Purple Tulips

"Purple Tulips" -- oil on canvas 22x28" -- Margie Guyot

Some people might think I'd lost my mind -- all that color!   But I was in the mood to paint COLOR!  Last weekend we'd had a 16" snowfall and were without power for 48 hours.  It was dark.  It was gloomy.  By some miracle my studio stayed about 50 degrees, even without the heating system.  I had to bundle up a bit more to work out there.

So the sun came out.  The snow has melted.  Well, mostly melted.  Robins are singing; crocuses are peeking up.  I was in the mood to do cartwheels across the front lawn.  That is, if I could do cartwheels.  In lieu of doing cartwheels, I decided to yank out the most colorful piece of fabric I could find and do something with the bunch of purple tulips I'd bought last week.  They were about to give out, so I had to paint fast.

But the painting wasn't challening enough.  Why not make it really interesting and add the acrylic box with the butterflies and the pink glass bowl?  It was damned near enough to kill me.  But even so, it was a lark, compared to sweeping, vacuuming and washing floors. 

Painting tulips is hard enough as it is.  They're always enlongating, ever so slightly.  Stick a bunch of tulips into a vase and the next day you come back, they've "grown" taller.  Or swooped lower, which was what these did. 

Purple is a tough color to try to paint.  Almost impossible to mix it and not have it turn out some muddy shade of reddish-brown.  I think I need to buy every shade of purple & violet they make.

This painting is a prime example of why Oil Painters of America seems to hate everything I do.  It's too gaudy.  Not brown enough.  After years of being a member and paying dues and entering their shows, I finally dropped them.  Why was I trying to paint something they might like?  It was pathetic. No, I finally decided life is too short to spend all my time doing things to try to win somebody else's approval.  

"Tulips in Blizzard"

"Tulips in Blizzard" -- oil on canvas 30x30" -- Margie Guyot

After days of temperatures in the 40's, we had a surprise blizzard over the first weekend of March.  I measured 16" of snowfall in my yard.  It'd started Friday night around 4.  I had to play a gig in Charlevoix from 5 to 7.  While we played, we all watched the snow falling heavily.  The drive home on 31 was slippery!  I drove slowly and was so happy to crawl into my nice, warm bed!  The heavy, wet snow piled up on trees and caused branches to break off, hitting power lines.  Thousands were without power for 2 - 3 days (or more).  My power was out from 9:30 Friday night until about 9:30 Sunday night.

Amazing, the things you can do without electricity!  No email, no Facebook -- you have loads of free time.  There was no heat in my studio, but it's insulated very well.  I threw on an extra jacket and decided to squeeze out another painting from this bunch of tulips.  I'm surprised they lasted as long as they did.

Instead of doing something very colorful, I wanted to show the view from my studio windows this time.  And there are no strong sunlight and shadow patterns.  It was dark and gloomy all weekend.

To be on the safe side, I carried in all my boxes of oil paints, in case my studio froze.

Tulips seem to get more interesting as they age, petals flopping open, stems twisting and looping.  The foliage was contorting into bizarre shapes.  But I love a good challenge.  What else was there to do?  I couldn't even leave my driveway.  No Internet.  No phone, no TV.  My plow guy was running behind.  He finally showed up Sunday afternoon -- with tales of his own to tell!

When the power came back Sunday night at 9:30, I almost threw on my coat and drove down to the Edison bucket truck (on the corner) to give them some beers and kiss their boots!  But I didn't have any beers, doggone it.

"Tulips on Orange Batik Shawl"

"Tulips on Orange Batik Shawl" -- oil on canvas 24x24" -- Margie Guyot

Surprisingly, cut tulips seem to last a lot longer than I'd expected.  And they get more and more interesting as they age, with leaves twisting and the blossoms leaning and opening wider.  Why throw them out? 

For an interesting challenge, I decided to set them upon a bright orange batik shawl I'd snagged at a rummage sale.  Some people might find this garish, but I loved it.  It's a bright bit of "fire" in an otherwise dark, gloomy Michigan winter.

One trick I discovered about painting fabric wrinkles is to use Liquin and paint in the "hills and valleys" in the solid background color.  In a day or so the surface will be dry enough to paint in the printed design.  I didn't always know this.  Felt like a genius when I finally figured it out!

And no, it still didn't make things much easier for painting wrinkled fabrics --- only a bit quicker!  But what else is there to do up here in winter?  I refuse to pay for TV (so I don't have any).  And housecleaning is SUCH a drag.  You clean and the next day everything's trashed again.  Might as well sit and play around with colors!

"Tulips and Blue Glass Bowl"

"Tulips and Blue Glass Bowl" -- oil on canvas 20x16" -- Margie Guyot

I found these tulips at Meijer's and just loved the color!  The blue glass bowl came from an antique store in Elk Rapids.  As soon as I saw it, I knew it would be exciting in a painting.  The sun came out for one day, an exciting event in itself.  We see it so rarely in winter up here in NW Michigan.

 It's surprising how challenging it is to draw in and paint the tulip leaves!  Mixing the right shades of green was a challenge as well!  Once cut and put into water, tulips continue to grow -- and change.   But I've learned to compare the difficulty of painting something with the difficulty of painting cupcake frosting swirls (my big project last year).  I figure if I could control my panic with frosting swirls, anything else would be somewhat easier.

It's like comparing the difficulty of tasks with the difficulty of working on the Line at Ford Motor Company for 30 years!  Now THAT was hard work!

Stay tuned for more tulips.... 

"Banks Twp Park - Ice Chunks"

"Banks Twp. Park - Ice Chunks" -- plein air field study -- oil on canvas 8x16" -- Margie Guyot

It was another glorious, sunny day here, so I decided to venture up to Banks Township Park.  Pulled on my long underwear and ultra-heavyweight down coat.  And this time I wore hiking boots with ice grippers.  Unlike Barnes Park (see previous post), Banks Park lacks a steep hill, allowing the icy winds to sail right along. 

See that distant little point sticking out?  That's where I hiked to paint.  There's a rocky point that juts out and after my experience of falling into a crevass, I wanted to play it safe and stick to the rocks.  And I was so glad I'd bundled up.  The wind was brutally cold out there.

Things always are exciting out on that point.  I set my gear down and walked all around, looking for the most amazing spot.  What I loved was the little area of ice chunks that had floated into a cove.  Everything was freezing shut again.  The colors were subtle, but I was fascinated by this view.  Again, I'm looking south, towards Elk Rapids and Traverse City. 

One of the advantages to using a Soltek easel is the sides flip up, allowing the palette surface to be shaded.  Trying to mix colors on a palette that's in bright sunlight is pretty difficult.
After finishing this one I hiked around a little, but when my boot fell into another small crevass, I decided to quit when I was ahead!

"Barnes Park, Looking South, Looking North"

"Barnes Park, Looking South" -- plein air field study -- oil on birch panel 8x10" -- Margie Guyot

Photo by Babs Young: view from the shore

Babs Young clambered over the snow and ice to get a closeup of me in action.

This has been the strangest winter.  Unusually warm, with very little snow.  Most days have been dark and gloomy.  With such dreary sights, I haven't felt much like going out plein air painting.  But a few days ago (2/19/12), the sun came out and I thought what the heck!  I'm going down to Barnes Park (in Eastport) and see what the ice looks like. 

I pulled on my Arctic-weight boots and long underwear.  It may be a balmy 40 degrees back at the house, but it can be drastically cooler out on the ice.  That wind can just howl across the ice.  But luckily, it was quite pleasant.  To my left (out of the photo) is a very steep hill, which helped radiate the sun's heat. 

Having grown up in Iowa, the sight of ice pileups on the Great Lakes always amazes me.  After finishing the 8x10" view, looking south towards Traverse City, I gathered up my gear and walked north on the ice a block or two.

All the warm weather affected the snow and ice.  After finishing my second painting of the view looking north, I packed everything up and was making my way back when my left foot fell into a hidden crevass.  Yikes -- it was a struggle to pull out.  It was all I could do to yank my boot out!  I'd gone in up to my knee.  It was a good thing I didn't twist my ankle.  But my painting fell face-down into the snow:

melting snow on "Barnes Park, Looking North"

"Barnes Park, Looking North" -- (repaired) plein air field study on stretched canvas 8x16" -- Margie Guyot

OK, the view is looking more northwest, with the Leelanau Peninsula in the distance.  Northport is right at the tip.  After leaving my snow-covered painting dry overnight in the studio, I was able to repair the damage.  

"Grapes and Pink Glass Bowl"

"Grapes and Pink Glass Bowl" -- oil on canvas 30x30" -- Margie Guyot

When I set up this still life, it looked so complicated, I didn't know if I could pull it off.  Could I finish it before the grapes rotted?  I'm always challenging myself, though, so I just ignore my fears and start.  And how do I start?  Always with something I know: using a yardstick, I lightly draw in the crosshairs onto the canvas.  Looking through my little viewfinder, I try to determine just where the center  point is.  Seemed to me the center point was on the plastic bag.  I put a little mark of paint right there.

Before I figured out the trick of marking the center point, I'd have trouble fitting everything into the still life.  Half of my composition would run off the canvas!  I'm always looking through the viewfinder, trying to estimate whether something is 1/2 or 1/3 of the way up or down, right or left.  And I do a lot of measuring, using my paintbrush at arm's length, comparing distances and sizes to objects.  In this painting, my "unit of measure" was the green apple at the upper right.  Everything related to the size of that apple. 

It's a good way to control one's panic, comparing everything in a painting to one object's size. 

Recently I was given 2 young cats to watch for a friend for the next 6 months.  Of course I'm figuring it will be a permanent thing.  The kitties were fascinated by the grapes in the plastic bags.  They kept trying to fish grapes out and bat them around.  Every afternoon when I quit painting, I had to cover the setup with a tablecloth to keep the kitties from destroying it.  And I always clean off my palette and park it way up high, where Flower and Butterfly can't walk all over it.

I've found resale shops sometimes have very colorful (and ghastly!) silk scarves, quite cheap.  I liked the purple and red scarf.  I wouldn't be caught dead in it, but it added something to the  painting.   The bright reds of the scarf were echoed in the red geranium blossoms.  My studio windowsills are lined with geraniums all winter, where they bloom like mad.