Thursday, April 10, 2014

McHenry, Illinois



This painting was done in my hotel room in McHenry, Illinois.  Again the lighting was crappy!  I turned every light in the room on and had the curtains open for what little daylight I could get!   This canvas has a ripple in it on the left side because I had it in my carry bag and something hard and round pressed in to it.  I decided it to use it anyway since right now I am just trying new things.  I like this one so I am trying to get that ripple out!



Wednesday, April 2, 2014

Chasing Spring

When you drive from Wisconsin to Louisiana in March you go from winter gradually to Spring.  For us Spring didn't start until we got south of Memphis.  Then we noticed the grass, then the trees and finally in New Orleans we had flowers!  Of course the return trip reverses the process and even after being gone 9 days, we still came back to snow on the north sides of roads, houses, yards and piles of snow in the parking lots.  I did this piece in our hotel suite at a window that looked out at an empty brick building.  I didn't realize how bad the light was until I found myself with this dark little painting, which is not what I set out to produce.  Actually this is the 3rd reincarnation.  The first one, I didn't like much so I painted some more.  The 2nd version reminded Karen of Big Bird (she wasn't totally wrong) and so I painted some more and got this dark little piece where it seems we are looking back along the route that we took as we chased after spring and finally caught her.