FROM POLITICS ... TO PETALS

BY MARY RUEDIG 

Kamala Harris

The past year

Amy Coney Barrett

 has been so sad,

 scary and confining.

 I spent so much time watching

 and painting newsmakers.

John Lewis

Nancy Pelosi

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Mitch McConnell

Dr. Fauci

Trump

Rudy Gullianni

Now, as the politics move toward a new beginning, a new spring,

 I am lifting my spirits by again painting flowers.

Now, as the politics move toward a new beginning, a new spring,

 I am lifting my spirits by again painting flowers.

We are still surrounded by beauty if not by family and friends.

     COMING INTO 2021

By DUSTAN KNIGHT TARBELL

Three cheers for a brand New Year! It was a challenge last year – we shared some sad times, had some health worries, it felt like running on ice. But things are looking up. Facing difficulties is part of our skill set!

Just like in the studio. It’s amazing how often difficulties appear. Running out of paper, not having the right size canvas, losing a favorite brush. Forgetting what we are doing.

Having to call the heating furnace guys, remembering the car appointment – always something.

And that is how I think of it. There is ALWAYS something.

So I try to be prepared and nod and say to myself, well that’s more like it, something had to work.

It’s a contest to see how many ruts in the road, cracks in the ice, bumps in the rug I can jump over.

Bring it on I say, well I don’t say that out loud.

Despite everything, I have been trying to be brave in my studio – trying new sizes and not judging the paintings – letting them show me the way.

It’s fun and scary.

Here are some new landscapes. They are small in actual size but humongously vast in scale.

That’s how I am going into 2021 – big ideas – with a bit of caution – IE I am wearing knee pads as I skate into this new year.

Peace and love.

Dusty

 

 

Painting with Acrylic is like a golf game, you hit the ball straight to a goal. Painting with Watercolor is like tennis, you hit the ball over a net, never knowing where it is going and when it is going to come back.

Dabbling in a New Medium

By Susan Levenson

 

After a lifetime in the arts, 2020 is the year I began to dabble with Acrylics. Even before the pandemic hit I had begun this year by creating variety, wonderment, movement, and joy with acrylic paint. I have tried to work both abstractly and realistically white adjusting and adapting to my new delight.

 Since Experimenting with this new medium, the magic of the opaque,  I know watercolor will always be my first love. I love the fluidity. I love to watch it disperse and join other hues develop into pools of luminous delicious paint. I miss the spontaneity and transparency.

On the other hand, acrylics, I feel, to be a more calculating medium which invites a system of filling predetermined spaces and determining color combinations.

But voila!

A mistake or poor judgement, just paint over it. In watercolor you are stuck.

My whole life has been “beachy” it is where I live. Recording the experience of the seacoast, the boats and harbors, docks and piers are important to me. I am looking forward to capturing the joy of shape and light of the sea in new and exciting styles in the future.

These acrylic paintings that I am showcasing here are the beginnings of the new adventure ahead. For me, they are already communicating new ideas and visions.

HOW I SPENT MY ARTISTIC TIME SHELTERING IN PLACE

By MARILYN EIMON

It was wonderful being able to have ZOOM critique sessions with the group during the lockdown, as well as giving me the opportunity to explore new mediums and different ways of "seeing" in these pandemic times. 

The online ZOOM sessions, with Dustan Knight Tarbell.

On a full sheet of watercolor paper, tape 6 inch squares, paint as full painting ignoring squares

Remove the tape, and you have twelve 6" square paintings or not.

Changing painting views from horizontal to

vertical

Plein Air Painting by the sea

Pattern painted on squares with acrylics

"High Key" and "Low Key" exercise

 

FOG!

By Claudette Gammon

Here we are talking about my Island life again, for another year, at least.

Since we are able to summer here, especially now that my husband is retired, the view doesn’t change. How we do love that view, and staring out at it with our morning coffee, is always a delight. We never seem to get sick of it.

Therefore when it comes to something to paint, I have been told, paint the view.

Over our 40 plus years here I have painted the view, six ways to Sunday, BUT I hadn’t painted it in fog.

It is now that time of year to do just that.

The lake is still warm and the nights are cool. We either wake up to dense fog, where you can’t see the lake or the fog is rising around the mountains and islands.

I did try that this season. However, I have to admit I didn’t paint as much as I would have liked, because it was a very hot summer. I don’t function well in the heat and humidity, but I hope you enjoy my few efforts.

REFLECTIONS

 OF MY

 FAVORITE PLACES

By Betsy Janeway

SWIMMING HOLE

COASTING TO TNE MOORING

ISLAND ARRIVAL

RECYCLING FOR THE ARTS

By KATHY TANGNEY

LAMPSHADE

MOBILE

ARTIST IN LOCKDOWN!