Painting in the studio: Landscape memories

     On my 50th birthday, this former English and history teacher went to art school for her 7th life. I painted dawn to dusk daily. Many of my paintings are at my website LindaHicksweb.com. Lately, however, I have been quilting and working in a variety of crafts encouraged by involvement with grandchildren.

     Down in my basement studio, I pulled out some little 4" x 4" canvases and my Winsor Newton Griffin fast-drying alkyd paints. In about 1 1/2 hours I painted three little vignettes from our recent trip to Maine.

      It may look like it, but I just sloshed around the oils with a little turpentine and bits of medium. I then painted skies, trees and grounds while thinking of Maine and some sketches of sites I had seen while on the road. I want to do several more memories until I run out of compositions or moods and then I can quilt them for handwork on road trips.

    Joe wanted me to do a small portrait of grandson. I felt I had just begun; but he told me to stop...it was finished. Hope David doesn't mind looking jaundiced! I am loving being back in the studio while I read The Man with a Blue Scarf: On Sitting for a Portrait by Lucien Freud

Rainy day fun

Google images of Francis Bacon’s studio and you may know how I felt this morn in trying to get into my studio (not just the studio) to paint after charcoaling my basic ideas onto the canvas. So I tried not to mess up the kitchen as I worked away, listening to a podcast from Craftsanity. Not knowing how to make the traveling speakers work I strained to hear my laptop, but Joe clarified the matter when he got home.

Before dinner, I straightened up my prepared surfaces, and took a break to see the grandchildren to test their hamantashen. I couldn’t remember what medium I used to paint this ballet picture with, oil or acrylics, so I got to study it to help w my decision making.

While there, I also I took a photo of granddaughter’s snow scene painted the time I explained how to use masking fluid with watercolors. I suggested sketching her scene lightly w pencil, dopping on masking fluid wherever the snow would be, on sills, in the air, the snowman (she took the ground seriously), then flow on the colors she wanted. Fun to peel off and VOILA!