on Canvas
by Tracy Feldman (& Myra Hichcock)

    In the past that typically has led to an emotional letdown that undercut my willingness to do any art for at least a month -- not a very good pattern for a working artist.  So, when a friend (Harriet) came to the show, and we talked about the Reclaimed Series,  I got an inspiration of a way to short circuit that pattern.

     My Reclaimed Series are abstracts that I make on top of earlier realistic works I know I'll never sell.  By using tape and paint, I both preserve part of the earlier work and create a new abstract at the same time.  I really like doing this, and I realized that by doing a painting like this for my friend, Harriet, I'd give myself the opportunity to solve two problems at once.  The two problems were getting me back into creating art more quickly after finishing a show and using a family painting Harriet had given me and asked me to paint over.

Harriet & Sister

   The original picture is shown to the right.  Harriet brought it to me when she and her husband were in the process of downsizing.  The picture is of Harriet and her sister, and was done by an aunt, Myra Hichcock, who was a painter.  The aunt never had completed the work, and so Harriet kept it in her attic instead of displaying it.  That was about 60 years ago.  Because she knew I was an artist, she brought and told me to paint over it: a better solution that throwing it out.   It was a neat solution for her, but for me it posed a dilemma.   Even though the painting had gotten dull and dirty while sitting in the attic, I loved it, so the thought of totally destroying it rankled.  So I thanked her and put it in my garage -- hoping that as I passed it each day on the way into our house,  an appropriate use would occur to me.   And, as I talked to Harriet Sunday, I realized that taking this piece and turning it into one of my reclaimed pieces would do just that.

   The piece above, The Topology of History, is the result.  Like with my other reclaimed pieces, I used tape to preserve some of the image.  However, there were two important differences in the way I handled this new work.  I didn't just want to use random tape patterns, so I went on line and looked up patterns made in point set topology -- Harriet's husband George's area of mathematical study -- so I figured the piece would appeal to both of them for different reasons.  The second difference between this and the earlier reclaimed pieces is that when I took off the tape, the faces and dresses of the girls stood out too much.  Thus, I glazed over all the previously taped areas with a golden ochre.  I like the result, and hope you do too because the ochre gives it a unity, but glazing it allows Harriet and her sister to be seen peeping out of the painting.

    There was a hiccup on the way to making the piece, however.  Last night, I realized I wanted to do the painting today, but I first needed to clean the piece so the tape and the paint would stick.  I didn't know how to do that, so I asked myself before I went to sleep what might work.  As often is the case, I had an ah-ha thought when I awoke this morning.  I had heard someone talk on a home improvement show about how shaving cream is a great, gentle way to clean things that are oily/greasy (as oil paintings are by nature).  So I got some of my husband's shaving cream and spread it all over the painting.  When I was done, the work looked wonderful, and I worried that Harriet might regret not saving the original, so I brought it to her and asked if she wanted to keep it. She confirmed that she still didn't want to retain it as it was.  So that is why I got the opportunity to make what I feel is a very interesting piece.  I'd be happy to hear your thoughts.

     Since I'm intending to give this  piece to Harriet, I won't be selling it unless she decides that she doesn't want it.  If it does become available for that reason, you will be able to that it is available on my website.