Pumpkin Seed

8 11/16 x 4 11/16 x 3/4 "

Oil paint on gessoed wood

I have wanted to paint a pumpkin or a squash seed for a while, but had been relatively uninterested in the seeds that I had sprouted to this point. This seed, however fit nicely onto the piece of wood that I had and I decided to give it a try. As usually happens with the paintings that I enter into reluctantly, even though I try to have an open mind, I wound up loving it. It was fun to paint the flat surface of the seed and push the colors a little. I really love discovering the colors that become visible once you start to pay attention to what's there, rather than letting your mind fill in the blanks. 

I also worked on this painting on a gorgeous, relatively cool June morning at my bench which is located in front of a wall of windows. The breeze blowing in was blissful and the music (Ray Lamontagne on Pandora) was calm and relaxing and therefore the whole painting experience was quite wonderful. It seems nearly impossible to produce a painting that I don't like when I'm happily working away in good conditions. I loved my profession as an objects conservator, make no mistake, but after several years of working in windowless labs, I still do not take the ability to sit in front of an open window in the middle of the day for granted.

Small Sweet Pea

Small Sweet Pea

8 1/4 x 4 1/2 x 3/4"

I tend to work pretty slow when I'm working with oil pastels. There are so many things that I love about them such as the fact that they remain soft and blendable for weeks. With my fragmented work schedule, this is a very helpful quality. I also love their translucency, which gives a really nice sculptural effect when several colors are being layered over one another. However, recently I was feeling a bit of pressure to add a few more paintings to my body of work, so I decided to put the oil pastels to the side for a bit and try a few smaller paintings with oil paints.  

This sweet pea is the first in the series of smaller paintings. I didn't have any steel siding prepared to do a new painting, but I did save some scraps of the wood that I used to make the mount for the  Hidatsa Shield Figure Pair. I loved the wood from this mount. It was so nicely and evenly weathered that I hated to throw away anything that might be useful later. I held onto it hoping that I would find a legitimate use for it and not just be taking up precious storage space. These particular scraps would have been too small to be used in other mounts but they were perfect substrates for the new paintings. 

I applied at least three thin coats of gesso and began working with real oil paints again. The change in medium was nice and I was able to finish the painting in a more acceptable period of time. I still did it in more than one session however. I can't seem to break free from my style of painting very thinly and then layering more color over the top after a small period of drying that gives the paint layer a little skin. With each painting I do it becomes more and more clear that I will never really be comfortable painting "a la prima". 

I loved working on the wood. I really enjoy the texture that it gave to the painting. I also like the juxtaposition of the fledgling seed on a material that has already endured a lifetime of use. Just like organic matter has to decompose to nourish the soil and support the life to a new plant, the years of weathering on the wood made it a good foundation for the image.

Vacation

I just returned from a weeks vacation in Minnesota with my family, my parents and my sister and her family. It had all of the components that seem to be typical of our vacations since having kids; playing on the beach, swimming in the pool, playground fun and vomitting. Oh the joys of vacationing with small children. Why is it that the kids will go for a whole year without stomach upset, but shortly after we leave the comforts of home they begin to throw up?

The other 90% of vacation really was fun thankfully. We went fishing, built sandcastles, swam in the pool every single day and even walked across the Mississippi River.

Now, it's back to work . . .