"Apple Pie"

"Apple Pie" -- oil on canvas 6x6" -- Margie Guyot

The model slice I used did NOT look like this: it was a $3 slice I'd bought at a popular roadside restaurant, south of Charlevoix, Michigan.  In reality, the apple filling was more like semi-hardened glue.  Not juicy at all.  I'm sure you know how that is!

Having grown up in a family of dedicated pie-eaters, I know about how pies should be: flaky crusts and juicy fillings, all made from scratch.  And yes, I do know how to make a good pie.  But I've been far too busy to bake this spring.  So most of this pie was painted from memory.

I painted all afternoon in the studio, doing a total of about 10 pie paintings (6 of those were blueberry).  Little paintings, all 6x6", unframed, are kind of popular.  And their sales enable me to do some extra home improvement projects.  I still do large paintings, but have cut back on those a bit, as people haven't had the cash to spend these past few years. 

Back to the studio today for more pie!  Hmmmm....  maybe lemon meringue?  Strawberry?

"Blueberry Pie"

"Blueberry Pie" -- oil on canvas 6x6" -- Margie Guyot

This pie was painted entirely from memory.  I'd been meaning to paint a slice of blueberry pie for at least a year, but all the pies I saw in the stores looked NASTY.  You know what I mean: crusts like cardboard, filling stiff and glue-like.  Ugh.  But I've been too busy to take a few hours and bake one.   My family was a big pie-eating family and my grandma taught me how to bake pies, so I know what a mouth-watering pie looks like!

I like to paint lots of 6x6" unframed oil paintings.  They're relatively inexpensive and tourists like them.  Of course I really enjoy painting large paintings, too, but they're harder to sell in this economic climate.

Yesterday afternoon I set aside my yardwork (it's endless!) and sequestered myself in the studio and painted pie after pie.  I did 10 in all: 6 blueberry and 4 more apple.  Pies are so much more enjoyable to paint than cupcakes --- all those doggone frosting swirls -- oy vey!

Working from memory, I made sure all my pies look juicy -- the way a pie should look!

"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.

"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.  

"Ford Flex in Snow"

"Flex in Snow" -- plein air field study -- 8x10" oil on birch panel -- Margie Guyot

Setup for "Flex in Snow", January 13, 2012

This has been the strangest winter.  Up until January 13th, we'd only had 1" of snow.  Many days were 40 degrees (or more).  I was hoping we would get some snowfall so I could do some paintings of cedar trees in the snow, ideally on a bright, sunny day, so there would be blue shadows.  I haven't seen this combination yet, but it could still happen.

So last Friday I woke up to 6" of snow.  It was still snowing here and I was so excited, I wanted to paint it.  From past experience, I've learned it's next to impossible to paint when the snow is falling.  It ends up on your palette, mixing in with the oil paints.  Just an icky mess!  

The whole front side of my house has a porch with an overhanging roof, so I set up my Soltek easel and painted this view of my Ford Flex.  Keep your fingers crossed for a sunny day + snow!

Oh -- I get asked this all the time: how is your Flex in the snow?  Great!  This one's got AWD and I've never had a problem.  I managed to get out of my long driveway, through the pileup at the end that the snowplow leaves, and out onto the highway.  And there's lots of cargo room for transporting big paintings. 

"Lettuce and Tomatoes"

"Lettuce and Tomatoes" -- oil on canvas 16x20" -- Margie Guyot

This is the first painting I did after the holidays, right when everybody's thinking about diets and salads!  I'd just finished a still life recently that had this same green bowl in it.  It was such a "hoot" to do, I had to do another one.  Don't you love the greenish shadow it casts?  I'm fascinated by glass (although this bowl was really plastic!) and how it distorts shapes.  Why scrub floors when you can paint glass?

We rarely get sunny days in winter up here, so there is hardly ever a true, strong sense of shadow shapes -- only a fuzzy suggestion. 

Another thing that's captured my fascination lately has been the colors of the shadows.  It seems the local color of an object (such as the carrots) affects its shadow.  Notice the faint tinge of orange next to the carrots?  And the faint tinge of red next to the red pepper?  The cold and winter snows help eliminate distractions up here in the north so we artists can notice things we might otherwise miss.

"Honeycrisp"

"Honeycrisp" -- oil on canvas 18x24" -- Margie Guyot

My favorite apple variety, the Honeycrisp!  With the wind howling and snow blowing, it seemed to be the perfect way to spend a few days, holing up in my studio, painting apples.  That's a resale shop glass bowl.  I'd used it in a a painting right before this.  It's fun to paint -- I like the way it distorts.

Honeycrisp apples may not be the prettiest apples out there, but they're the tastiest.  They always sell out before any of the other varieties.  

Most of the time it's overcast in winter up this way (northern Michigan).  But one day the sun peeked out for about 5 minutes, and I saw small bits of sunlight hitting the table, filtering through the row of geraniums on the windowsill.  I thought the little spots of sunlight added a bit of charm.

About 99% of this painting was done with just one brush: a #6 Silverbrush flat.  It's a great brush.  Holds its knife-edge, allowing me to make long, thin strokes.  I'm not very fond of cleaning brushes, so that's probably why I will paint all day long with one brush.  OK, I did have to use one more, a Windsor-Newton Series 7 Kolinsky sable, only to sign my name.  

Some artists are very careful about cleaning brushes.  One friend gently wipes them with walnut oil, never turpentine, certainly never soap or detergent.  I guess I'm horribly brutal: I douse them with Dawn dish soap and scrub them mercilessly until they come clean.  And sometimes I add a drop of soap to the bristles and re-shape them, allowing them to dry that way.  I don't know who's right about this, but I guess the brush manufacturers like to sell me more brushes!

Apples and Gourds

"Apples and Gourds" -- oil on canvas 30x30" -- Margie Guyot

As soon as I began disassembling "Pumpkins and Gourds" (the most recent painting), I stopped and thought why not use most of the same objects, only re-arranged?  You probably have guessed by now that I'm fascinated by gourds!  I had a bag of honeycrisp apples in the refrigerator.  Glad I pulled them out, too.  Two of them were starting to spoil.  So the chickens got those.  And I can't remember where I got the hand-woven grass mat.  Either it was the one I bought in the jungle in Panama or else it's a garage-sale find (one somebody else bought in a jungle somewhere).  And what would one of my still lifes be without good-old turkey feathers? 

I just loved the way the glass bowl distorted things!  Not much going on up here, TV-wise, and house-cleaning is so boring, I'd much rather be trying to figure out how to paint distortions!  And it being winter, I have no distractions from gardening chores.  Although the chickens and rabbits (and cats!) do require a certain amount of attention each day.

I wasn't entirely sure I could do a satisfactory rendition of that grass mat!  Thank goodness I didn't allow myself to go into a panic.  Just about anything can be figured out if you stay calm!

One thing that surprised me was the beautiful green shadow that the green "glass" bowl cast, in the upper right.  It may not show up well in this photo, but it is noticeable in person.  And another surprise to me was the faint reddish tones in the shadows cast by the red apples.  This painting was done under natural light, next to a south-facing window.  It was overcast the entire time I painted; no strong sunlight/shadow patterns.  Maybe the reddish tones only showed up because of the softer light.  Maybe they would have disappeared in strong sunlight.

"Kitty and Pumpkins"

"Kitty and Pumpkins" -- oil on canvas 36x36" -- Margie Guyot

Here it is, several days before Christmas, and I'm still painting pumpkins!  Well, this year I happened to find a very interesting assortment of pumpkins (and gourds).  I really hope to paint as many of them as I can before they rot. 

And what would a still life painting be without a wrinkled tablecloth and some type of glass?  I love painting both and have quite a collection.  Turkey feathers, too.  I use them often in paintings.  I love their ziggy-zaggy design -- and they're harder to paint than you'd think.

This year I did quite a number of small, 6x6" paintings, as they seemed more affordable.  They were good practice, but for me, it's frustrating.  I love doing very complex, difficult paintings -- and 6x6" is too small of an area for that.  So every once in a while I have to haul out a larger canvas to satisfy my need for "challenging projects".  My friend, Todd Warner, said that it's good to paint a large one at least once in a while to show people that we still can do it! 

I never paint from photographs.  I always use a viewfinder and draw the composition in, using a thin mix of a soft gray paint.  Sometimes there are a lot of wipe-outs, but generally it takes me about a day to draw a painting in.  Then I dive in to painting the darks, moving gradually to the medium tones and finally the very lightest tones. 

For this painting I deviated slightly.  The toughest thing for me was the distortions in the glass bowl.  Distortions in glass are very addictive for me and after having painted a few hundred little 6x6" apples and cupcakes, etc., I just had to slug away on this bowl first thing! 

Making a successful painting is learning how to control your panic!  Unlike plein air landscapes, the wonderful thing about still lifes is that they pretty much hold still.  The distortions stay still.  So that is a comfort.  I have learned to just calmly look at the shapes and paint them.  Painting shapes is all there is to it. 

Yesterday morning I'd pretty much painted in the whole thing except for the gap in the lower right.  The table edge left an empty gap.  What to put there to stop the viewer's eye from falling off into the abyss?  I was sitting here at the computer, mulling it over when Picasso, my studio cat, nudged my leg.  Aha!  I grabbed my camera and snapped his face.  Cats may be wonderful, but none of mine have ever cared to hold still.  So I did have to refer to a photograph for his portrait. 

The title: If I'd called this "Picasso and Pumpkins" it might have sent viewers into a wild goose chase, looking for "THE" Picasso, hidden somewhere. 

Green Cabbage #2

"Green Cabbage #2" -- plein air field study -- oil on canvas 18x24" 

 

My neighbors, Sue & Shirley, have 3 giant, organic vegetable gardens they call Verdant Ground.  Their cabbages are always so beautiful, I love painting them!  Alas, this summer I had such a busy schedule, it wasn't until mid-September before I took the time to bring my easel over to paint anything.  And I wore long pants, shoes and socks!  Last summer I had a bumblebee crawl up my capri pants and sting in back of my knee.  OWWWW!

The late-afternoon sun hits the leaves at an angle, making the veins seem to glow.  Love that!  

Normally I do plein air paintings in a smaller format, such as 8x10", but because these cabbages are so huge, it seems a shame to restrict them to such a small painting.  And I'd done 2 similarly-sized cabbage paintings here last year.  So I thought it would be good to do them all the same size.  And that means using big brushes and painting as fast as possible!

Scott Road, Looking West

"Scott Road, Looking West" -- plein air field study -- oil on canvas 12x24" -- Margie Guyot

This is the road I live on.  That's Lake Michigan and the Leelanau Peninsula in the distance.  The fall colors were in prime condition, with the maple trees all shades of gold and red.  Last year I stood on the distant ridge, facing east to paint Scott Road.  This time I decided to paint the opposite view.  

Normally I wouldn't use such a large canvas for a plein air.  There's such a large area to cover -- in so little time!  But I really wanted to paint a long, horizontal view and this 12x24" canvas was the only thing I had.  I was painting with a buddy, Al Maciag, and I didn't want to hold him up, so I painted fast as I could.  

Every time I drive over Scott Road, I'm thrilled at how beautiful it is here.  

That's a new field of corn on the right.  That field hadn't been used in years.  The landowner rented the land this year and I think all us neighbors were surprised the corn did so well.  It had been planted late and the ground is quite sandy.  If you got up close to it, you'd see the outer edge of the cornfield had been quite "gone over" by the resident deer and raccoon population.

I'd like to do a winter painting of Scott Road, but I doubt it will be painted from this location.  The wind is quite fierce up at this ridge!  Half the time I had to hold onto my Soltek easel while painting this, or it would have blown over.

"Tea for Two" -- oil on canvas -- 40x60" -- Margie Guyot

Fortunately I had anticipated a long string of interruptions when I started this painting. I'd started this right at the beginning of May, when gardening season started. That's when everything else gets shoved aside so you can get your flowers and veggies started. I used to feel guilty about leaving my art, but have made peace with it.

So I painted the blossoms first. I knew they'd only last a day or two. Used a Hawaiian-print shirt as a "tablecloth". I loved the colors, yellow and blue, of the fabric. And if you're familiar with my still lifes, you'll recognize my frog teapot set. They're so much fun to paint!

I guess the theme of this painting has to do with the Joy of Spring!

"Lilacs - Norwood" -- plein air field study -- oil on canvas -- 9x12" -- Margie Guyot

3 weeks ago we had snow flurries. This week it hit 90 degrees! The poor lilacs are burning out fast, so I've been trying to paint some views. I found these growing on the side of a ridge in Norwood, overlooking Lake Michigan. I was SO happy to have a nice shade tree to stand under!

"Lilacs" -- plein air field study -- 9x12" -- oil on birch panel -- Margie Guyot

A friend and I were driving to a concert on Sunday when I spied these in Eastport. Monday morning I drove over and painted this view. That's a little gravel road that leads down to Torch Lake. I took the liberty of moving the lilacs closer to the road.

The oil color I'd bought a few months ago, Vasari Ruby Violet, has really helped. Purples are hard colors to mix. The Ruby Violet has been a very handy color! I found out about it from one of my teachers, Scott Christensen.

I love painting in the early morning or late day -- I think the shadows really help create excitement.