Viola

Viola tricolor, watercolor, 12" x  9."

My latest class opus are these pansies. I bought a flat of six plants at Riverhill, our local garden center, to take to class. In the drawing I merged two plants to show a little of  the range of different colors and markings these hybrids sport. There is also one with ruffled orange flowers, and another all-blue double I may try to record before their season ends. I planted the pansies in the front flower bed after the painting was finished.

Bluebells

A few years back I dug up a new flowerbed under the maple tree in my front yard and planted Virginia bluebells, a Bleeding Heart a fern and some European ginger there. My idea was to have a progression of blooms from early spring through summer, perhaps extending into early fall. The following year I added some crocuses and blue Grape Hyacinths, and some Lamium to extend the blooming season. The plants have been slow to get established because of the maple roots and the compacted soil, but they are finally starting to pay off with a lovely blue and pink color scheme.

This is the first year my bluebells have actually blossomed and I am so pleased to finally enjoy their lovely flowers here at home! I wish I had time to do a botanical illustration of them from life, but life is going at so fast a pace these days, I know I won't get around to it this year. Their growing season is so short, the blossoms will be gone in another ten days, and the plants will disappear by mid-May to lie dormant until next spring.

 I want to do some botanical studies of this native plant, it may yet become part of my Botanical Illustration Certificate project. That would involve digging up at least one of the tubers to illustrate the root structure, but I am not about to do just yet; not until the plants have managed to propagate a bit more.

African Violet Painting

Pink African Violet, watercolor, 8" x 10."

This was my classwork from the Painting 205 class week before last. I was surprised to see how quickly it took shape following the methods I'm being taught, and how nice the results. It needs a few more touches to be completely finished. I'll be submitting this piece and one more from class to Brookside Gardens' upcoming Botanica exhibition to see if the jury accepts it.

Giant Studio Moving Sale

Big Blue, oils on canvas, 36" high x 42" wide.

Firefall, oils on canvas, 48" high x 36" wide.

The Aliens, oils on canvas, 48" high x 32" wide.

Red Sea Whips, oils on canvas, 56" high x 42" wide.

Dear friends and collectors:


My husband and I are getting ready to move and our basement is full of large paintings that I would prefer not to have to move or store, so I'm holding a once-in-a-lifetime studio sale. These four paintings are among many others for sale. All offers will be considered, no matter how ridiculously low. I'm willing to negotiate, but please start at $100--the materials in these cost at least that much. If there is more than one offer per painting, these will be bid competitively, and the bids announced here (bidder's identity will be kept confidential).

If you live in the DC area or within drivable distance, I will be happy to deliver any painting to you whenever convenient. If you are out of the area, I don't know about shipping, that may be more difficult--these are large paintings--but perhaps something can be worked out.

Any of these paintings could be a wonderful focal point in your home. Please make an offer.

Watch this blog for more paintings coming up for sale soon. My Afro-Cuban paintings will be coming up next.

The Cummer Museum of Art Garden

Garden at the Cummer Museum of Art in Jacksonville, watercolor, 10" x 14."

On our last day of vacation, Herb and I went back to the Cummer Museum of Art in Jacksonville so I could paint in the historic garden. We arrived mid-morning and found a group of painters already there. While walking around to take in the gardens and decide which was the best view to paint, I chatted with some of the artists, who told me they were students from the nearby University of North Florida. Their class met at a different location every Friday to paint plein air and the museum's gardens were--quite understandably--a favorite.

Looking at the beautiful gardens on the banks of the St. John River, it was hard to choose what to paint, but to me the most outstanding feature was a gigantic live oak which appeared to be at least a few centuries old. Its venerable trunk had been sculpted by riverfront storms into a striking, contorted mass, and its spreading branches twisted and leaned down so far that some had supports built under them to keep them off the ground. A glass-topped table and some chairs had been placed on the lawn under the tree--there seemed no need to go any farther. I spread out my painting stuff and sat down to study this amazing tree.

It took me a long time to get the drawing right. Simplifying the masses of branches by eliminating some of the extraneous ones while keeping enough of them to give a sense of their size and intricate twining was the most challenging part, and it was well past noon before I was ready to start laying in any color. By this time the breeze had started to pick up and a gust of wind took my tiny metal water tin and brush holder and dumped them on the ground. After that I kept the brush holder on the ground and my spare hand on the water tin.

I felt confident that no one would steal my painting gear at the museum, so I left it on the table while we had lunch at the cafe (dynamite black bean soup and chicken salad) and then came back to finish my painting.

The botanical illustrations classes have helped tremendously with my watercolor technique, and I was able to put down the shapes of the branches and trunk with washes from the start. It's a time-consuming process that requires patience: wetting the paper, waiting for it to have just the right amount of moisture, putting the wash down quickly, manipulating it to get the darks to fade gradually into lighter shades, and so on. Herb was very patient and kept me company reading his book; when he got tired of that, he went into the museum and visited all the other exhibits we'd missed before.

I still wasn't finished when the four o'clock closing time was announced, but I had enough down on paper to be able to finish my painting later. We decided to make our way back to Amelia Island using the route we'd taken on our way in the previous time, but got a bit disoriented on the freeways downtown. Eventually, we found our way back to the scenic route just in time for a sunset along the coast--lovely ending to a wonderful day!

Revisiting The Okefenokee Swamp

Canal Diggers Trail, watercolor, 10" x 14."

On our recent Florida vacation I just had to visit the Okefenokee Swamp again. Our friends told us there had been extensive fires last summer and thousands of acres in the refuge had burned. I wanted to see the extent of the damage.

Fire in the wilderness is a natural phenomena, and as our guide sagely remarked, if it weren't for periodic  fires, the area would become so overgrown it would be known as the Okefenokee Forest, rather than Swamp. In fact, the peat floor was still smoldering in parts of the northwestern section of the refuge.

However, the lovely boardwalk trail that took visitors through the swamp out to an observation tower was gone, so the best way to see the swamp was to get out on the water, on one of the small boats, or stick to a few trails still open near the Visitor's Center such as the Long-leaf Pine and Canal Diggers Trail. We explored this short trail while waiting our turn for the boat ride, and found a narrow bridge crossing a small creek. There was no time to paint it then, but I hoped we could return later for a sketch.

Entering the Okefenokee Swamp

Our tour guide with Okefenokee Adventures, Joey was a seventh-generation Okefenokeer (married to an eighth generation Okefenokeer) and a colorful character. He worked us tourists on the boat with a well-worn routine full of jokes and set pieces while regaling us with interesting facts and bits of swamp lore. I saw an unusual water plant with odd-looking flowers and asked about it. Joey said it was called Golden Club. Later on he picked one flower and chomped the yellow part, saying this was one way to survive in the swamp. The yellow part of the blossom was edible, and he picked more flowers so we could each taste one. It was mildly pungent, like a radish--one would sure have to eat an awful lot of it to get enough nourishment!

Golden Club

The ride was about an hour and a half and took us through so many channels that looked much the same; I wondered how long it would take to learn their intricacies. We were back at the dock before I realized we'd circled back to our starting point. The swamp is beautiful, even the burned-out parts with its charred trunks, though I much prefer to see the cypress alive and dripping with Spanish moss.

Once back, we rushed back to the bridge at Canal Diggers Trail so I could work on a watercolor--we had less than two hours before the park closed, so my sketch is very loose and unfinished. By this time the sun had come out from behind the low clouds and was illuminating the fields of saw palmetto underneath the pines. The best view was from the middle of the bridge, naturally, so I had to stand. As you can see, I propped my sketchbook on the railing of the bridge and hooked the brush holder, expecting the breeze to try to snatch it away.

See more photos of the Okefenokee Swamp on my Flickr Album.

Rosemary Scrub at Jacksonville Arboretum

Rosemary Scrub at Jacksonville Arboretum, watercolor, 5" x 10."

For the past week we have been visiting friends on Amelia Island while enjoying northern Florida's lovely winter weather. During the week Herb and I had a chance to explore the surrounding areas. On our first excursion we took the scenic route along the length of Amelia island, over bridges connecting the barrier islands, down to Jacksonville to check out the Jacksonville Arboretum. The Arboretum has hiking trails through several distinct ecosystems displaying a variety of northern Florida plant communities. Among them is an endangered habitat known as rosemary scrub.

The day was heavily overcast (in fact I thought we might get rained on at some point), but a few drops was all we got. I had never seen a Florida rosemary plant, a relative of our culinary rosemary, which grows on poor, sandy soil, along with deer moss, a low-growing pale grey-green globe.

Florida rosemary

Deer Moss

Herb and I had taken camping stools with us so I could sit along the trail to sketch and he could keep me company while I painted. It took about forty-five minutes to do this small watercolor sketch; the soft grey-greens were hard to render accurately.

After a very late lunch we headed downtown to check out the Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens. We got there at a quarter to five, but as luck would have it, that was their weekly free-admission day as well as when they stay open until 9:00 PM. We saw a wonderful exhibit of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings from the High Museum of Art collection. Unfortunately, we weren't able to see the gardens, which closed at five. Instead, I watched a short video about their historic garden on the St. John River waterfront. Afterwards I asked a young docent if an artist would be allowed to paint in the garden. Carlos agreed to Email me after he checked if that was all right. Next day he Emailed that it would be fine to paint there, so we decided to return in a few days.

Elena on the Rosemary Ridge Trail at Jacksonville Arboretum

For more photos of the Jacksonville Arboretum, check out my album on Flickr here.

Pink Tulips

This is another one of my class exercises: to do twelve tiny watercolor paintings of the same view of a flower using only one color, to practice shading. The idea is to practice giving a sense of the three-dimensional shape of the flower using variations in the amount of pigment in the wash. I learned several new techniques for moving small amounts of pigment over wet areas with greater control.

First we sketched the flowers in class (in this case a tulip) and traced it on tracing paper, to transfer it onto the watercolor paper. We did a value study on the tracing paper sketch to decide which areas should be dark, which parts light, and where to put the mid-tones to create the illusion of three dimensions. Using this sketch as a guide, we worked one tiny painting, then went on to the next, and so forth.

Repetition being the key to mastery, this was a very good exercise. The results are pleasing, and the red-pink tones most suitable for a Valentine's Day emblem.

Graphite Drawings

These are practice sketches for my botanical class: the African violet is my first sketch for the certificate project for this class. We are to do several value studies of the plant until we find the one that seems most suitable for a finished illustration. We will then use the same plant for a watercolor painting. My violet has two small flower buds now--it would be nice to have a few more blossoms to paint before the project is complete.

 Above is another study of  the same orchid I did last week with the budding stem. This week one blossom has opened and it is a very unusual one. Here's a photo of it. I'll probably do a watercolor of it just for my own practice, as well as documenting the plant. I'm trying to figure out what sort of hybrid my Florida roadside purchase is. It resembles some Miltassia hybrids I've seen on-line in photos (hybrids of Miltonia and Brassia genus), but it could be a three-way hybrid with something else. I'm not an orchid expert. The flower has a light scent, not quite a sweet perfume, but something more astringent like night-blooming Jasmine.

Reception at Ranazul

Elena with Terri and Rob Day at Ranazul

An opportunity suddenly came my way last December to show my work at a local upscale restaurant: Ranazul Bistro in nearby Fulton. Ranazul has a beautiful room, the Galeria, for displaying art.

They asked me if I could show my art for the month of January. Luckily, I had a good amount of framed work  from the Brookside show on hand, as well as other paintings from last year's plein air activities, so the show was hung on Jan. 8, and the following Sunday, Ranazul hosted a reception with tapas and champagne for my guests.

I was not expecting much of a turn-out considering the month--at this time of the year most folks are jaded from the Christmas holidays and ready to hibernate. I was surprised that a few friends we hadn't seen in a while turned up--Terri and Rob Day brought a lovely bouquet of flowers for me (Thank you, my dears!), and a number of other friends and family members too, eager to buy their favorite pieces. Herb came along and officiated as photographer. It was a very successful afternoon in all respects.

* * *

Orchid study in graphite

Twigs N Leaves (revised), watercolor

Here are some more botanicals. The Dimensional Study 204 class started last Saturday, and I've been practicing my sketching with an orchid that is about to bloom. I also added a few new elements to my Twigs N Leaves piece for the Painting 103 Class before submitting it for evaluation--I think the composition works better now.

Twigs N Leaves

Twigs N Leaves, watercolor, 10" x 8."

Here's my latest assignment for the Botanical Illustration certificate program. We were charged with composing a "scatter" design with leaves using tertiary colors (ocher, russet and olive green). These colors are the natural colors of the fallen leaves I usually collect on my walks, so it seemed logical to use some of them in my piece.

These particular leaves, with the exception of the glossy Camellia leaf at the top, were gathered on a walk in Rock Creek Park that Herb and I took on a warm November day. The foliage colors were lovely, especially the beeches with their golden brown glow, the maples in reds and yellows coming in a close second. Herb collected the nut--a pignut--which was just cracking open and opened further after a few days indoors. Drawing the nut from a frontal view to reveal the sections of the outer shell with the nut inside was a real challenge, and I had to try several times to get it right.

The Euonymus alatus (lower right, small reddish leaves) is an invasive non-native species, but its tiny red berry with the winged pod adds an interesting detail. There is an American species which is a far more desirable plant and native to our area, Euonymus americanus, also known as Strawberry Bush or Bursting Heart for its unusual seed pods.

Here's a photo taken during our walk.

End of the Year Musings

Our family at Christmas--we managed to fit twenty-four of us at our house. My sisters Bea (in red dress right behind me) and Silvia (also in red behind one of her granddaughters) with their husbands and children. A few kids who don't live in the area are missing.

It's that time of the year again, where did it all go? When comparing 2010's count of 62 postings on this blog, this year's 51 (and many of those without paintings) seemed a paltry showing, so I thought to add one more and make it 52. One posting per week average sounds much better, especially if you take into account how tough times are. Survival seems to have taken up a lot more energy and time, consequently it's been harder to focus on art and the pure joy of painting... but we stumble on at whatever pace possible.

Dragon Display at Brookside Gardens' "Garden of Lights."

Here's hoping that 2012, another Chinese Year of the Dragon--a Water Dragon no less!--will shape up into being a whole lot better.

Happy New Year!

A Solstice Walk at Chapman's

Circling a champion Tulip Poplar at Chapman's Forest--there is a third person behind the tree, but the circumference was so large, he couldn't join hands with the young lady on the left.

Last Sunday before Christmas the Maryland Native Plant Society (MNPS) did its annual Winter Solstice Walk at Chapman's Forest. I stayed at my friend Patrise's house for the weekend so I could be close-by, and Linda and I joined the group. Only about  six or seven of us had registered on-line, so I was shocked to see that more than 50 of us showed up!

Turns out that this is a very popular event and many of the local folk who worked for a long time to obtain the historic landmark preservation status for Chapman's have been doing this solstice walk for years. One lady told me this year was the best weather they've had so far, so that may account for the number of folk there. The day started out overcast, with temperatures in the upper forties, but after about an hour, a wan winter sun broke out and it began to warm up.

Our leader, Rod Simmons, talked knowledgeably about the different  types of forest and plant communities as he led us through the upper forests of shell marl, and told about the many species of oaks found in this tract, their distinguishing characteristics, etc. The leaves are the best indicators as to the species, though general shape, the terrain and the acorns also hold clues. I had no idea there were so many different types of oaks: southern red oak, chinquapin, post, pagoda, and chestnut oak, in addition to the better-known white oak, scarlet oak, pin, and black oak. Some of these are unusual in our area, and found mostly in old-growth forest such as Chapman's.

After a couple of hours of hiking around, we took break for lunch. Rod had announced we would toast the solstice toast during our break, and I thought he was joking, that it would be a symbolic toast with the water we had each brought along--wrong! A couple of the men in the group had brought bottles of Glenlivet single-malt scotch and some wine for the occasion, along with tiny one-shot plastic cups that they passed around for the toast.

After our repast, we continued on down a steep ravine. Sadly, a champion-sized Tulip Poplar that had stood there for centuries had been brought down by this past September's storms and thirteen inches of rain. There were still plenty of other champion-size trees to see.

Rod seemed to be able to navigate by these trees, which were probably like old friends to him. He allowed that he and several other men in the group had been hiking this tract since the early nineties. We stopped by a huge pagoda oak before turning towards the Potomac River, where a high bluff offered spectacular views of Mason's Neck in Virginia on the opposite shore.

We continued along the river, down another steep ravine to an area with a couple of old abandoned houses. We were told these cabins were an old duck-hunting camp that President Hoover used to frequent in his day. There was an Osage orange tree growing near the shore, and the largest sassafras tree I'd ever seen--the bark exhibits unusual ridges when the trees get to a certain age. If one flakes off chunks of the bark, one can smell the spicy scent of sassafras.

Eventually we worked our way up another hillside where I recognized the old brick chimney near the place where Virginia bluebells bloom in the spring, and realized were were now very close to Mont Aventine and our starting point. The sun was low on the horizon--we had been hiking for over six hours and who knows how many miles over some fascinating terrain. A few folks had dropped by the wayside due to other commitments, but I was surprised by how many of the group finished the course, including several elderly among us. I was bone-tired, so I can imagine how they felt, yet it was such an enjoyable experience!

I hope to explore more of Chapman's next the spring, and definitely repeat the solstice walk next year. For more photos of the Winter Solstice Walk at Chapmans, click on the link to my Flickr album.

Blue Holly, Red Holly

Blue Holly

Red Holly

The approach of winter signals the end of the outdoor painting season (at least for those of us who don't like to freeze our patooties). Other years I've made the effort to get out to paint despite the weather,  but after a particularly hard year, I'm not feeling motivated to endure the additional  hardships of cold-weather plein air this year. I'm hard-pressed to find something new for the blog, and populating it with work from my botanical illustration classes seemed fitting, especially because holly is so symbolic of this season.

These are works from yesterday's class. We were tasked with painting a value study of a sprig with fruit or flowers (previously sketched in pencil) using only one pigment, either Permanent Rose or Windsor Blue.  The idea was to use the darkest value for the leaves, the middle range for the berries with the stem being the lightest value. We were to practice various lifting techniques as well as flat and graduated washes.

I tried one sketch with each pigment, and found the Permanent Rose to be much harder to work with. The color was so bright that after a time my eyes were totally strained, and it was harder to get a really deep value even using several layers of washes.

This is a particular variety of holly planted at McCrillis Gardens that I like--the leaves have a variety of unusual shapes, some more rounded, others with three points, and pendulous branches.

Botanicals with Color

Botanical studies with color pencil

The past couple of weeks have been particularly hard--the daily road warrior commutes from my new job in Virginia have been horrendous, averaging close to three hours each evening. One evening set a new record--a four hour struggle on that quaint slow stream of traffic locally known as The Beltway. It's left me little energy for painting on the weekends, except for my Botanical Illustration classes, which I am enjoying tremendously.

A couple of weekends ago Herb and I went for a walk on Rock Creek Park (see photos on Flickr Fall Walk on Rock Creek Park) and collected some interesting botanical material: an assortment of leaves, twigs and nuts. The assignment for the Painting 103 class in the Certificate Program, which I finally decided to enroll in, is to create a "scatter composition" using leaves and flowers or fruit and paint it in watercolor using flat and graduated washes. The above is a page of studies for the elements I plan to combine.

We were given some lovely Lumochrome coloring pencils at the first Painting 103 class last Saturday, and I colored parts of the leaves in my study so I could record the colors before they changed. I'm still working on the final composition--I'll try to post my finished assignment this weekend or the next. This  drawing was scanned rather than photographed--I think this may be a better way to reproduce these small delicate drawings.

Burnt Gold in the Woods

Burnt Gold in the Woods, oil on canvas panel, 11" x 14."

 I have been waiting a year for just the right autumn day to return to paint the beech woods on Rock Creek Park where I had taken those marvelous photos the previous year that inspired two studio pieces (Beech Wood at Sunset and Golden Beeches).

The Beech Woods on Rock Creek Park

Yesterday was The Day--I packed my paints and set out towards DC in the afternoon to capture the majesty of the place at this time of the year. I had the pull-off all to myself as I walked across the bridge to find the best view for my painting. The ideal spot was right in the middle of the bridge, but of course that was too dangerous, so I set up on the far bank where a trail crossed the road.

The afternoon sun illuminated the distance, and the foliage seemed more burnt gold than last year, although there was still a smidgeon of greens on some leaves.  After quickly sketching in my composition in vine charcoal, I set to work--there was not a moment to lose--the light would be gone in a couple of hours. I laid in the trunks of the foreground trees first and then the orangy leaf cover on the ground, covering the white of the panel as fast a possible in fiery strokes. Then some very light yellow for the sun on the distant slopes, and deeper yellow-orange for the tree tops, leaving some white for the sky.

At that moment the painting looked so garish--but every painting goes through this ugly stage after you've blocked in the masses, and I've learned not to despair. I would break up the mass with the distant trunks later, after establishing the contours of the sloping hills with a bit of lilac for the shadows. The light was fading fast, the sun barely skimming the treetops as I started painting in the distant trunks.

At that moment, an owl interrupted the silence of the forest, "Who-cooks-for-you, who-cooks-for-you-too?" This is the call of the barred owl, one of the birds we saw at the Soldiers Delight refuge a few weeks ago. A concert of owl calls from several different directions followed. I looked up to see if I could spot anything in flight, but there was no movement anywhere. There must have been two or three other barred owls answering the first one's call. This went on for a bit, then the owls became silent.

I left small details such as the sprinkling of leaves on the branches in the foreground for last, figuring they could be put in later in the studio if there wasn't time on site, which turned out to be the case. It was becoming dark as I put away the painting and packed my kit. The owls called a few more times while I was walking back to my car.

Here is the painting. I may put in some finishing touches with the aid of my photos after it dries, and then again, perhaps not. It manages as is to capture some of the magical quality that drew me there.

End of the Season

Tridelphia in Fall, oils on linen panel, 11" x 14"

Friday morning was cloudy, but the sky started to clear in the afternoon. I grabbed my paints from the freezer, got my kit and drove out to Tridelphia Reservoir, to a spot where the Howard County Plein Air group had painted last summer. The summer session had been in the morning (see my summer painting here for comparison); I wanted to study the changes brought on by the season and a different illumination.

For some odd reason, perhaps the inordinate amount of rain we had in September, this year our usually spectacular maples and tulip poplars have been rather subdued in color. But to make up for it, the oaks, which normally turn dull shades of brown, have taken on some of the loveliest colors--golden caramel, yellow-ocher with hints of olive, rusty reds and orange.

The breeze was chilly, and I layered up with an extra jacket so I could be comfortable. There were a couple of fishermen out on the water, but other than that, I had the place pretty much to myself. As the afternoon wore on and the sun started going down, those last rays of light seemed to set the foliage on fire. I hate seeing the days become shorter as the winter solstice approaches, but at moments like this, the brief autumnal sunshine, to paraphrase Emily Dickinson, burns with such a lovely light...

Botanical Illustrations

In September I started taking classes at Brookside Gardens' School of Botanical Art and Illustration. The program offers an optional certificate upon completion of three years of study and submittal of a portfolio. The program was developed a few years ago by well-known botanical artist Margaret Saul, and the classes are usually held at McCrillis Gardens in Bethesda.

Since childhood, I've loved and admired plant and flower illustrations. My interest increased after my sister Silvia gave me a wonderful book about Margaret Mee, an amazing botanical artist who explored and painted the flora of the Amazon jungle. Recently, while I was hanging my show at the Brookside Gardens Visitors Center, I met the director of Brookside's adult education programs, and right then I decided to join the school and try my hand at botanical art. It's a rigorous study, as it requires a certain knowledge of botany and great precision of rendering as well as artistic ability.

They make everyone start with Drawing 101, regardless of how much experience one may have. I enrolled in the Saturday classes, which are two classes back-to-back and last all day. We're now doing Drawing 102, and here's a couple of practice sketches of leaves and sprigs from my homework.  Unfortunately, the pencil line drawings did not photograph very well, but I'm having a lot of fun with it. Can't wait until we get to work with color & shading.