Paintings BIG and small

Golden Days, oil, 24x36

Evening Falls, oil, 24x36

Luminary of the Autumn Night Sky, oil, 30x40

Whirl the Seasons Round, oil, 12x16

Beach Path in Winter, oil, 9x12

It's always fun to shake things up a bit and working both large and small is one way to do that. The two small paintings here are not really that small considering that I often work 6x8in. But they are considerably smaller than the first three pieces. Students often ask me whether it's better to work large or small; the answer isn't really one or the other. There are things to be learned and gained from both. Small gives you the advantage of tackling all the major problems of a painting in a single sitting. Composition, value, color, brushwork, as well as painting method can all be addressed in a small work. Each time you work through those challenges you grow a little as an artist. So, a large painting may take you three weeks to finish and you've worked through one set of problems, but if you were painting smaller perhaps you would be able to accomplish six paintings in the same span of time and you would have had the experience of working through six sets of challenges. The more experience you get the better your painting skills become. Painting small allows you to produce many works in a short amount of time and gain experience quickly. This is often helpful for beginners. However, there are limitations to what can be done in a very small work, particularly in the area of expressive brush work and some of the finer points of creating a painting, like edges, subtle shifts in color and value,detail and complexity of composition. More intermediate level painters may find it most beneficial to tackle some larger canvases in order to pursue thise particular elements. And while small works may be little gems, large works tend to have the wow factor and command attention with their sense of presence. If you'd like to push youself a little then gradually change canvas size, either larger or smaller. Once you become comfortable with the next size up or down, go to the next size. Eventually, you'll find that you are comfortable painting any size. Inevitably you will have your favorite sizes and that's fine, but when you get into a rut it's nice to be able to break out a little bit and get the excitement flowing again.

As always these are available for sale. Golden Days and Luminary of the Autumn Night Sky are currently at Gallery at 85 Main Street, Centerbrook, CT. Send me an e-mail for purchase information. jan.blencowe@comcast.net

Also don't forget the HOLIDAY SALE at my website http://www.janblencowe.com/ there's a whole gallery of work on sale 50% off until Jan. 30th, 2008.

Plein Air in the Morning

Madison Morning, 6x8, oil

Hammonasset Waterway, 6x6, oil

SOLD

I'm sticking with my commitment to get out Monday-Friday in the mornings to paint. Living along the coast often means that it will be hazy/foggy/overcast in the morning and this is presenting me with some interesting color and lighting situations.

I wanted to mention the passing of a true modern master, Charles Sovek. I had the very good fortune of studying with him during two workshops in 2005. It was an amazing thing to watch him paint with such ease and joyful abandon. His loose colorist paintings have left the world a more beautiful place than when he arived in it. He was a gentle, and generous man, a wonderful teacher and an inspiration. He will be missed!

When Earths Last Picture is Painted

When Earth's last picture is painted

And the tubes are twisted and dried

When the oldest colors have faded

And the youngest critic has died

We shall rest, and faith, we shall need it

Lie down for an aeon or two

'Till the Master of all good workmen

Shall put us to work anew

And those that were good shall be happy

They'll sit in a golden chair

They'll splash at a ten league canvas

With brushes of comet's hair

They'll find real saints to draw from Magdalene, Peter, and Paul

They'll work for an age at a sitting

And never be tired at all.

And only the Master shall praise us.

And only the Master shall blame.

And no one will work for the money.

No one will work for the fame.

But each for the joy of the working,

And each, in his separate star,

Will draw the thing as he sees it.

For the God of things as they are!

Rudyard Kipling

Plein Air on Gray Days

Gray Day Rocks, 6x8, oil, $100 unframed

View Through the Bird Blind, 6x6, $100, unframed

We're in a terrible weather pattern, lots of clouds and then the sun breaks through, and just when you get outside the clouds return! Mother Nature's having some fun with us! The bird blind is a wooden shelter constructed in the marsh with viewing windows so you can observe the birds, waterfowl and wildlife unnoticed, a very cool place to set up and paint! These paintings reflect the gray-ness of the day and the textures of the marsh vegitation and the subtle changes in color of the rocks. Enjoy!

SEAWEED

When descends on the Atlantic
The gigantic
Storm-wind of the equinox,
Landward in his wrath he scourges
The toiling surges,
Laden with seaweed from the rocks:

From Bermuda's reefs; from edges
Of sunken ledges,
In some far-off, bright Azore;
From Bahama, and the dashing,
Silver-flashing
Surges of San Salvador;

From the tumbling surf, that buries
The Orkneyan skerries,
Answering the hoarse Hebrides;
And from wrecks of ships, and drifting
Spars, uplifting
On the desolate, rainy seas;--

Ever drifting, drifting, drifting
On the shifting
Currents of the restless main;
Till in sheltered coves, and reaches
Of sandy beaches,
All have found repose again.

So when storms of wild emotion
Strike the ocean
Of the poet's soul, erelong
From each cave and rocky fastness,
In its vastness,
Floats some fragment of a song:

Front the far-off isles enchanted,
Heaven has planted
With the golden fruit of Truth;
From the flashing surf, whose vision
Gleams Elysian
In the tropic clime of Youth;

From the strong Will, and the Endeavor
That forever
Wrestle with the tides of Fate
From the wreck of Hopes far-scattered,
Tempest-shattered,
Floating waste and desolate;--

Ever drifting, drifting, drifting
On the shifting
Currents of the restless heart;
Till at length in books recorded,
They, like hoarded
Household words, no more depart.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Field Studies en Plein Air

Oyster River Evening, 6x8, oil

Beach Path, 6x8, oil

Morning Path, 6x8, oil

Edge of the Woods, 6x8, oil

SOLD

I really enjoy painting small field studies outdoors. It's amazing how much you learn about nature, color, light, the rhythms of the seasons and the turning from night to day when you spend time working directly from nature. Larger studio works may seem grander and have more polish and finish but they can never compete with the intimate and fresh depiction of a scene you get when you work small and quick outdoors.

For your Spirit woven into the Fabric of creation

for the eternal overlapping with time

and the life of the earth interlaced with heaven's vitality

I give you thanks, O God.

For your untamed creativity

your boundless mystery

and your passionate yearnings

planted deep in the soul of every human being

I give you thanks.

Grabt me the grace to reclaom these depths

to uncover this treasure

to liberate these longings

and in being set free in my own spirit

to act for the well-being of the world.

J.Philip Newell

from~A Celtic Benediction~

Each of these field studies is available for purchase, unframed, $100. E-mail me jan.blencowe@comcast.net pay securely with PayPal

Plein Air Petitescapes

A Very Quiet Morning, 6x8,oil
$100, unframed, contact: jan.blencowe@comcast.net

Morning Dunes, 6x8, oil

$100, unframed, contact: jan.blencowe@comcast.net

I love painting these little field studies, 6x8 inch gems that seem to capture the intimacy and connection I feel with the landscape whenever I paint outdoors. Both of these were painted in the early morning a time of day I find enchanting.

How to Purchase: To pay safely with PayPal visit my daily painting gallery here.

Read Mary Oliver's beautiful and evocative Morning Poem.

Morning Prayer

Let me to-day do something that shall take

A little sadness from the world’s vast store, And may I be so favoured as to make

Of joy’s too scanty sum a little more.Let me not hurt, by any selfish deed

Or thoughtless word, the heart of foe or friend; Nor would I pass, unseeing, worthy need, Or sin by silence when I should defend.

However meagre be my worldly wealth, Let me give something that shall aid my kind –A word of courage, or a thought of health, Dropped as I pass for troubled hearts to find.

Let me to-night look back across the span

‘Twixt dawn and dark, and to my conscience say –Because of some good act to beast or man –“The world is better that I lived today.”

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Westbrook Dunes

Westbrook Dunes, 16 x20, oil
To Purchase contact: jan.blencowe@comcast.net

This painting was done as a demonstration for my landscape painting class at the Tracy Art Center. I'm pleased with the variety of earthy colors in this and the composition. I think it really captures the lonley, rugged feeling of the dunes in the off season.

Sand Dunes

Sea waves are green and wet,
But up from where they die,
Rise others vaster yet,
And those are brown and dry.

They are the sea made land
To come at the fisher town,
And bury in solid sand
The men she could not drown.

She may know cove and cape,
But she does not know mankind
If by any change of shape,
She hopes to cut off mind.

Men left her a ship to sink:
They can leave her a hut as well;
And be but more free to think
For the one more cast-off shell.

Robert Frost