Kayaks!

 "Kayaks #1" -- plein air field study -- oil on birch panel 8x10"

 "Kayaks #2" -- plein air field study -- oil on birch panel 8x10"

 

Both paintings were done on Saturday morning, August 6, 2011, at the Glen Arbor 3rd Annual Plein-Air Paint-Out.  Before I drove over, I had made up my mind to find some colorful boats to paint.  I'm rather tired of painting green meadows.  Even lakeshore scenes are getting a little ho-hum.  It just had to be a strong, bright color -- and something with good lines, a strong composition!  I can't paint ho-hum.

Lo and behold: Putt-Putt Golf, on Oak Street, right in downtown Glen Arbor!  It was the answer to my prayers.  Besides minature golf, they rent out kayaks.  There were several stacks of orange and red kayaks that caught my eye.  

Hardly anybody was there on Friday night, so I set up my easel for a "test run" painting.  Well, what else was there to do in town?  Sit in a bar?  That doesn't interest me.  Before I even had a painting finished, I had a buyer.  I knew I'd found my gold mine!

Registration for the paint-out was Saturday morning at 8.  That's when all the artists get their blank canvases stamped on the back, then scurry out into the countryside, free to paint until the final deadline.  By 4:30, we were to have our 2 (maximum) paintings framed and turned back in.  

I went back to good old Putt Putt Golf at about 8:15.  And Lordy, Lordy -- the mosquitoes!!!!  I knew I'd brought bug repellent but I couldn't bear to leave my easel.  So I let them bite away.  Tiny little bastards, but blood-thirsty devils.  Oh well -- I'd found my subject and nothing was going to stop me!  By 11 AM I had my two paintings done and in frames.

What to do the rest of the day?  And it was SO hot and humid!  I got into my Flex, cranked the air conditioner on high, and toodled around the countryside, enjoying the views.  Stopped at a garage sale and ended up doing a painting in their front yard (but that's another post!).

Fiesta!

"Fiesta!" -- oil on canvas -- 40x60" -- Margie Guyot

Last summer I snagged this Mexican sombrero at a yard sale in Glen Arbor.  I just knew it would end up in a painting.  It's a velvety-red, trimmed in gold and silver, with silver sequins.  Very heavy -- I don't know how the guys can stand to wear them!

With the red sombrero as a starting point, I knew I wanted this still life to have a red-green theme.  Years ago I realized that the paintings that seemed to "sing" to me, when I'd walk into a gallery, were the ones that made a big use of the complementary colors.  So I try to do that -- when I think of it.  

Aren't those cool pumpkins?  I'd bought them earlier this fall from 2 young boys in Elk Rapids.  I'd just used the striped one in a still life a couple weeks ago and thought I'd like to use it again -- before it rots.  The vintage, reindeer glasses were found in an antique store up in Pellston.  Green-striped afghan from a resale shop in Ellsworth.  It's just endless -- the possibilities from all kinds of junk!

Every year I bring my geraniums inside and set them on the studio windowsill.  Why buy new?  Some of them are 5 years old.  

What to put in the space under the table?  It's always a question nagging me.  This time I painted a portrait of "Miss America", one of my studio cats.  She (really a he!) was named for her pretty, little face.  I had to hold her in the crook of my left arm, baby doll style, to get a good look at her face while I painted.