No Eye Has Seen

No Eye Has Seen, acrylic, 20x24

This was a very enjoyable piece to paint, seemed to flow right out of me. I had to crop the bottom of the photo a little because the easel was visible, so the composition actually extends another inch or so at the bottom showing a bit more of the marsh grass on the right and more of the cloud reflection on the left. In person the cloud has more of a luminous yellow glow to it than you can see in the photo, so nicer in person than what you see on the screen. Enjoy!

Moon at Sunset

Moon at Sunset, acrylic, 6x8

I'm having a good time with these interactive acrylics. Working on getting a scumbling method down. Scumbling (scrubbing a thin layer of a lighter color over a darker layer that is already dry) is a favorite technique of mine with oil paints but it has the disadvantage of having to wait for the first layer to be dry. With acrylics the first layer is immediately ready which allows this technique to become a major part of the process of the painting. Fun!

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.

A Late Summer Symphony of Paintings

Marsh Flowers, 9x12, oil

Marsh House, 9x12, oil

Marsh Sunset, 9x12, oil

Here are three paintings done in a series, three days in a row at the same time of day. The first and third are from the same location, the former looking east and the latter looking west towards the sunset. The middle one was done several miles down the road along the Oyster River. These three pieces served as vehicles for some color experiments I'm working on. The idea is called "pigment soup" it's origins are with the early 20th century American painter Edgar Alwin Payne.

This idea is currently being discussed by a group of artists in the online art community www.WetCanvas.com . Simply put, you mix up a color which becomes the basis for the entire painting and each and every subsequent color that you mix contains a bit of the original color. This guarantees an immediate color harmony and gives you the opportunity right at the very beginning of the painting process to decide upon and enact a strategy for creating mood and emotion in your painting. It's this last part that I am especially interested in, creating mood and emotion in a painting. I am no longer content to just "paint what I see". My desire is to paint what I feel and inject a more spiritual component into my work. I want emotions and ideas like longing, joy, awe, lonliness, gratitude, wistfulness, peacefulness, solitude, contemplation, elation, brooding, desire, tranquility, vitality, happiness to come through. More like poetry, less like prose.

Speaking of poetry here's one that is especially appropriate as summer slips away and we long to keep it just a little longer before back to school and autumn 's rainy, chilly weather appears.

Fair Summer Droops
from Summer’s Last Will and Testament by Thomas Nashe (1600)

Fair summer droops, droop men and beasts therefore,

So fair a summer look for nevermore:

All good things vanish less than in a day,

Peace, plenty, pleasure, suddenly decay.

Go not yet away, bright soul of the sad year,

The earth is hell when thou leav’st to appear.

What, shall those flowers that decked thy garland erst,

Upon thy grave be wastefully dispersed?

O trees, consume your sap in sorrow’s source,

Streams, turn to tears your tributary course.

Go not yet hence, bright soul of the sad year,

The earth is hell when thou leav’st to appear.