Newsletter June & July 2012

This summer’s joy is that the hermit thrushes have returned.  They disappeared two years ago, when some logging and construction projects (wind turbines) began in our valley.  I missed their gentle, flute-like music in the early morning and at twilight.  But they are back!  The deer have returned, also, and the owls.  And we have added a whip-poor-will for the first time, who sings his song at midnight on moonlit nights. 

 Another joy of this summer is that the Canada lilies bloomed in my yard again.  I had seven plants in the back yard and one in the front this year, with up to ten blossoms on each plant.  They are still my favorite summer wildflower.  Here is a photo I took of one of the fairy carousels.

 

Canada Lily

And a third joy of the past two months, as well as a source of great frustration, has been working on the bloodroot painting.  There is paint on the canvas now, but it is being a long slow, process.  Henry Ward Beecher said, “Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures” (Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit, 1887).  If so, I am not sure what this painting says about me.  I don’t know how to describe what is going on inside, where the pictures come from.  Let’s just say that this one is coming from deeper than usual and it is taking some effort to bring it to daylight.  Here you can see it as it sits on the easel today in my studio.

Part of the slowness of the process has been a result of dealing with issues concerning tools and materials.  My minuscule Kolinsky sable 000 brush has been my best friend for years.  But to cover a three foot by five foot canvas takes BIG brushes, and the ones I ordered stayed stubbornly backordered for several weeks.

I had issues with the stiffness of some of the paints in my palette of Artisan water-mixable oils, too.  I did not find it a problem when I was doing the miniature paintings, but the drag on the brush was too great when I used the bigger brushes.  Trying to get advice from the manufacturer proved fruitless.  But a thorough internet search turned up the information that I was not the only one to have problems with that.  And I finally discovered that the manufacturer had come out with a new product for us, a water-based thinner that works better than plain water.  (The bottle of it that I bought just arrived today.)

I can see in my mind’s eye what I want the painting surface to look like.  I am looking for a texture at about the midway point between glassy smoothness and the kind of rough impasto on which you can strike a match.  There are sections of Monet’s water lily paintings that have haunted me for years, and bits of his other works, like the white steam in his Gare Sainte-Lazare (which you can see at http://www.monetpainting.net/paintings/stlazareb.php?search_by=Paris) or the water in Antibes (http://www.monetpainting.net/paintings/antibes_x.php?search_by=all).  The complex layering of color, the brokenness of the surface that allows earlier paintbrush strokes to show—these are things that I can “see” but not do.  Yet. 

I have realized that when I am painting I want a slow, searching method like I use when I am drawing, putting down one layer after another.  I am not a bravura painter who dazzles the viewer with a bold display of brushwork.  I want the image to emerge gradually from the canvas.  Stay tuned to watch it develop!

I have had work showing around the state this summer, as well as with Pennacook Art Center in our local gallery.  I had paintings in Waterville at the inaugural show for the Common Street Arts this past month, and I am taking art to Andover, ME for the annual art show again this weekend.

Thanks for joining me in the journey.  I hope that you enjoy looking at the art as much as I have enjoyed making it!  I would love to hear from you, too, so please do reply with comments. 

 

Newsletter October/November 2011

NEWSLETTER   October/November 2011

Greetings from the mountains of western Maine!

Our mountains have been changing from the deep blue-green of summer to the brilliant patchwork of October, to the somber colors of November.  My life the past month has been a patchwork, too, so this will be a newsletter of bits and pieces.

One of the patchwork pieces was doing a commission for a local businessman.  Another piece was limping around on crutches, giving my body the space to heal from a torn ligament in my foot.  (This made everything go in slow motion, hence the combined October/November newsletter.)

Finishing the Canada lily work with a drawing of a mature seed pod was another piece of the patchwork.  This is a colored pencil drawing, on heavy watercolor paper.

Colored Pencil Drawing of a Canada Lily (lilium canadense)

I have been reading more about growing Lilium canadense from seed.  (A helpful article can be found at http://www.nativeplantnetwork.org.)  It is considered an easy plant to propagate, but this is not a quick process.  If you sow the seed directly outdoors in the fall, the seeds remain dormant until the first growing season.  The first year they produce a small bulb.  The second year the plant grows a single leaf.  The third year a whorl of leaves appears.  Those magnificent blooms in my back yard have been a long time in the making!

Another piece of the patchwork was continuing to work on the bloodroot painting that I am planning.  I have become entranced with Renoir’s color handling and brushwork style, and spent many hours reading all I could find on his working technique.  What attracts me to his work is the brilliant purity of color and the transparency of his paint layers.  I am thinking that this is the direction I want to take in order to actually be able to paint the images I can see inside me.

And another piece of the patchwork was adding new products to my online “Maine Mountain Art” store (http://www.printfection.com/mainemountainart). The Printfection company has come out with some new items, like baseball caps, ceramic ornaments, and laptop and iPad sleeves.  So I spent some time dreaming up ways to use them.

New products from Maine Mountain Art store

And lastly, I have opened a second Printfection store, “Nature’s Mandalas,” to showcase products using the round format work in the Exploration of Natural Design and Moments of Transcendence collections (http://www.printfection.com/naturesmandalas).  Here is where the cucumber slices and cosmic zucchinis come together in practical everyday items like sweatshirts, travel mugs and cutting boards.

New products from Nature's Mandalas store

The basic idea of my art bears repeating: I would rather get my work out where a hundred people can enjoy it than have one painting hanging above someone’s couch.  The whole concept of what I am doing is based on sharing.  It’s about me finding beauty in some everyday bit of nature and saying, “Look at this!  Isn’t it lovely?  What exquisite design!”  I hope that it not only enriches your life, but that the next time you cut up a carrot you will pause and look closely at it and appreciate it all the more.

My gift to you this month is simply to offer you the chance to design any custom items you wish, in either store.  If you have an idea for a product, please share it, with no obligation on your part to buy one.  I just like the cross-pollination of getting other people’s input about what to put in the store.  If you want to order a custom item, I will create and post it at no extra charge, from now until the end of the year.  Custom designs will retail for the same price as similar items already on the site.  You can find the images at http://betsy-bell.artistwebsites.com.

If you take the number of images that I have, and multiply that by the number of products that Printfection offers, the possibilities are virtually endless.  Personally, I find the whole process addictive, kind of like eating potato chips.  How would this bloodroot flower look on a round ceramic ornament?  What if I put a row of three veggies on a tote bag?  (That one was my sister’s idea.)  How can this row of multiple cucumbers slices be formatted to go on a laptop sleeve?  The inspiration goes on and on!  So dream it up and email me your ideas.  Please.

All things on earth point home in old October; sailors to sea, travelers to walls and fences, hunters to field and hollow and the long voice of the hounds, the lover to the love he has forsaken….  (from the short story “No Door” by Thomas Wolfe)

Thanks for joining me in the journey.  I hope that you enjoy looking at the art as much as I have enjoyed making it!  I would love to hear from you, too, so please do reply with comments.

Betsy