March 2013

Some how I can't get the text where I want it today. Anyway the first watercolor is Cap d'Ail on the French Riviera again. This time the whole view from the house. I want to paint this scene on a big canvas in oil. This study was done for my cousin's 70th birthday.

The little red horse was inspired by seeing the horses from Chauvet Cave, which I first saw in the Cave of the Forgotten Dreams.

Spring is certainly coming: I saw wildflowers incl. bluebonnets already in Feb! 

The two wildflowers and rockart watercolors will be on display at the Seguin Oakwood Art League in Seguin,TX for their watercolor show this month. For those in the area the opening is this Thursday March 7th from 5 till 7pm. I will be there.

January 2013 news

"A little Piece of Heaven" is at Vegeria. It is a field of wildflowers not far from my home last spring.
I have just sent the twin of this painting off to its new home in France. "Paradise" (see below) is going to a dear friend from long ago at art school in Perpignan. We met on the first day of classes - she, a mother of a toddler and a baby, and I, a teenager. Annie's friendship made me feel at home in the "big city" and  we enjoyed studying with Germain Bonel (www.arcadja.com/auctions/en/bonel_germain/artist/57751/) whose love of Japanese woodblock prints and cheerful spirit still warm my heart when I think of him. His favorite artist was Bonard.

"Tulips" has an unusual story. Last year at the Fiesta show on Alamo Plaza, I was told by a nice lady from Mexico City (who was also a tour guide) that I needed to paint tulips (not bluebonnets), because I was from Holland. That didn't seem to be necessary to me. Windmills, wooden shoes, fields of tulips... I thought about it a few times, but decided against it. Last December I saw red and yellow tulips at the grocery store and remembered helping someone who was painting a large bouquet of flowers and praising her for the very same tulips. Then it occurred to me that I had not helped anyone but had had a recurring dream. I understood I needed to paint those tulips and not the peonies (always reminding me of Japan) that I was tempted to buy instead... I started them while one of my tom cats was very sick and I had only an hour, so I painted fast and big, wanting to show the strength of the flowers opening.

This little still life was started at Edward Povey's studio in Wimberley and was supposed to be a study in tonal value. We were only allowed 4 colors (white, blue, brown and yellow) and the plate I had chosen was bright red... I still went off working on color instead of tonal value and Edward graciously let me get away with it this time... The changing shadows and lights brought out shapes in the plate that reminded me of native American pottery I saw in New Mexico last summer.

"Roses" has a long history, it was started after Aunt Katya's Icon in 2011 and was supposed to have an icon (angel Gabriel or Virgin Mary with child) in the middle. My husband liked the roses for their own sake and was convinced it would become too busy.  The roses were painted in our backyard. The classical armature was a topic we studied with Edward when I took up this painting again last summer and it helped to make it more powerful.

This version of "our Lady of Vladimir" and "Paradise" found new homes at the end of last year.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Paradise is one of the wildflower paintings on sale at Vegeria

The art Reception at Vegeria was such a relaxed event; thank you all for coming! We had poets, artists and mothers, family, old time friends and new ones, animal activists and animal lovers, English as a Second Language teachers and Peace Corps volunteers; as a group we had lived in and traveled to so many countries. The food was delicious! Two paintings and one print were sold. Thank you for your nice reactions and for thinking about us, friends who are far away!

The following paintings found a new home in the last 2 months.

Petroglyph Parrot

Egyptian Don Juan

Aunt Katya's Icon

Enjoying Lost Maples

I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy, Healthy 2013! Happy Holidays!

Art Reception at Vegeria on Dec 12th 2012

The Art Reception will be on Wednesday, Dec 12, from 6:30 till 8:30 pm at Vegeria inside the Viva Bookstore on Broadway just inside loop 410.

Robert, Gerald and I are planning to have dinner at Vegeria  at around 5:30 and I wanted to let you know in case some of you want to join us for dinner or dessert. Vegeria is San Antonio's first vegan restaurant; a lot of the food, which is delicious, is also gluten free and the desserts are fabulous.

10% of the sale of the art work will benefit SARA Sanctuary.

I hope to see you there!

News

Our Lady of Vladimir, watercolor

Our Lady of Vladimir, watercolor

 First of all my husband, Robert, is doing very well, all the test results were negative! We are so grateful!

 Some of my recent icons  are on display in "Art on Main" in Pleasanton, TX (www.artonmaingallery.net).

 The past Saturdays I have shown my art at 2 events and 2 original paintings found good homes. My Petroglyph Parrot went home with a dear friend, who did a great deal of work for my Waring show in 2007. Thank you, Kerri! Every time I think about the watercolor being at your home, I smile. My Egyptian Don Juan was bought by a nice family last Saturday.

Our lady of Korsun, watercolor

This coming Saturday, Nov 10th, I will be at Canyon Lake, Texas, at the Tye Preston Memorial library (www.tpml.org), participating in the Canyon Lake Art Guild Holiday Art Show. The library is located on the Access Road South close to the dam and I so enjoyed taking pictures in its butterfly garden. It had been a cold morning, it was so quiet and the sun felt wonderful to my friend and myself and to the butterflies. This was my best picture. Come by if you are in the area.

Petroglyph Parrot, watercolor 2012

Egyptian Don Juan, oil 2010

In December and January, I am having an exhibit at Vegeria (www.myvegeria.com), the vegan restaurant in the Viva bookstore (www.vivabooks .com) on Broadway in San Antonio, TX. If you haven't eaten there, the food is delicious. I will let you know about the opening reception.

Latest Creations

This blog is dedicated to my friend, Olga, whose birthday it is today. I could write a whole blog about Olga. She is generous, has a heart of gold, is faithful, a wonderful wife and mother. She is beautiful, intelligent, hard-working and fun loving. Happy Birthday, Olga!

Red Hills sums up my vacation. It was painted using a photograph I took at Uplistsikhe in the Republic of Georgia. I was thinking about these hills showing what the landscape might have looked like before the rock-hewn dwellings were made. The low hills in the desert of Azerbaijan and the natural gas burning eternally right out of the ground around Baku crept into it. And last of all our anniversary trip to New Mexico with a visit to the O'Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe and Ghost Ranch left their mark.
The lines in the foreground may refer to some ancient structure or use. Walnut trees are a common sight in Georgia and a cheerful one to me.

Petroglyph Parrot was painted in New Mexico from a sketch at Petroglyph National Monument. It was very hot at the monument, painting on location was no option. My husband, Robert, who enjoyed the petroglyphs and vacation as much as myself had a seizure during the trip. He is back at work and doing well now. We spent the last month finding out what may have caused it, what to do to prevent any future ones and living as healthily as possible. Two new developments came from this experience: Robert has decided to be proactive about his health like never before and he wants me to earn money. I see his point and am ready to be proactive as never before about making art and finding a market for it. Do you have any suggestions or ideas that might help me? I will give them a fair try. Thank you!

Caucasian Georgia 2

Uplistsikhe was a Greek town, though the site was inhabited well before Antiquity. It later became Georgian and was inhabited through the Middle Ages. We found it very impressive. The rock is really grey which led me to continue my experiments with color.

The view from inside one of the houses inspired this one. The rocks, the church and the hills, we had it all to ourselves: Ucha, Robert's (and his fellow teachers') driver and friend, left us because the hot sun had given him a bad headache. Besides ourselves there was only the little lady at the church who had walked up the hill with Ucha, Gerald and me. She told Ucha she was afraid in one overgrown spot early on the trail, where she had encountered a snake before. We only saw big frilly lizards, "jorjo" or "jojo" is what Ucha called them.

This is our cat, Misty. Gerald says her eyes are bigger, I didn't want to attempt to make them so, thinking they might not keep the expression I liked. The 2 earlier paintings are done in oil, this one is in acrylic.
Enjoy the rest of your summer!