Pondering.....and Two New Paintings



"The Rocks Of Maine's Coast"      Oil on copper panel      6 x 6"       ©2012 www.kathipeters.com

When the days get shorter, my studio time seems to get longer. It doesn't really compute, but it seems to be the norm. I am sitting here now looking around my studio and trying to figure out how I can get more room in the studio that I was sure was "big enough". It now seems to have shrunk. Funny how that happens. So as daylight shrinks by the minute....my studio shrinks by the day. I need to get more creative on how I use the space available to me. So I sit here pondering.......

I love where we live. Periodically I need an ocean fix. Maine's coast calls to me, maybe because I was born in a water sign month.....or because I was born on the coast. I need to be near water. And lately I also have been feeling the need to paint work depicting the ocean too. Luckily, I am near it.....inspiration is only a short ride away. Pictured above is one of my latest works, a small gem of a painting depicted our rocky coast of Downeast Maine.

And then after I picked the very last of our pears from our small orchard....I set up and did a small still-life painting. It seemed only fitting. Small and small....!

"Four Pears"  OIl on copper panel   6 x 6"   ©2012 www.kathipeters.com

 

And NOW I am thinking that my studio is small........

Still Studying - After All These Years

"The Cob - Walking Away"  Oil on Canvas  10 x 8"   ©2012 www.kathipeters.com

 

My vegetable garden is in fall mode.My perennial gardens are growing rampant. I have been busy painting and drawing .....and  studying.Yes ,studying. I recently bought several books in my never ending quest to tweak my artwork and stretch as an artist. I strongly feel that if I want to grow as an artist, I need to read and learn from artists past and present.So I study!!

But I have been painting too. The above oil painting is of a Welsh Cob.....our Welsh Cob mare, Victoria. She does NOT like to have her photo taken and dislikes even more having me doing a painting of her. What started as a plein air painting became a studio painting as she decided that she had had enough of me.


And as the days get shorter and the afternoon sun dips lower and lower in the sky I felt the need to paint my last roses blooming in my studio garden. I just finished this 6 x 6" oil on copper......so two paintings done recently. I have been drawing too This is good!

 "Last Roses Of Summer"   Oil on copper panel   6 x 6"  ©2012 www.kathipeters.com

   . So what books am I reading now???? "Hensche On Painting" What have I learned? To get OUT OF THE STUDIO.....and paint outside to learn color!!  And I am also reading "Childe Hassam - American Impressionist" So what am I learning there? [It is a big book!] that I need to paint more!!  That being said....I am off to paint!

Working On Memorabilia

"Jumble Of Friends"     Casein       9 x 12"    ©2012

Our home is filled with old memorabilia.... with memories of my childhood, growing up in Italy where I collected nic-nacs on any road trip we went on., and memories from before Italy, when we lived in New Hampshire and I played with doll houses and made fairy houses in the woods surrounding our farm in the granite state's forests. Over the years some of these figures and toys have gone missing, been broken, or traded for something better. But until today some of my "old friends" have remained intact and still provide me with joy. And I have been feeling a need to immortalize these friends...and so I have done two still lifes.....two casein paintings , maybe to "play again" with these old friends....?

'Jumble Of Friends'", above, depicts a bowl that now sits in my studio with some of my old figures,and after seeing it, day after day, the idea to paint it seemed appropriate. I do have other figurines that need to be highlighted in a second painting...that will come. But after doing the friends in a bowl, I decided to paint an antique watercolor paint set that I was given to me years ago by my granddaughter. Jackie saw it at a shop and thought I needed it! I love looking at it and wondering who the child was, who owned this set...?? And did they grow up to be an artist?  So this has become my second still-life painting....."The Artist's Tools" .

"The Artist's Tools"  Casein on paper   9 x 12"   ©2012

 

 

So there will be more still-life paintings in the works.....and maybe others can relate

 to my fascination with things old and memories immortalized.

 

Summer Is Done [Almost] And So Are Three Paintings

"Self-Portrait 2012"     Casein on board      6 x 6"        ©2012

The past 2 weeks we have had company ...family has come.... and gone.... and the end of summer is marching by fast paced and on time !! I have picked almost all the veggies from our garden.I have bagged and frozen bags of tomatoes and am eating my fill of sweet tasting juicy fresh tomatoes.How I miss them when winter settles in and we are forced to eat tomatoes from the supermarket that taste so bland compared to our summer's bounty.
In between the farm's daily chores and gardening ...and company....I have done 3 small paintings.......and here they are.

"A Jumble Of Friends"      Casein on paper       9 x 9"       ©2012

 

"Polo Red"   Casein on board    6 x 6"   © 2012

 

I am so looking forward to a productive creative winter cloistered in my cozy studio ....

and singing my art's song!!