Wine Time

I don't usually like the demos I do for my students, but this was an exception.  It was a study in using
analgalous colors, with a set up of fresh green grapes, and the bottle and glass.  I actually framed it and have it hanging in our dinette.
Mary

Daydreams

When it is this hot for so long you start daydreaming about cooler places.  I tend to daydream about the mountains or Maine.  I love Maine because it is not one State but many with many states of mind.
This is my friend's house which is in a small town about an hour from Bangor. It isn't quite isolated but pretty close by modern standards. She has a river behind her house that you can swim in ( yes she has a rope on a tree limb), canoe or tube on without seeing anyone for quite awhile.  That is the love part. The hate part is that play season in Maine is so fleeting.

Beach Treasures

I've been painting a series I call Beach Treasures, on metallic gold. They are all things I find on our beach here. Since our community is very good about beach cleanup, I have to be quick. What I have done so far is from nature, but I don't mind a shoe or a little shovel either. This Portuguese Man O' War was just a stroke of luck. Most people would beg to differ, but since I haven't ever stepped on one of the painful stinging tentacles, I can afford to appreciate its beauty.         - Carmen                                            BUY

Finding Myself

Look carefully: do you see me hiding in those panels to the left?  Hmmm, every artist it seems is on a search for self...what technique is truely "them." I don't even know how one discovers that...but I think I might be hiding in the two pieces here.  Why?  Because left to my own devices this is the piece I woke up to and went to bed with for the last several weeks.  I planned it just like I plan my parties: lots of good color, a specific traffic flow, little touches of surprise here and there and attention to detail.  The wild movement of color and the specific detail...opposites that make a Gemini happy as a clam...or a fern.

Fran Hardy is to be thanked for most of the layering technique.  The fact that it is all on wood panel is another suggestion of hers...but one that makes me happy as I love the feel of wood...both in my hands and under the brush, and beneath the pencil.  I'm working on other pieces and techniques and styles but, truth be told, i am jonesing to buy more panels and do something in orange with details (mushrooms maybe?) and then some figures and, and, and.......not fine, but fun and if I can find some buyers that it also speaks to then, who knows....maybe as old as I am I did find something of me....

Cindy Michaud

http://www.cindymichaud.com/

When it's hot, hot, hot

It seems like Florida is not the only place that is hot, hot, hot this summer. Not only is the U.S. steaming but I saw photos of people in Moscow wearing masks because of the heat and fires around the city. It is strange out there.
In order to get my lethargic self going I decided to paint something cool and refreshing. Wella, the much maligned but always yummy watermelon.  I painted this with my palette knife not only to get more practice but so I could paint faster and eat up the unsuspecting subject.

Still Testing

Oh Oh, I see I better get moving.  My poor cheesecake has been painted, repainted and reknifed several times and is sadly looking like a blueberry jellyfish right now.  I am still in the planning, playing experimental stages of trying to find a good combination of techniques using my brushes and a knife and mixing and expanding my colors. I think I may be overthinking. 
Not thinking at all, I did redo my cupcakes and had great fun with those.  I think it was easy to use the palette knife because "frosting" the cupcake was so much like really frosting a cupcake.
Here is a before

And here is an after

PETITE GATEAU, 5X7, OIL, CAROL SCHIFF STUDIO

I have been out of town and missed the incredible blueberry cheesecake.  To make myself  feel better I decided to post my own little sweet.  Although I cannot take credit for baking it (thank you , Publix) I can definately take credit for EATING it!  Purchase here.