New York Frames of Mine

Returning to my home city of NY is like being the observer of your own dream. You’re both the participant and the watcher. I’m from it but no longer of it.

This foggy, misty night scene is just outside the window where I stay with my good friend Judy of Lobos’ Rants Blog.

My two week tour through familiar streets and many now unfamiliar streets ends tonight.

New York needs no additional PR from me. It is it’s own best agent.

Atomic radishes on the left, smaller beets on the right.

Rainbow chard in case simple green doesn’t appeal to your aesthetics.

Sign in a restaurant window, or what to do with that chard.

Because it’s not the Hamptons

And because while eating outside, this fellow landed, right out of the central casting that is my life, on my camera strap! A reminder that I’m heading back home tomorrow. The god of props works overtime in NYC!

“Caught”- a New Painting

We have spiny lobsters in the Caribbean unlike the New England version that have the large claws, ours are mostly leggy with the meat found in the tail.

Caught 9X12 oil on stretch linen canvas

The size of the fish and lobster is getting smaller as the overfishing continues to be paradoxically problematic. It’s a source of income for fishermen as well as a pride of heritage. And a desired food source for people who appreciate fish over meat.

How to justify the balance is elusive.

As is the color adjustment on this blog. In life, this piece is much more vibrant and contrasted. Even with tweaking on Photoshop, I can’t get it right.

And while some living things have the natural desire to escape, others seem to prefer wanting IN, as noted in our local newspaper recently:

Let us in or we’ll shoot?

Sorting Cukes- New Painting

Every Saturday since January, I’ve been volunteering at the newly formed Virgin Island Farmers Cooperative.

It’s a stellar combination: sustainably grown local produce, appreciative customers, banter among the crew, and a day outside. Oh, and inspiring subjects for photos and paintings.

” Sorting Cukes ” 6X8 oil on panel

St Croix was long known as the breadbasket of the Caribbean. After years of a downturn in recognizing the importance of locally grown food ( 90% of our food is shipped in- old and nutritionally deficient by the time it arrives here ), the VIFC is revitalizing food production as a vital and greatly appreciated necessity to the residents of St. Croix.

Lettuce, mustard greens, peppers, cucumbers, local fruits, real eggs with orange yolks, free range chickens, goat, lamb, pork, all hormone free.

It’s one of my favorite days of the week, tiring, hot, fun, and a refrigerator stocked with real food.

Taste being one of our senses, smell is definitely another. It’s humid, hot, things get moldy and mildewed faster than you can launder or bleach them.

So I laughed when I saw this sign for a new ” fragrance ” shop that opened here-

( Thanks Ted, for the photo )

I have personally forsaken Chanel No. 5, and Angel, my two previously favorite perfumes for the only fragrances that have any useful purpose here:

Febreze

Off

Lysol

and the new fave,

Purell

Some days, turp smells great by comparison.

New Painting- Southgate Plantation Sugar Mill

It was a  grey day, no sun, flat atmosphere. I started this piece plein air during a workshop I took here a short while ago and finished it in the studio.

“Southgate Plantation”  10X12 oil on panel

There was a moment or two of brighter light coming from the right as the weather front lifted a bit. Not having sharp contrast from strong sun, makes for a flat scene which it was for most of the day.

I’m pretty pleased with the mill and the tree on the right.

These impressive structures, some 150 remaining ones on St.Croix, are reminders of the history of sugar cane. Going back over 300 years to the early Dutch settlers, it’s hard not to feel ambivelance at the conditions under which slaves were deployed to keep production at peak levels, while recognizing how hot it was. As stories are passed along, it was noted that as the crushers inside these mills squeezed every drop of cane juice out of the stalks, there was on site, a person whose job was to release by use of machete, any unfortunate workers arm that did not release from the grinding wheels in a timely manner.

Some interesting reading about the full history of St Croix when ” sugar was King ” courtesy of the Landmark Society here:

And a photo and short story of a mill from todays’ time here:

And a P.S.- fellow St. Croix resident, blogger friend, and creative digital photographer Don Diddams,  coincidentally posted a strong image and similar sentiments on his blog today. Have a look here and at the body of his work.

Nothing was plein about the air this morning- a rainbow popped into an otherwise dark, looming, overcast sky. Just enough of a snippet of light from somewhere to form a fleeting prism in the sky.

Art Demons……

…….trations. Help!

Yes, it’s supposed to read “Art Demonstrations “. In my Bookmark section, I’ve noted a site that only  had enough room in the side margin for the words ” Art Demons…..”

Was not lost on me. The demons are hovering and influencing the dulling of paint on my canvas.

“Strong ” 10X12 oil/panel

I’m following strict instructions not to use turps while painting, and still my finish here looks dull. I’ve been using paint out of the tube, no mediums, no turps but still find a lack of the sheen that is the trademark of oils.

I don’t know if painting on a toned, linen panel makes a more absorbent surface and does require some medium in the mix.

I’d really appreciate some suggestions. I had high hopes for this stoic, hardworking farmer. He deserved more than a lackluster representation.

Chili Pepper is working towards the same goal of getting Strong.

He’s a circuit trainer, working his way up from 3 lbs. He does NOT suffer a lackluster existence.

One Digit Off

In the Shadow 6 X 8 oil on linen panel

A recent upgrade in our phone lines resulted in a mandatory change of my phone number. I am now one digit off from an ” after hours spot ” known as a getaway for husbands and wives- not necessarily those who are there together.

At least 3 or more times a week, often in the wee hours after midnight, my phone rings next to the bed. It’s like a de-fib machine, startling me awake, with some voice asking if this is the club. Are they kidding? Why are you calling a club at 3 AM? How can you not know what number you’re calling at that hour? I’m not changing my phone again- I have cards, mailers, printed material and am not going to re-do everything.

Our other phone, which is a business number that rings in the house was also one digit off from a local electrical service company. Every day, we got calls from people looking to hire electricians.

Pre-dating these occurences was  my time at home in my teen years when after finally getting my own phone, I was yet again, one digit off from a well known dance studio and fielded more wrong numbers.  Usually resulted in slamming the phone down, feeling hugely disappointed that it wasn’t the object of my teenage heartbreak angst.

A funny pattern to follow you through your life, don’t you think?

I was careful not to have the lady in the shadow, above, have any digits off. She probably needs them all to dial my house at 3 in the morning when she’s looking for her boyfriend.

Maybe I need to release a few of these in the club to clear it out and allow me a good nights’ sleep……………

The title was not intended to refer to the case of the careless carpenter. He’s probably at the club too. Or working for the electrical company.

These Are a Few of My Fauvorite Things…

” Les Fauves “- The Wild Beasts. A group of modern artists of the early 20th Century. Those wild beasts played with strong color and painterly brush work.

I started this late in the day, outside during the workshop I took here a few weeks ago. The colors reminded me of the Fauvist movement.

I like the top two thirds of the one above this but haven’t found my bliss in the foreground. I’m going to walk away and move on to something new.

Like identifying these vegetables?/gourds?/cucumbers?/ that we carried at the VI Farmers Coop this past weekend.

Since no one was able to really identify it by spelling, it shall forever be known to me as the phonetic vegetable ” Kor-riley”. That’s the best I could extrude from a few local farmers who might have even pronounced it three different ways.

Bitter melon is what it’s known as in Chinese cooking. They sure  were the oddities of the market and despite their curious appearance, no one wanted to buy any. Even the vegetable kindgom has wild beasts, it seems.

Now it looks like we’ll have to monitor the statues too, as this fellow will barely pass the newly enacted Modesty for Statues Statute:

Wild Beasts are everywhere, so keep moving and ducking and painting.

The Unbearable Heaviness of Being

Body Language is the the generic and universal version of Berlitz.

Untitled 10×12 oil on linen panel

Untitled because we could all read something into her position which I can’t really describe as a pose. She’s in a position. And who hasn’t been?

I started this in the workshop I took two weeks ago and finished it in the studio. Funny how being away from the easel causes you to lose your brush muscles and painting confidence. Workshop paintings are started quickly and best moved along without too much anguish or you lose the feeling.

I used too much turp and the final piece, when I got it home, seemed flat and lifeless, well, almost like this subject. Fellow blogger, writer, and prolifically wonderful artist, Jala Pfaff offerred some great and generous advice. Describing it as ” oiling out “, which was to wait until it was no longer tacky to the touch and gently wiping a soft cloth with cold pressed linseed oil over the painting.

It came to life, alas, unlike the figure, who really had a bad day.

I used the same limited palette I’d been using during the workshop:

Alizarin

Ultramarine

Viridian

Yellow Ochre

Cad Yellow Lt

White

It makes for much less confusion and eliminates the ” Las Vegas All You Can Eat Buffet ” syndrome that ensues when you open every color tube like the days of Crayolas first box of 72. Whos’ skin color was that Flesh, anyway?

Here’s a gal who has no troubles with the heaviness of being……….

Another Painting Workshop

Friday ended a week long painting workshop here with artist, teacher Bruce Williamson, a painter from Texas who repeated his visit last year with another one this past week.

Bruce treats every subject as a recipient of light, whether it’s a landscape, a still life or a portrait.

Bruce doing a portrait demo outside.

Some of his starting concepts:

Have a goal – what do you want the painting to be about

Shape- placement of lights, shadows, shapes

Values or tones ( urghhhh, values….)

Color-

Texture

In that order, using that outline, a painting ought to be successful even if you paint waves in pinks or a face in blues.

A fellow workshop painter

I bow the very deepest bow I can take without falling on my head to every plein air painter. The town dogcatcher has an easier time retrieving feral beasts with a lasso than I do, painting outside in the shifting sun.

To achieve an accurate painting and not just a sweet little drawing  requires constant checking, thinking, evaluating, measuring and that seems to thwart the process of even getting the brush to the canvas. It helped me to think of this as strictly an exercise of embarrassed learning and forego the idea that these would be finished pieces.

Just the initial block in of the above scene ( minus the horizontal volleyball net ) which I’m going to work towards completion.

I took a palette knife and scraped off the first few attempts until I got a few bones I thought I could work with.

Better to have painted and scraped than never to have painted at all- words to live by as invoked by the fellow below:

I’ll be away for a week and eager to get back to the easel so I don’t lose the lessons.

There were three lovely awards sent my way this week which I’m so pleased to have received. Thank you Theresa, Nava and Marian!

Blogging…….

…………whoever tires of it?……

I’m not posting a painting today, just catching up looking at everyone elses’. I’m taking another plein air workshop this week and today was the first day. We’ll be going to a different location on the island every day this week.

What looks good will get posted, what doesn’t, gets scraped and sent to the corner.

It’s been a year since my last workshop so along with sunscreen, I’ll bring a can of WD40 for my rusty landscape joints.

But not to deprive anyone of an artistic submission,

A last minute invite to a birthday party. Cookies, the food group that stands alone, were the right idea but I didn’t have tray big enough to transport 60 of them across bumpy roads. And one that I could leave there.

Finally a use for that heavy corrugated cardboard lurking in the closet since before forever. A few coats of acrylic paint on both sides and then the scavenging began outside. Dried palm fronds- cut off the leaves, hot melt glue gun ( love that thing ), and there are the two lengths. Dried banana leaves shore up the shorter sides.  One giant monstera leaf for drama and a tray is born.

If you were going to toss your cookies, wouldn’t you want to toss them HERE?

Fill up on these, as the next posting might be a while. I’ll also be away for a week after the workshop.