"Pansies and Fish Vase"

"Pansies and Fish Vase" -- oil on canvas 24x24" -- Margie Guyot

Ah, pansies!  I love them!  The colors are irresistable.  I had to buy a whole flat of them, in every color, a couple weeks ago at the local nursery, Pine Hill.  They remind me of the huge pansy gardens in Nice, on the French Riviera.  I was there in 1994, attending a workshop with Janet Fish.  Seeing pansies reminds me of that wonderful ten days.

My friend Janet Kondziela gave me the vintage tablecloth when she took her annual vacation to Charlevoix -- in February.  Most people find February the month when they'd most like to LEAVE Charlevoix, but Janet finds it very restful. 

The fish vase was a resale shop find, as was the rippled glass bowl.  I love a good challenge -- and wrinkles and reflections are so addictive!  Years ago I realized that I enjoyed painting difficult things (such as wrinkles or reflections) because I could eventually figure them out.  I'd set up a tough still life and just get totally absorbed in it.  The rest of the world could be going to hell in a handbasket, but by golly -- I could figure out "my own little world".   Although I feel so powerless to stop a war, I do feel a certain sense of accomplishment in being able to paint a darn wrinkle!

Dem Golden Slippers

"Dem Golden Slippers" -- oil on canvas -- 40x50" -- Margie Guyot

I wanted to do a gold and red painting and the red gills of the fish amazed me!  A friend had given me this stringer of taxidermy-d perch.  He'd caught them a few years ago and had them mounted.  They're huge.  And they're also a tattered mess -- his dogs had ripped the bejesus out of them.  So it was a puzzle, figuring out how the fins were supposed to go.  


The golden slippers came from a thrift shop up north of Petoskey.  And they FIT me, by golly!  I thought they were a hoot to paint.


And I just HAD to use the pumpkin!  Isn't it great?  I bought it from 2 young boys in Elk Rapids last October.  They grew specialty pumpkins and this one is gigantic.  It must weigh over 20 pounds.  But alas -- it's starting to rot a little.  Glad I could paint it.  I believe it's really a squash.  So tomorrow I will cut it up and bake it.  Good golly -- it looks like a year's supply of squash, there's so much of it!


Some things are so challenging, I love to try painting them over & over in many paintings.  If you've seen my other paintings, you probably would recognize the red striped glass pitcher.  And the tapestry.  Oh, and of course the turkey feathers!  Wild turkeys are all over up here and I love their feathers!  


I love Goodwill.  They have some of the coolest stuff.  I got the pink Depression glass plates and cups up there a week or so ago.  It was rather complicated to try to paint that stack!


And I love painting the red Carnival glass heart dish!  It has some of the wildest color reflections.  This is one of those paintings that I could probably spend weeks on, putzing.  But hey -- sometimes you ruin things that way.  On to the next one.....!

Porch Ornaments

"Porch Ornaments" -- plein air field study -- oil on canvas -- 10x20" -- Margie Guyot

After finishing painting "Charlevoix Train Station", I felt discouraged.  It was dark and gloomy and rainy -- not a good day for plein air painting!  All of us painters were under the gun to come up with nice paintings, framed and turned in later that afternoon.  Everything looked so blah!  Oh, what to do, what to do!


I packed up my gear and left Charlevoix.  Went home.  I was hungry.  Made a salad for lunch and had a cup of Starbucks.  There had to be something I could paint!


Standing out on my front porch, I looked up and saw it: my next painting!  Bright, cheery and whimsical: it was perfect!  There was the little "flying fish" tincan sculpture by Rich Branstrom and the string of plastic owl patio lights.  It gave me goosebumps.  Goosebumps, for me, are always a sign that I should do it, to follow through on an impulse.  I couldn't stop smiling the whole time I painted this one.  This was my favorite painting (out of 3) that I did on Saturday for the annual Crooked Tree Art Center's Paint-Out.

"Big Fish"

"Big Fish" -- oil on stretched canvas -- 40x60" -- Margie Guyot

Some of you probably thought I'd fallen off the ends of the Earth, but no -- I've been busy, slugging away on this still life. That, and doing a little gardening. Trying to get some of the more onerous tasks done outside before the biting bug season starts here in Michigan.

What inspired me to do this painting, you ask? A couple weeks ago I was rummaging around in a drawer, looking for an 8" square cake pan. Bumped into the copper Jell-O fish mold and thought aha! It just mushroomed from there.

I really do have a big fish like that. Well, it's not quite that nice. He came from a ratty garage sale in Dearborn. In reality, he's got a front fin missing and is rather grizzled-looking. Nobody else likes him but me. My neighbor forbade me to have him hanging on the wall during a birthday party. But that's the good thing about being an artist: we can prettify things if necessary, adding fins, a gleam in the eye, etc.

What was the hardest thing to paint in this one? The tablecloth! In real life, the table wasn't that wide and I had to kind of stretch it in the painting. With all the stuff lying on top of the tablecloth, it was rather challenging to try to figure out what was happening with the red & white design.

Liquin: nectar of the gods (to an artist, at least). Mixed with oils, Liquin helps them to dry quicker. When I started this painting, I didn't use Liquin, thinking what the heck: I'm in no hurry for this piece to dry. Wrong! I quickly reached the phase where everything was gooey. It was impossible to go in and make final touch-ups and details. Hence the side-trip into gardening for a few days, giving it time to dry.

What did I enjoy painting most? The roses. I really haven't painted roses much. They're hard! All those petals, all willy-nilly! Yikes! But I just kept reminding myself not to panic. You can figure this out! Actually it's just one rose. I painted it, then held it to the side and painted it, then held it to another side and painted it. Another advantage to being an artist right there! Decided I'll have to paint more roses. They'll probably be a struggle, too, but I'll just keep plugging at them.

Last of all, there's the little sleeping kitty in the lower right corner. That's one of my new rescue kitties, Picasso. He was sleeping in a chair nearby and I was able to paint him in before he woke up.