Artwork

My eyes are weaker, as one would expect, but I am still keeping them exercised with as much painting as they will manage in shortish sessions.  Here is the latest effort:

. . .

This one started out well–sharp and bright on black gessoed board. The subject is the large distinctive planting in the Waterford garden–I added the mouse and her nest of babies, the butterfly and the ladybugs. I laboured too long over the composition and in doing so, the paintwork lost much of its sharpness and transparency, I’m afraid.

But my computer to the rescue!  With the click of a few buttons, I came up with this:

computer version!

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Happy Birthday Luba!

Christine’s  sister, Luba is holding her birthday party on Saturday and Christine is driving to Philadelphia for the event. Here is an image of the card I painted for the occasion:

. . . .

Luba is lucky to have a red fox living in her garden and humming birds feeding at her patio feeder.  Her favoured pet is an ancient turtle! Happy birthday , Luba

Artwork – Another “C”* Acrylic

Inspired by Christine’s brother, George, who spoke of his sighting of Eastern Bluebirds in his area when he and Jane invited us to their cabin in the Poconos a few weeks ago, I consulted my bird books and painted this version from an image I found:

Eastern bluebird on 8 x 10 Black-gessoed board

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*”C” for century!

Century Artwork

This is my latest acrylic effort:

Face-off!

C Artwork

I am persevering with my acrylics. Nereida commissioned me to paint a companion painting to one she had already hung on her apartment wall and gave me  a photograph to follow of the “tulip” theme she needed. My learning curve has become quite flat, but, never-the-less, I laboured away, with the following result: (I was  most gratified that Nereida was quite taken away with it!):

 

I signed the work with a “C” before the date to indicate that it was completed after my “C” year

Artwork 2021

With deliberate prompting from me, Susan has enthusiastically developed a latent talent for painting; probably inherited from her mother! She prefers acrylic paint as a medium and, after taking some drawing lessons and experimentation, has developed a fluid style of her own which is now giving her satisfaction and fun– When she visits me now, we spend happy moments comparing notes and methods.

The pictures following show the remarkable progress she had made and her latest effort:

Before–This is a first painting from a picture Susan found on the Internet . . .

She was not satisfied with the result and brought  the work to me for suggestions. After a few  days we altered the format and made a few corrections and this was the result:

After— We are going to have a joint signing when Susan next comes to NY . . . .

. . . .  and here is her latest work:

She has progressed to this fluid style using mixed media — in such a short time!

Here is an effort of my own based on a photograph taken by Christine when she visited the hybrid pumpkin exhibit at the NY Botanical Gardens show last year:

All shapes and sizes! (Including one Sumo specimen which weighed in at over 200 lbs!!

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Lockdown Artwork

You would think that the pandemic lockdown would allow all the time in the world for water-coloring and the like? Not for me! Sanitizing, laundering, cooking, shopping and, occasionally, masked exercise walking, takes for ever at my slow pace and I am able to visit my paint box only sporadically. Here is the very labored result:

 

Bouquet in confused media!

 

 

Latest Artwork – venture into acrylics

Christine is still in the process of decorating her apartment and is finally at the picture-hanging stage. Among her stack of treasured paintings was one which had faded almost to oblivion–the frame is worth many times the value of the old artwork! She wants more and brighter colour in the corner where it was hanging, so I gessoed over the old paintwork and experimented with my newly taken-up acrylic paints. Here is the result:

The swimming figure is taken from a wrought-iron screen I designed for one of Susan’s houses.

 

The Pond, Central Park

By taking the Crosstown bus at 96th Street to Central Park West and walking three blocks north, we have discovered “The Pond’ — an idyllic little jewel at all seasons. At this time of the year, it is covered with a thick mat of bright yellow duckweed from shore to shore. it is ,of course home to a family of ducks but there is also a resident Grey heron and a Great White. And , as a reminder of “Wind In The Willows” a family of water rats have also  made it their home!

Here is a sketch I made last week:

“The Pond” in its summer coat . . .

Latest artwork

Largely as a result of a mishap, I am trying a mixed media format: things were going really well until I discovered that I had inadvertently used double sided adhesive tape instead of my masking tape. Removing it left a gooey mess all over my nice new 300lb Arches paper, from which, my watercolors recoiled with horror!

 

View from the Royal Dockyard, Bermuda