"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.

"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.

Blue

"Blue" -- oil on canvas 16x20" -- Margie Guyot

Last weekend my friend Ann stopped in my studio to show me her new handblown Christmas ornaments.  She suggested I use them in a painting, paired with an old blue Carnival glass bowl I had.  I'm always careful to return borrowed items as quickly as possible, so when we had a sunny day here this past Friday, I painted like a fiend!  This painting would have been impossible to do without bright sunlight flooding in.

If I had the nerve, I would have titled this "Ann's Blue Balls"....

Cupcake Party!

"Cupcake Party" -- oil on canvas 30x40" -- Margie Guyot

After finishing painting just about every variety of cupcakes that Simplycupcakes makes, I wanted to pull them all (OK, most) together for a bigger still life painting.  That's a vintage tablecloth under everything.  I loved the cheery tulips in it.  Had to throw a little vase of real tulips in as well, along with my favorite frog teapot, sugar and creamer set.  

We only had a couple days of sun while I was painting this, so every time the sun came out, I focused on painting the shadow shapes.  I think it's the shadow/light patterns that give a painting a feeling of reality.  

I'd never painted Depression glass dishes in the sunlight before, and they were an interesting challenge.  This painting has a feeling of "gay chaos" in it -- but isn't a good party a sense of "gay chaos"?

Autumn Road

"Autumn Road" -- plein air field study -- oil on birch panel 8x10" -- Margie Guyot

I've gotten a little behind on my posts -- sorry!  With the change of seasons, there's always much to do.  


Back in October I went painting one sunny day with my friend, Al Maciag.  We were cruising the roads SE of Traverse City, MI.  I'm a sucker for sunlight/shadow patterns on roads, so I urged Al to pull over.  The trees were in full glory, covered in golds, bronzes, rusts, etc.   

Right after finishing this painting, we continued our hunt for "the perfect view".  The view of the Boardman River (posted last month) was where we stopped next.