In honor of my 75th birthday, Nancy unearthed my first painted portrait. I created this one in acrylics when I had first begun painting. So this is a 45 year old view of myself. Below it is a more recent self-portrait at 73 painted in Ceracolors. Quite a difference!
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Every artist who expects to learn from experience will have a "fail" at least once in a while. I'm no exception, though I would of course love to be in this case, LOL. Last weekend I was really struggling with a pastel of a copse of trees and bushes in raking light alongside a path. It came out so poorly that I won't even post it anywhere, despite my struggling with it. In fact, the very act of struggling resulted in an overpainting, something I like to avoid. Enough said about the disappointment. With extra time on my hands painting with our plein air group, I sat next to my friend, who was painting a landscape in the other direction. He was contemplating whether to add a front "screen" depicting the wild fennel as a foreground to his expansive view. From my perspective, the simple Zen-like beauty of the dried fennel stalks and seeds against the sky and the mountains was quite enough of an inspiration. So I broke out my colored pens and created this gentle, subtle but lovely piece. The old Zen sumi-e painter in me rejoices. See if it moves you too. My painting, "Winter Morning Mist on the Reservoir" is in a show now through January featured at the Coastal Arts League Gallery in Half Moon Bay.
I'm honored to have it selected to hang among so many other great regional artists' work. Go see it! |