Echo  oil on birch panel 9 x 12″ in gold frame  $400 framed, $350 unframed but ready to hang

Here’s a painting that I started way back when the peonies were in bloom.  Last year we were in Syracuse to hear our grandson play viola in the Syracuse Youth Symphony (brag, brag).  With a couple of hours to kill while Mason was rehearsing before the concert we went to the Everson Museum, a really nice small museum downtown.  In the gift shop I found a thin-lipped mug–the object of many a search–and Ed bought it for me.  I loved the flower and thought it would look nice in a still life with another white bloom.

Babas in Limoncello  10 x 8″  oil on birch panel  $200

Well, it has been an age since I posted anything.  Dial-up got to be just too frustrating.  But the happy news is that recently we got a satellite dish and a somewhat faster connection.  It’s not ideal but compared to what we had previously it’s wonderful.  I can sit in bed and get email now.

Another reason for not posting in a long time is that I’ve been working on large paintings for a show this coming summer–all clouds all the time.  I really have been totally obsessed with clouds and once we got a faster connection joined the (British of course) Cloud Appreciation Society.   I don’t want to post photographs of the cloud paintings until the show is up in June. But since I’m about finished with all the work for the show I can turn to other subjects.

Today I was looking at art from Cloud Appreciation Society members and I found a wonderful painter, Barbara Kacicek.  She does beautiful alla prima paintings–the whole thing in one fell swoop.  So this afternoon I thought I’d try that over an old painting of mine.  Alison and John gave me a pretty jar of babas in limoncello for Christmas  and I’ve been guiltily snacking on them.   I decided I should do a still life while there were still some left.   I did the whole painting in a couple of hours this afternoon and put the jar back in the fridge.  It probably would have been a little better with more babas, but hey, who could resist?  Alla prima is good; now I can resume eating my subject… And I guess I’m not completely done with clouds.

Before the Ride  oil on birch panel  9 x 12″  unframed but ready to hang  $200

This pasture with its rolling hills is a spot where I’ve wanted to paint for some time.  The forecast was for nice weather too.   I set up behind a barn and started in.  Some horses appeared in the distance so I grabbed the camera and got a quick  reference shot in the minute before they started galloping around.    Then after I’d gotten past the point of no return with the painting some riders arrived.  My umbrella spooked the horses so much I finally had to move my easel so they could be coaxed into the barn.  Once the riders were on their way and I’d settled back in  ominous clouds appeared.  I was sure I was once more going to be caught in a downpour but I couldn’t stop putting one more touch and then one more on the painting.  Happily, the dark clouds moved off, followed by some beautiful bright ones.   Finally, when I was leaving, I somehow managed to hit a stone wall, knocking off a non-essential piece of the car.  Oh well, in spite of the complications I was pretty pleased with the painting.  I of course added the horses in the studio.  They were so tiny in the distance I had a hard time suggesting their forms.

Glow   Oil on birch panel  12 x 12″  unframed but ready to hang   $300

Here’s a painting I did as a study for a much larger painting that I’m working on now.  Since clouds can be a landscape in themselves I’m painting some with no other middle or background.

We’re back from L.A. and blogging with  dial-up seems even slower after 2 weeks of wi-fi.  Life in the woods is wonderful but we do yearn for a faster connection.

While we were in L.A. we had dinner with Ed’s niece, Terryn Westbrook,  a successful actor.  She gave me a wonderful quote from Martha Graham to Agnes deMille.  I think anybody who attempts anything creative can relate to what she says.  I’m certainly glad to hear that dissatisfaction is “divine” since there’s plenty of that along the way!

“  There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, the expression is unique.  And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and will be lost.  The world will not have it.  It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open.  You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work.  You have to keep yourself open and there is only a queer divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others. “

Lift          Oil on birch panel    9 x 12″    unframed but ready to hang $250

Not long ago I did a cloud painting from our porch.  When I’d finished it I thought it wasn’t very interesting and then I remembered that I had (pre-digital) photos  from the Quechee balloon festival about 17 years ago.  So I just painted the balloons on top of the clouds.  The background clouds in the photo actually looked a lot like the clouds I’d already painted.

Larches and Lupines  oil on masonite   unframed   $100

Here’s a painting of the back slope behind our house.  I painted the larches  (“The Larch” <)  and then remembered that there was also a reference to lupines in a MP episode (“Give me all your lupines!”).  So I tucked in a few lupines growing further up the hill.   Well, it amused me…..

Morning Clouds  oil on birch panel 9 x 12″ unframed but ready to hang  $250

Here’s the second painting I did this season when a friend and I went to a spot high above the village.  I was mainly after clouds and to my great delight there were plenty.  Often in the summer  clouds don’t appear until late morning but this time they were there at 9:00 and stayed until I left a couple of hours later.   Clouds are constantly moving so the best you can do is to slap down some basic shapes and use similar forms as the painting proceeds.  I really like the green patches in a vista like this, the combination of trees and open fields.

Transition  Oil on birch panel  9 x 12″  $350

This still life is one I thought I’d posted some time ago but I’ve gone back through the archives and apparently I only imagined I’d put it up.  Anyway, I had fun arranging it.  I’d been saving the moth and the monarch for some time;  I found them both on the road.  And the cocoon I found  while visiting Fla. years ago.  (To be honest, the moth is a Cecropia but the cocoon is Polyphemus–but hey, artistic license, right?)  All these objects have  been sitting in my prop box waiting to be in a set up.  Then fall leaves made me think of time and changes.  The seed pods are from some vine but I have no idea what.  I just thought they had a nice resemblance to the cocoon.  When I got the whole composition arranged I decided it needed something else.  Then shortly thereafter when  we were in Boston  the gingko tree outside our B & B was shedding its yellow leaves.  I was so tickled to have them to spread around  as a unifying  element.  It’s amazing to me sometimes how when I’m looking for something it’ll just fall into my lap.

Points of View oil on birch panel  18 x 24″ unframed but ready to hang $500 + s & h

In case there’s still one person on the planet who still checks this blog, I don’t know why I haven’t made an entry in so long.  One reason is, I’m working and reworking huge cloud paintings for a show in 2012; I’m nowhere ready to show them.  But I do have some smaller pieces that I just haven’t gotten around to posting.  Here’s one I painted this winter.  I really enjoy doing still lifes when I can’t get outside.  I bought the pitcher some time ago for nearly nothing, and then I used a piece of satin left from an alteration to Alison’s wedding dress years ago.   Earlier in the winter I got a little obsessed with origami so here’s yet another painting with a crane done with shiny paper as well as an origami lily.  At the last minute I added the scissors because I thought the composition needed another element to lead the eye.  The minute I put in  the scissors I had the title–”Points of View.”  The photo’s not great but you get the idea.

Persimmon   oil on claybord  5 x 7″  $100

Here’s another of the little kitchen paintings.  I’d wanted to paint a persimmon for a long time but it took a while to find one that was the right shape.

The flight back from L.A. went better than expected.  We had to dig the car out at the remote lot but it didn’t take too long and then we got to Alison’s in Utica by 8:00 Calif. time.  Now we’ll have a day or two with our NY family.

While we were in L.A with a fast connection I was browsing around on the Internet  and (I have to admit) googled myself.  I was very surprised to find a number of my paintings on YouTube set to music, done by something called Picutapicata.  At first I thought they must have been lifted from my blog but some of them have never been on the blog.  I’m not complaining–just puzzled.  Anyway, if you would like  to see the show you can search for it at andreadoughtiefuerelise.   Has anyone else had this happen?