In the Garden with Paint

In the Garden, © 2011, oil on canvas

I delivered this painting yesterday to the Yarmouth Frame Shop and Gallery, just in time for their next show, "Dog Days of Summer," that opens Saturday, August 6. If you happen to be near Yarmouth, Maine on Saturday, come by (720 Route One) the Gallery for an opening reception from 4 to 7 pm. The show features work by thirty artists, so there's plenty of variety!

This painting started as a drawing back in June when the irises and peonies were in full bloom. I sat on our front steps just a few feet from the garden bed and drew several quick sketches. Here are two of the sketches:

graphite on paper, © 2011

and

graphite on paper, © 2011

It's pretty obviously that lines, shapes, and patterns of lines dominate my sketches (rather than worrying about shading, perspective, or creating the illusion of volume, for example). Contour drawings--following the edges of things--sometimes even without looking at the paper, are almost an every-day practice for me. I love "watching what happens" in the process of creating new patterns on the surface of the paper.

I've been trying to pay closer attention to my drawing-and-painting process, because I've been teaching a class at Artascope Studios in South Portland. Being able to understand and then to communicate my process to others has become more important! It is both challenging and very engaging.

As people often say, if you really want to know how to do something, teach it to someone else! 

A Bit of Green Sanity from Thomas Friedman

I'm often a few days behind on what's going on. And would likely remain that way most of the time if it weren't for that handy "most popular emailed stories" list on the New York Times email that I get daily. Lo and behold, today's most popular is about "Portland Restaurants," and for once it means Portland, Maine not Portland, Oregon! It's great to read about Portland's food scene, and even to read about "my" farmer, Chris Cavendish of Fishbowl Farm, in the Times!

But I actually didn't read that story until I went back to check on Thomas L. Friedman's latest op-ed piece called "Have a Nice Day". And I wouldn't have looked at the list at all today if I hadn't been reading about the death (and life) of Mary Travers. Hearing about her death last night via a text message from Bekah caused a sad tug on the household. Not only did David and I grow up with the music and songs of Peter, Paul, and Mary (and David once fitted Mary's large feet into shoes when he worked at L. L. Bean long ago!), but Bekah and Anna also heard their share of their children's album.

I guess this is how it often goes, with both reading and writing and blogging and maybe with life! You start out one place and end up in another. Which brings me back to Friedman's "Have a Nice Day"--about visiting a thriving California factory that makes machines that make solar panels. A positive, hopeful, financially viable, good-for-the-planet enterprise with one sad note: of the 14 solar panel factories that this company has built around the world, not one of them is in the United States. Not one. Most are in Germany, and China is coming right along behind Germany.

Read Friedman's piece if you want to know the reasons why it hasn't yet made sense for someone to build one of those solar panel factories right here. If you don't want to read it yourself, I'll say simply that it has to do largely with government policies and regulations, or rather, the lack of the kinds of policies that have been put in place in Germany, and now China, supporting such factories, which (need I point out?) would created all kinds of real "green jobs".

As Friedman says: "So right now, our federal and state subsidies for installing solar systems are largely paying for the cost of importing solar panels made in China, by Chinese workers, using hi-tech manufacturing equipment invented in America."

Hmmm. Kinda makes me feel hopeful and like I want to break something all at the same time.

November Skies

David recently commented that he loves November's skies. They certainly can be dramatic, fast-changing, and wear intriguing hues. I tend to think of the skies in Maine being pretty dramatic all winter long. 

But even in summer and fall (and spring, too?) I am often dumbfounded, as on the day in mid-September when I made this painting looking toward Portland from Mackworth Island. I think you can tell that the sky was the part I really wanted to paint and enjoyed the most!

P.S. If something about this looks familiar, it's because the top third of the painting is the backdrop to my blog's name.

P.P.S. I promise I'll get to "Piles of Money: part two" very soon.