Merry Christmas

Wishing all of you a wonderful Christmas and a new year filled with color, discovery and lots of joy!!

Please sign up to continue reading my revised blog starting Jan 1. You can do this by going to http://www.suechurchgrant.com
(Link here) and clicking on a sign up button.

ANOTHER REMINDER: Make the SWITCH

Three days until Christmas and 9 days til the start of 2017 and my new blog. Thank you to many of you who have taken the time to sign up for the switch. Here is the info for any of you who have missed this.

I have been working on copy for my blog (aka newsletter) that will be completely redone and ready with the arrival of 2017.

Depending on your interest, I  know you won't want to miss the tips, the step-by-step process descriptions or other surprises.

To make sure you receive this in your e mail inbox, you are going to have to re sign up because I will be switching to mail chimp as my platform. To sign up, you will have to click on this link which will take you to my web page. On most of the pages you will find a subscribe link or button. After you fill in your e mail, you will be prompted to activate your signup by a follow up e mail. I hope you will take a few minutes and sign up. I will re post this, in case you forget. Thank you, again!!

REMINDER ABOUT ENDING OF THIS BLOG

This is a commission that was gifted ahead of Christmas. I loved painting it. Horses are so regal and the shine on their coats is amazing.

Thank you to the many of you who have already signed up for my new blog starting 2017. You can stop reading here.

For anyone who missed my previous post, here is the scoop:
I have been working on copy for my blog (aka newsletter) that will be completely redone and ready with the arrival of 2017.

Depending on your interest, I  know you won't want to miss the tips, the step-by-step process descriptions or other surprises.

To make sure you receive this in your e mail inbox, you are going to have to re sign up because I will be switching to mail chimp as my platform. To sign up, you will have to click on this link which will take you to my web page. On most of the pages you will find a subscribe link or button. After you fill in your e mail, you will be prompted to activate your signup by a follow up e mail. I hope you will take a few minutes and sign up. I will re post this, in case you forget. Thank you, again!!

HOW TO SIGN UP FOR MY NEW NEWSLETTER/BLOG

My eyes feel like this parrot's look. I have spent hours today beginning the update of my webpage and working on copy for my blog (aka newsletter) that will be completely redone and ready with the arrival of 2017.

Depending on your interest, I  know you won't want to miss the tips, the step-by-step process descriptions or other surprises.

To make sure you receive this in your e mail inbox, you are going to have to re sign up because I will be switching to mail chimp as my platform. To sign up, you will have to click on this link which will take you to my web page. On most of the pages you will find a subscribe link or button. After you fill in your e mail, you will be prompted to activate your signup by a follow up e mail. I hope you will take a few minutes and sign up. I will re post this, in case you forget.

Gold Leafed Monarch

Gold Leaf Monarch/ oil and gold leaf  on board/ 5 x 7
Purchase here

When I visited my artist sister Kate Church (link), we talked about gold leafing. (Kate had recently purchased one of my golf-leaf enhanced watercolors. Yes, I did write "purchased". Kate is an amazing artist. She understands the expense of art materials and refused to accept my work as a gift. Instead, she gave ME a wonderful gift. Her ongoing support and confidence are so much and always appreciated).
So here is my first gold leaf-enhanced oil painting. Those of you close to me know that raising monarchs is a passion of mine. This is one of my monarchs that flew this fall. I had such a great time working on this that I purchase silver and copper (and more gold) leaf to try!!

I have also promised a new blog format for 2017. To kick it off, I will be offering a little "give away". If you already subscribe to my blog, you will be entered. If you know someone who might want to subscribe, check it out in Jan and share (tell me with whom) and I will enter you again for your referral (and if your person actually subscribes, they will be entered). Hope your holiday shopping is going well!!

Little Pig (who is glad he is not a Turkey)

Little Pig/ oil on gesso board/ 6 x 6/ SOLD

I have been experimenting with layering thicker paint to achieve more texture. and mingling colors. Animals seem to be good subjects to try this with.

I am also painting over an under color. This one was black flat acrylic paint. If you look closely, you can see small pieces of black peeking out.

I am continuing to work on revising my blog for 2017. ..

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Gold Leaf Watercolors

Gold Duck/ watercolor and gold leaf/ 7 x 6
Purchase here

This morning, I reworked some little gold leaf watercolors that needed just a little more value. Here they are: just in time for the holidays!

They look great as a collection. Which is your favorite?

Gold Egret/ watercolor and gold leaf/ 6 x 8.5
Purchase here

Gold Rabbit/ watercolor and gold leaf/ 6.25 x 6.5
Purchase here

Christmas Angels

Christmas Angel Blues/ oil on panel, 7 x 5/ SOLD

The second (the first was not a "keeper") in a series of "mud faced" angels. Camille Przewodek describes simplifying her beautiful painted faces as "mud faces". When I went recently to buy birthday cards at Hallmark, I found these beautiful simple "mud-faced" figurines. Their wings are a wire ribbon arrangement. However, they gave me the idea of posing them, re dressing them and adding holiday poinsettia or holly while playing with color.

Christmas Angel Reds/ oil on panel/ 7 x 5/ SOLD

This is the third one.

Special Holiday Priced Studies

Apple Study #1/ 4 x 4/ oil on gessobord/
will be shipped in a Priority Flat rate envelope

I have a class this weekend of relatively new painters. To help with the expense of supplies, we are working with a limited number of paints. To be as familiar as possible (this week) with these paints, I did a series of small paintings. I also worked on limiting the number of brushstrokes. I used on each study. The galleries where I sell most of my work, prefers larger paintings. Therefore, I painted  4 x 4 boards that I have currently. I am offering these little paintings at what might be an attractive price for a holiday gift.  This is only an online or pickup sale and will be available only until Thanksgiving.

Apple Study #2/ 4 x 4/ see above

Grapefruit Study/ 4 x 4/ see above

Update on 2017 Calendars

2017 calendars have been proofed and are currently in production

$24.95 plus NC tax if applicable
 plus $6.45 Priority Mail shipping, if desired

Pay Pal button available on the right margin or you can bring a check and pick up your calendar in person (Your NC total including tax will be $26.63)

I added quotes this year. Let me know what you think.

Calendars 2017 and please send me your baby images

It is that time of year where I go  through the year's paintings and select what I think are the best for the calendar. Interesting to me, is my favorites seem to be yours also. Almost all of the images I have picked are sold and in your collections.

The largest expense for calendars is always the shipping from the company, so I like to have an idea of how many I might need to order to avoid a second order (shipping cost). If you know that you will want a calendar this year, please let me know. The cost will be $24.95 and I may try first class mail instead of priority shipping for people who can't pick them up.

While I am updating this blog, I'll let you know what I am up to. First, I am working on a series of "newborn" images. If you have one of those hospital images of a little one swaddled in a hospital blanket and are willing to share to with me, I will continue to work to make these look like the correct babies. If  yours is one that I achieve a likeness while I am learning, I will gift you your baby painting, if you allow me to post it so that I can advertise to do this (ALL IF because this is definitely a work in progress)

In addition, I am working on an outline to make this blog more useful, especially to my students and I hope to launch that early in 2017
My big watercolor show deadlines start to pile up at the end of the year and into January.  I have some new experimental work that I hope to enter (and eventually share). These pieces are strong compositionally so that will add to the goal of the blog relaunch of useful information in this forum.


Thanks for reading. Have a great weekend.

Revised Completely

So far, this is just an i phone image of this painting on my easel.
 Yesterday, while I was warming up, I took from my stack of "something isn't quite right after I have lived with these paintings" and repainted the vase.  I wanted it less tight. Next, I repainted the sunflowers to be a sunny yellow. Better with the yellow, I changed to more purple hydrangeas. The white on the coneflower petals cooled and dulled them. These changes meant that I wanted to brighten the background ....

One change in your painting usually means that something else needs to change...

Totally different
I will look again later and see if I am happy now!!

Summer Bouquet

Summer Bouquet/ oil on canvas board/ 7 x 5/

My garden is filled with clean, intense beautiful flowers including torch tithonia and zinnias. Usually daily, I paint some of them. Most days, I also wipe these little paintings. As soon as I add white to the colors, they lose their intensity. Consequently,  the painting is not at all what I want.
Today, I started again.  I painted with transparent colors as long as possible and then tried to keep from "snuffing out the life" of the painting with the opaques (including white).

Designer Grapefruits

Designer Grapefruits/ oil in stretched canvas/ 8 x 10/

Another painting using thick paint. This time, I also imagined I as painting for a "designer kitchen".

Perhaps also interesting is that this painting was painted over some failed zinnias.

Little Puppy

Puppy/ oil on stretched canvas/ 7 x 5/

This is a little painting where I was working on getting the oil paint applied more thickly. I decided to try adding different mediums to do this. This painting used  Liquid Impasto. The description states This is a semi-gloss, quick-drying, non-yellowing impasto medium that retains crisp textures and brush strokes without any visible leveling. It also extends tube color, provides bulk, and allows more blending time. When dry, it forms a flexible, tough film that can be varnished in the normal way. Use it for heavier brush work or palette knives. It is not recommended for use as a varnish or final coat.

I have also been working through the lessons that Nancy Medina recently provided. I hope that you will se some of her color influences in upcoming paintings. 

Sunflower and Zinnia Study

Sunflower and Zinnia Study/ oil on canvas board/ 5 x 7/

Often, when there are long absences on this blog, there is a trail of ripped paper or wiped canvases at my house as I struggle to work on some new thing that I desperately want to master.

I think this painting may be a breakthrough for me. The recent goals (in oil) are CLEAN color and flowers that don't look "pasted on".
Okay, so "clean color"'
You have to put clean fresh color, mixed to exactly the right color pieces from your palette onto the right place on a clean canvas. That means, when the color is not correct (and you tell this by looking, then looking, then looking), you have to wipe back to the white of the canvas and reapply the correct color. If you try to "mix it" on the canvas to the correct color, it will grow dull (faster if you are using opaques and really greyed out if there are whites in your mixtures).
To be able to wipe back to white, I like the canvas surface I posted last time. I also begin my painting by applying a thin (and wiped) layer of gambol or medium.
The"unpasted part" is harder (for me) and I will write about that next time.

Cross your fingers that this is integrated and that I am truly on a path forward...

Susans and Daisies

Susans and Daisies/ oil on stretched canvas/ 10 x 8

Recently, I have been mostly painting on oil primed canvas. I especially like "Centurion" brand sold by Jerry's Artarama.

 Usually I paint on their canvas boards but today's paintings was painted on a gallery-wrapped canvas. The Centurion surface allows me to paint a thin underpainting layer (see the grey purple at the bottom) and wipe back to white areas that I want to eventually paint intense clean color (the bright yellow Susan's petals). (It also wipes failed paintings back to white). This surface has a nice texture and "grabs" the paint better than the slick surface of gesso board. It also makes painting looser edges easier.

I began this painting sitting on the ground outside in my garden. I added thicker additional layers of color inside in my studio.

"Hot Colors" and Gold Duck

"Hot, Hot, Hot"/ oil on board/ 8 x 10/

This is an experiment with color. My objective was to make the painting feel "hot". To do this, I used clean intense colors. I especially liked the cad red shadows and the hint of pink in the sand.

I also have been working on my gold leaf watercolors. In this image, I chose to leave it un cropped to show the irregular edges.

Hidden Goldfinches

I just returned from a visit with my talented sister Kate Church. I attended her 20 year exhibition as an artist. Kate, her artsy house, Nova Scotia and her 100 fairies and wonderful paintings were all inspirational. I hope that upcoming work will reflect some of it.
Today, while I sort laundry, catch up sales and details, I touched up a painting I started before my trip.

I adore goldfinches. I have a family in my yard presently. I love how well they "blend into" the brown-eyed Susans that have gone crazy and are growing (probably from the seeds that last year's goldfinch family sowed) everywhere. Artistically, I am continuing to work on edges. I find "regular" petals on flowers like Susan's and daisies to be challenging. First, I make them too uniform. Then I adjust them and struggle with too loose..

Daisies and Butterfly Bushes

Daisies and Butterfly Bushes/ oil on canvas board/ 10 x 8/

This is the first painting of daisies that I have liked recently. (The others are "wipers"). The daisies in this painting are surrounded by beautiful stems from the butterfly bushes from my yard. These rich darks make the whites on the daisy petals appear whiter. Even as I surrounded the whites to get them to "pop" out,  I worked to connect my lights., If you squint at this, I want you to be able to follow a path from the right lower corner up through the large daisies, back to the back-facing daisy and across and back down to complete a circle through the composition. I was also remembering to vary the centers of the daisies with different intense colors, to keep the brushwork loose and the paint thick in the later layers. I found the best way to get the petals on the daisies to work was to have a thin surrounding underpainting just outside the centers. Then I placed the petals on top of this.

Mud Pies and Musings

My on line painting class recommends that in order to grow and learn and continue producing fresh work, that one divides painting time. Part is spent on a new challenge or question employing the "thinking" (slow/analytical/ critical/learning) self. Then, when working on a painting, one is freed up to paint better fresher work using (unconsciously) what one has learned in previous "learning" times. I think this is how workshops or true class time is supposed to work. That means: not great paintings made while learning. Instead, answers to questions or goals set by the teacher (or agreed to by the teacher in advance). Another article that I read recently by a painting teacher described her students being tired after class (new learning does that especially to older minds). I think I will remember this for my classes of "advancing" students. "Class" means learning: not open studio. I think one can get permission to use the various community buildings for open studio. I want my students leaving "tired" and challenged because that is what makes me grow (and be happy) as a teacher.

Okay so, here is my "challenge". My question was twofold: what will happen if I destroy almost every edges (trying to make it so that you can only barely recognize the (boring) chicken) and what will happen when I "push" all of these lovely color mixes...
Ready?

Maybe a few too many "spots"??  But, that chicken is really moving,. The painting is energetic and I LOVE these colors (even if they are undisciplined and too many intense colors are present).










Now, what happens to the painting that I did in my "free painting" time?

Mud Pies/ oil on canvas board/ 5 x 7/

I want my work to be looser and "blocky": pieces of color and integration of foreground and background. Here is what I did.


Love to hear what you think.

Coneflowers in Mason Jar

Coneflowers in Mason jar/ Oil on board/ 8 x 6/

Last week, I cut all of the coneflowers in my yard to create this bouquet. However, the mass of flower heads did not make a great composition. After looking at a painting that I wasn't happy with for a day,  I painted out one of the central flowers.
I especially like this color grouping. The pinks against the blues and the turquoises make me feel "sunny" and positive.  Note to artist friends: the blues are cobalt light, radiant turquoise and horizon blue. Some are mixed with cad lemon yellow. The pinks are perm rose, cad red medium and radiant magenta.

Yesterday I painted a rooster/chicken running. But again, I am not happy with it. My plan in my "learning time today, is to "fracture it" or destroy the edges.
I'll post a before and after whether or not it works, next post.

Summer Colors

I was outside in the sunshine and watched the swallowtails this morning. The sun catches the wings and makes them almost iridescent.
I decided to alter the painting I had done and add some blues to try and show this iridescence. Interesting to me, is this example of a photograph where only the new paint has a glare...the blues in the wing. In life, this looks a lot better and I think the blues add to the original seen below.

I have also been working on a series of cut flowers from the yard in a ball jar.  Here is the most recent.

Summer Flowers/ Ball Jar #3/ oil on canvas on board/ SOLD

These are all painted with a transparent underlayer, wet on wet. Somehow, I seem to repaint the backgrounds for these in the same colors.

Now, I want to paint a bouquet of coneflowers in a clear jar...with blues in the background...

Summer in a Ball Jar

Summer in a Ball Jar/ oil on gesso board/ 8 x 6/ SOLD

These are all blooming in the yard presently. The hardest part of this painting was the background. I had three iterations before this one. Two were darker and the flowers needed light so look their best.

Have a desire to paint the nasturtiums so this will be the post for today.

Beach Paintings

Beach Going at a Certain Age/ oil on canvas board/ 7 x 5/

I loved this lady's style. Covered to protect herself and prepared to enjoy relaxing on the beach.
Art Note: I painted this over a pink primed canvas board and had the hardest time getting the pink to "settle down" and not "talk over"  the painting. usually, I like the pink undertones with the bright blue water. Perhaps, I needed to paint the underpainting with less intensity.

Cool Exercise/ oil on canvas board/ 6 x 12/

This one was painted on the white canvas board prepped with a small amount of gamsol. The "pink" visible here is a tiny amount of permanent rose mixed into the blues on a later layer of paint.

Zinnia and Swallowtail

Zinnia and Swallowtail/ oil on board/ 8 x 10/

Art Notes: This painting was painted over a failed painting that my husband sanded down. Sanding leaves the surface smooth. Depending on the amount of sanding, it can leave ghost images of the previous paintings, or a soft mid-tone background. This one had a soft beige background. I wanted the butterfly to be loosely painted. I mixed a transparent black (alizarin crimson and winsor (Pthalo) green) for the body and lifted out the spaces for the colors with gambol on a Q-tip.

Butterfly and Zinnia

Butterfly Sketch/ oil on canvas board/ 7 x 5/

I love butterflies (so much so that I grow host food just to raise (and give away) caterpillars). I have painted many butterfly paintings. However, most end up recycled because they are too "tight" and detailed. I am so pleased with the looseness of this little butterfly. I also love this bright palette of colors
Art note: Can you see that the shadowed wing is "warmer" than the wing in the light (that has more cool white)? (cool light=warm shadows)

Gold Leaf Swan

Gold Leaf Swan/ watercolor with 23k gold leaf/ 6 x 8/ SOLD

A second gold leaf painting. I love the warmth of this middle value background. Plus, it just makes the painting so rich-feeling.
At the same time, I am having a good run on my small oils: new bright palette and wonderful summer flowers are a great combination!! Stay tuned.

Gold Leaf Rabbit

Gold Leaf Rabbit/ watercolor on paper with 23k gold leaf/ 8 x 8/ SOLD

I had the most fun learning how to apply gold leaf (23k) to the background of this watercolor. I wanted it slightly imperfect on this one. It is amazingly challenging to photograph with the shine. Really needs to be seen in person to appreciate this one!!

COLOR!!

Colorful Coneflowers/ oil/ 7 x 5/ SOLD

Back to painting after working on hanging the student exhibition at Braswell Library last week. It will hang until the end of June.

This Show is About Learning to Paint.  What follows is my description of the show's intent.

Thursday, June 16 5PM-7PM second floor Braswell Library
Please come, taste a small snack, bring your questions for the painters and enjoy recent work by Sally Adams, Ashley Anderson, Margy Brantley, Michael Chamberlain, Pell Foster, Georgia Barnes Grant, Beth Jolley, Jo Lea, Nancy Proctor, Beth Steed, Sharon Thorp, and Beth Turnage

In human children, drawing is as spontaneous as walking. Whether with pencil and paper or sticks in the sand, children draw. The youngest children are satisfied with the movement of the drawing implement (scribbling). By age five or six, many children make drawings that are imaginative, detailed and creative. However, at about age 8 or 9, children’s drawings become stiff or patterned or children stop drawing altogether. By this age, children become less accepting of their ability to attempt to reproduce what they observe. They turn on critical voices that remind them  “This looks wrong” or “I can’t draw”. It becomes accepted from then on that only a few are blessed with artistic talent. Most of us put away our paints and pencils.

Winston Churchill, who started to paint at age 40, said that learning to paint late in life required only audacity.  In “Painting as a Pastime” Churchill wrote the best descriptions of painting.“Painting is a companion with whom one may hope to walk a great part of life’s journey”“Happy are the painters, for they shall not be lonely. Light and color, peace and hope, will keep them company to the end, or almost to the end, of the day”

“Just to paint is great fun. The colors are lovely to look at and delicious to squeeze out. 

Matching them, however crudely, with what you see is fascinating and absolutely absorbing. Try it if you have not done so-before you die. As one slowly begins to escape from the difficulties of choosing the right colors and laying them on in the right place and in the right way, wider considerations come into view.”

“Painting is complete as a distraction. I know of nothing which, without exhausting the body, more entirely absorbs the mind. Whatever the worries of the hour or threats of the future, once the picture has begun to flow along, there is no room for them in the mental screen. They pass out into shadow and darkness. All one’s mental light, such as it is, becomes concentrated on the task. Time stands respectfully aside, and it is only after many hesitations that luncheon knocks gruffly at the door.”  

Almost all of the work in this exhibition has been created by “late-in-life” painters (only our youngest started at age 13). Learning to paint requires one to silence the voices of negativity, and a willingness to try. Skill (in any endeavor) does not come naturally. Skill comes from a lot of practice -hours and ideally, years of practice. Most successful contemporary painters suggest that one needs one hundred “painting starts” before one’s first painting. This exhibition is work by students: most of whom have NOT completed even half of their first 100 starts (yet). This is an exhibition of active learning. It reminds us that any of us can give painting a try. Churchill might have described our show as he described his own work as an older painter when he wrote “We must not be too ambitious. We cannot aspire to masterpieces. We may content ourselves with a joyride in a paint -box.”  

We invite you to “ride with us” and enjoy.  Maybe our show will inspire you to pick up your own brush and try.

Geranium Study #1

In oil painting lately, I have been working on cleaner color, more brush marks and more painterly paintings. Here is my first 2016 geranium study. I kept the addition of white paint to the very end.

Fruit and Flowers

Fruit and Flowers/ 8 x 10/ oil on board

This study used a larger color palette. The dark in the background is ultramarine and transparent oxide red instead of the asphaltum in the previous posts. The greens are made from ultramarine and either lemon yellow, or cad yellow deep. Some yellow ochre or white is added to some of them. I have finally found inexpensive brushed that I love to paint with. After I abuse them a little more, I'll publish what they are.

More Peony Studies

This is the third peony study that I have kept (many wipes). The background is thicker and thinner areas of asphaltum by Gamblin with an occasional addition of magenta or a mixed green. This was painted with a limited palette of cad yellow pale, cad red medium, magenta , ultramarine blue, titanium white and asphaltum. I found that I had to soften many of the edges that I had painted.

This is the fourth study. What is most interesting to me is that this is the same limited palette. This one is a higher key with little of the asphalt (added to some of the dark greens. I found that the deep parts of the flower cups worked best with warm mixtures.

Peony Study #2

Peonies, Iris and Rose Study/ oil on canvas board/ 9 x 12/ $215
Purchase here

This is my second peony study that I like (and have not wiped). While they last, I will paint them again. Their shape and color are especially challenging. I am looking forward to seeing whether Friday the 13th makes a good painting day. If not, there is always tomorrow.

Round Objects

Thank you to the many of you who sent me a note after yesterday's post.
When I write these posts, I am not sure anyone receives them, so your notes are appreciated.

This little painting started as an exercise working on round objects (the mini watermelon and the brown egg). This image doesn't show the subtle warms that add dimension (light rose in the watermelon and yellows on the egg).  After painting the watermelon and egg, I liked them so much that I added a glass tea cup to complete a mini composition.
This is NOT the way to make a painting. I have wiped, painted over or just thrown out are tons of paintings without a clear idea of the light/dark pattern PRIOR to starting. This study also does not have a compelling (interesting) dark/light pattern. If you are one of my students reading this, go find a favorite painting and look at its value plan...Now think about a painting that you have been unhappy about and determine if the basic skeleton (value plan) of that painting isn't the issue.

Peony Study

Peony Study (that I like) oil on board/ 10 x 8/ $195
Purchase here

I haven't posted for quite a long time now.
I have been re-evaluating where I want my art adventure headed. I have been working on technical challenges to make some of my goals more achievable.
Here is the first oil flower study that I am happy with as I move forward. This has warm shadows and cool lights. It has mostly soft or lost edges and it has a great sense of warmth. This study might be number 6 in my learning series (all the rest are wipers). I have asked Michael O'brien
(Fishing Creek Flower Farm) if he might have some more peonies so that I can continue to work on this flower type. I have found that working from life is so much better than photographs (as everyone wise has always said). In the meanwhile, I am also struggling with roses...

Still Life Study

I have been working on cleaner, brighter paintings. Everything I read reminds me that a big problem with "chalky" or "muddy" paintings is painting inaccurate color temperature (Presently I am reminded of this because a horse I am working on keeps rolling in the dust....(in reality, I keep erroneously adding white to areas that should be warm...)).

To practice "warm" shadows and "cool" light, I set up a still life. I wiped out my shadows every time that I painted them "cool" (thinking "shadow= blue/grey" which is "cool" which is wrong) ("wipe")).  The  "cool" light allows use lots of white in the mixes in the lit areas ( remember that white "cools"...) and keep the white OUT of the shadow mixtures...Now back to the horse.