Driveway Plowed

Driveway Plowed

from my home in Shapleigh, Maine on Jan 17, 2024, painted Feb 25, 2024 10" x 8" (w x h), Daniel Smith, Schmincke Horadam, and Winsor & Newton watercolors, selected for light fastness and permanence, and Uniball waterproof fade proof ink on 140 lbs. Fabriano Artistico cold press rough 100% cotton extra white watercolor paper, framed.
$300

Purple Too Visual Art Essay

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Purple Too Visual Art Essay

1
Mijas (Spain) Steps
Eleanor Woolley (circa 1979- ) British
Oil on canvas, 12" x 12" (w x h), 2023
Wychwood Art Gallery, Deddington, UK
$510

Gallery notes edited:
Inspired by a February trip to Mijas, Spain she started it plein air and finished in the studio. These are some in Mijas, slowly winding up and away, with vivid violet shadows of leaves dappling the terracotta tiles, and whitewashed walls.
        Eleanor Woolley, born in the Channel Island of Jersey, moved to Gloucestershire, UK where she was drawn to the outdoors, taking walks in the landscape. She started painting in oils at thirteen years-old. After graduating with her BA Hons in Sculpture at Leeds University Eleanor traveled in Asia before returning to the UK to study furniture making. She worked as a cabinet maker and a restorer before returning to fine art painting.
        Eleanor often paints plein air, finishing in the studio. She often finishes with a palette knife producing a texture. Her latest work is inspired by the landscape of the Cotswolds, and contrasted with long shadows created by figures in urban landscapes. "...shadows are becoming more significant, I like to play with how they fall and merge into the foreground. I love the long shadows created by the early morning or evening light."
Career:
Art Foundation, Pittville, Cheltenham, 1997
BA Hons Sculpture, Leeds University 1998-2001
Cabinet Making and Furniture Restoration City and Guilds 2004-2005
Professional Cabinet Maker 2006-2012
Art Restorer 2008-2012
Professional Artist 2010 - 2023

2
Woman in a Purple Coat
Henri Matisse (1869-1954) French
Oil on canvas, 26" x 32" (w x h), 1937
The Audrey Jones Beck Building,
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

Source Wiki and Henri Matisse org edited:
Henri Matisse (1869-1954) is known primarily as a painter. His mastery of color and drawing, displayed in a body of work spanning over a half-century, won him recognition as a leading figure in modern art.
        Woman in a Purple Coat (1937) depicts model Lydia Delectorskaya in an exotic Moroccan costume, surrounded by a complex of abstract design and exotic colors. Although there is not a single straight line, the way the colors juxtapose each other there is no need for a straight line. There is no definite outline on some of the items, such as the fruit on the table. Everything else is surrounded by thick, black outline which accentuates all the other features, seemingly pushing out Lydia and all the other objects. The vivid, purple coat with the black outline makes Lydia almost pop out and off the chaise lounge she is on, making her the main focal point. It also gives the piece a three dimensional aspect, as if she could get up and walk away at any moment. The different patterns of the background give the impression she is in the corner of the room. The placement of the flowers to her right and the magazine at her feet, also alluding to this sense of depth. This painting is not only a piece of history, but a piece of a Matisse's legacy.
        Matisse's model and companion of many years, Lydia Delectorskaya, was a Russian from Siberia who fled from Russia during the 1917 revolution, and who said she was different from other models Matisse used with their dark eyes, black hair and olive complexions. Lydia had long golden hair, blue eyes, fair skin. Matisse approved, referring to her saying she had "The look of an ice princess." When their paths had crossed in Nice, France Lydia was penniless at the age of 25 and Matisse was a well-known artist of 65. He was nice to her and never asked her to pose nude. She respected him for that. During a brief rivalry with Matisse's wife who accused of Matisse of sleeping with Lydia, Lydia was fired as his model. But when Matisse's wife left him shortly after, still not believing Matisse when he said he had not committed adultery, he rehired Lydia as his assistant in his studio.
        This is one of the final paintings in a final group of oil paintings that he painted. It was painted in 1937. Between 1937 and 1938 he made a group of cut-outs, something he returned to much more later in life. In 1950 he stopped working on oil paintings in favor of creating paper cutouts. At a retrospective of his cutouts featuring 130 works encompassing from 1937 to 1954 The Tate Modern show was the first in its history to attract more than half a million people.

3
Green and Purple
Jack Bush (1909-1977) Canadian
Oil on canvas, 70" x 81" (w x h), 1963
Art Gallery of Ontario, Ontario, Canada

Source Wiki edited:
Using only eight lines, three colors plus white and a raw canvas, Jack Bush creates depth out of something flat, merely by applying pressure to the essential red center.
        Jack Hamilton Bush O. C. (Order of Canada) R. C. A. (1909-1977) was a Canadian abstract painter. A member of Painters Eleven, his paintings are associated with the Color Field movement and Post-painterly Abstraction. Inspired by Henri Matisse and American abstract expressionist painters such as Helen Frankenthaler and Morris Louis, Bush encapsulated joyful yet emotional feelings in his vibrant paintings, comparing them to jazz music. Clement Greenberg described him as a "supreme colorist", along with Kenneth Noland.
        Jack Bush once said to his peer and artist friend Kenneth Noland, "What I'd really like to do is hit Matisse's ball out of the park. Noland replied, "Go ahead, Matisse won't mind at all."

4
Me in Water
Yu Hong (1966- ) Chinese
Acrylic on canvas, 60" x 70" (w x h), 2003

Yu Hong (1966- ) is a Chinese contemporary artist. Her works characteristically portray the female perspectives in all stages of life and the relationship between the individual and the rapid social changes taking place in China. She works primarily in oil paint but also in pastels, fabric dye on canvas, silk and resin. Yu Hong is routinely named among China's leading female artists. Her work is celebrated for its intimacy and honesty.
        Her 2003 Routine series is made up of two sets of works including six oil paintings on canvas and another fifteen works on paper, insight to her life and her daughter's life. The series features everyday moments and activities such as shopping at the mart, swimming, and having a good time with friends. It focuses on how valuable each moment we live is, how our routine activities fill out our days and makes them what they are, whether in China or America.
        Hong's work is included in collections at the Singapore Art Museum, Singapore; Dong Yu Art Museum, Shenyang, China; Shanghai Art Museum, Shanghai, China; Upriver Art Museum, Chengdu, China; China Art Gallery, China; and Ludwig Gallery, Germany.

5
Poikia Rannalla / Boys on the Beach
Magnus Enckell (1870-1925) Finnish
Oil on canvas, 40" x 31" (w x h), 1910
Finnish National Gallery, Helsinki, Finland

Wiki edited:
Knut Magnus Enckell (1870-1925) was a Finnish symbolist painter. At first, he painted with a subdued palette, but from 1902 onward he used increasingly bright colors. He was a leading member of the Septem group of colorist painters. In Finland, Enckell is considered to have been a noted influential symbolist artist. From 1901 onward Enckell spent many summers on the island of Suursaari, where he painted his noted Boys on the Beach (1910). He organized exhibitions of Finnish art in Berlin (1903) and Paris (1908), and of French and Belgian art in Helsinki (1904). He chaired the Artists' Association of Finland from 1915 to 1918, and was elected a member of the Fine Art Academy of Finland in 1922. When Enckell died in Stockholm in 1925 his funeral was a national event.

6
Kvindeportraet. Violet kjole /
Portrait of a Lady in a Purple Dress
Olaf Rude (1886-1957) Danish
Oil on canvas, 38" x 51" (w x h), 1936

Olaf Rude (1886-1957) was a Danish painter. He was a professor at the Royal Danish Academy of Art from 1953 to 1956. He is remembered in particular for his paintings of oak trees at Skejten on Lolland. In 1911 he traveled to Paris where he was inspired by Paul Cezanne. On returning to Denmark, he became one of the classic modernists who around the time of the First World War focused on formal representation concentrating on form, line and color. Rude was one of Denmark's most important modernists, sometimes called Denmark's Matisse for his use of color in his expressive landscapes.

7
Irises (Purple Irises)
Charles Demuth (1883-1935) American
Watercolor and graphite on paper, 10" x 14" (w x h), 1921
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Charles Henry Buckius Demuth (1883-1935) was an American painter who specialized in watercolors and turned to oils late in his career, developing a style of painting known as Precisionism. Demuth's will left many of his paintings to Georgia O'Keeffe. Her strategic decisions regarding which museums received these works cemented his reputation as a major painter of the Precisionist school.

8
Nightlife
Archibald John Motley Jr. (1891-1981) American
Oil on canvas 48" x 36" (w x h), 1943
The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois

Source Wiki and Museum notes edited:
Archibald Motley portrays a crowded cabaret in the South Side neighborhood of Bronzeville in Chicago. Stylized figures, an array of diagonal lines, and heightened colors keyed to shades of magenta and violet, Motley captures the exuberance of city dwellers out on the town. He creates a network of gestures and glances among the people, drawing attention to the various social interactions that animate the scene. Motley was inspired, in part, to paint Nightlife after having seen Edward Hopper's Nighthawks, which had entered the Art Institute of Chicago's collection the prior year.
        Archibald John Motley, Jr. (1891-1981), was an African-American visual artist. Motley is most famous for his colorful chronicling of the African-American experience in Chicago during the 1920s and 1930s, and is considered one of the major contributors to the Harlem Renaissance, or the New Negro Movement, a time in which African-American art reached new heights not just in New York but across America, its local expression referred to as the Chicago Black Renaissance. He studied painting at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago during the 1910s, graduating in 1918. In 1980 he was honored with nine other African-American artists by President Jimmy Carter at the White House.

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A Tall Tree's Shadowed Presence

A Tall Tree's Shadowed Presence

over a stone wall with snow behind my home in Shapleigh, Maine on Feb 5, 2024, painted Feb 17, 2024, 10" x 8" (w x h), Daniel Smith, Schmincke Horadam, and Winsor & Newton watercolors, selected for light fastness and permanence, and Uniball waterproof fade proof ink on 140 lbs. Fabriano Artistico cold press rough 100% cotton extra white watercolor paper, framed.
$300

Blue Shadow Art Visual Essay

Blue Shadow Art Visual Essay

Eight Artists Paint the Presence of Blue Shadows
Four Men / Four Women, painted 1882-2023,
in Arizona, California, Maine, New York, and
Oregon, United States, as well as
Finland and France.

1
Sand and Shadows
Carol L. Douglas (1967- ) American
Oil on linen board, 16" x 8" (w x h), circa 2023
Sold, $722, Private Collection

Carol L. Douglas (1967- ) paints and teaches in Rockport, Maine, where she has her own studio and gallery. She's painted from as far north as Canada to as far south as Argentina. She studied at the Art Students League, New York. Carol writes an art blog Watch Me Paint. Her blog / website is HERE.

2
Figure with Clothesline
Lois Dodd (1927- ) American
Oil, 2000

Source: Wiki edited:
Lois Dodd (1927- ) is known for her observational paintings of landscapes, nudes, and still lives. "I would find it, see it, and say 'that's exciting' but I don't want to set things up." Lois Dodd painted her immediate circumstances. There is nothing glitzy about the work, neither in its subject matter nor in her use of materials. She does not celebrate excess, ownership, or leisure, nor does she condemn it. Her paintings embody an implicit critique of those who believe acquisitiveness, possession, and leisure are integral to the pursuit of happiness. As part of the wave of New York modernists to explore the coast of Maine after the end of the second world war, Dodd helped to change the face of painting here, exploring the landscape and the figure, that were anathema in the era of Abstract Expressionism. Her work is in the collections of many major art museums.

3
Shadows on the Sea - The Cliffs at Pourville
Claude Monet (1840-1926) French
Oil on canvas, 32" x 22" (w x h), 1882
Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek Museum, Copenhagen, Denmark

Source: Wiki and Art Institute of Chicago edited:
In 1879 Claude Monet's wife, Camille, died. In 1881, Claude Monet moved with Alice Hoschede, who he would marry in 1892 following her husband's death in 1891, and her children to Poissy. Alice's third daughter, Suzanne, would become Monet's preferred model, after Camille. Shadows on the Sea was painted the last time he exhibited with the Impressionists was in 1882, four years before the final Impressionist exhibition. In 1883 In 1883, Monet and his family rented a house and gardens in Giverny, beginning his painting adventures with water lilies.
        But in February 1882, Claude Monet went north from Poissy to Normandy to paint. This was also a retreat from personal and professional pressures. France was in the midst of a lengthy economic recession which affected Monet's sales. In addition, the artist was unenthusiastic about divisions within the Impressionists group. Disappointed in the area around the harbor city of Dieppe, which he found too urban, Monet settled in Pourville and remained in this fishing village until mid-April. He became increasingly enamored of his surroundings, writing to Alice and her children: "How beautiful the countryside is becoming, and what joy it would be for me to show you all its delightful nooks and crannies!"

4
Seawall
Richard Diebenkorn (1922-1993) American
Oil on canvas, 26" x 20" (w x h), 1957
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
Gift of Phyllis G. Diebenkorn

Source Wiki and Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco notes edited:
Richard Diebenkorn (1922-1993) was an American painter and printmaker. He was a fan of and influenced by the works of Matisse and his use of color. Diebenkorn's early work is associated with abstract expressionism. His late 1960s abstract paintings, known as the Ocean Park paintings, were instrumental in leading to his worldwide acclaim.
        Seawall (1957) reflects his interest in new visual terrain that he experienced in 1951 during his first cross-country flight. Diebenkorn was one of the most influential American artists working in the post-World War II era, and Seawall evokes an elemental meeting of sea, sky, and earth. Like many of the works Diebenkorn painted during his Berkeley Period (1953-1966).
        In 2018, Diebenkorn's Ocean Park #126 painted in 1984 became the most expensive picture by the artist auctioned when it sold for $23.9 million at Christie's New York. The previous record from 2012, also at Christie's, was Ocean Park #48 painted in 1971 for $13.5 million.

5
Cityscape with Blue Shadow
Martha Diamond (1944-2023) American
Oil on canvas, 48" x 96" (w x h), 1994
Gift of the Alex Katz Foundation
Portland (Maine) Museum of Art, Portland, Maine

Source Wiki edited:
Martha Bonnie Diamond (1944-2023) was an American painter. Her paintings first gained public attention in the 1980s and are included in the permanent collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and many other institutions. Her father, a doctor, inspired her interest in light, space, and structure in the city while taking her on drives to see his patients. She graduated from Carleton College in Minnesota. in 1964 and returned to New York in 1965 after a year in Paris. She subsequently received an M.A. from New York University in 1969, moved into a loft on the Bowery, and became an active participant in the downtown art and poetry scene.

Diamond was one of several New York painters who spent time in Maine during the summer months and developed a long-term association with the state. She served on the Board of Governors of the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Skowhegan, Maine, from 1982 to 2018. She also taught at Skowhegan beginning in the 1970s, as well as at the School of Visual Arts in New York and at Harvard University. Diamond also supported artistic programming by the International Ladies Garment Workers Union and the Goddard-Riverside Community Center. She died December 30, 2023 at the age of 79. Her website by her trust is HERE.

6
Into Blue Shadows
Carol Marine (1982- ) American
Oil on gesso board, 6" x 6" (w x h), 2012
Private collection

Carol Marine, a graduate of the University of Texas, Austin, is an American painter. She is known for her pronounced unique brushstrokes in her paintings. Growing up in Texas, her family has moved to Oregon, and finally to Montana. She's written Daily Painting: Paint Small and Often To Become a More Creative, Productive, and Successful Artist, Watson-Guptill, New York, NY, 192 pages, 2014, on amazon HERE, where you can see and read a sample of her illustrated book by clicking on "Sample Page" under the cover illustration. Her website is HERE. When she lived in Texas, I took an oil painting workshop with her.

7
Lake Ruovesi in Winter
Akseli Gallen-Kallela (1861-1931) Finnish
Oil on canvas, 47" x 40" (w x h), 1916
Sotheby's 2019 UK auction
estimate $76,000 to $100,000 USD
Sold $442,000 USD

Source Wiki and Sotheby's edited:
Akseli Gallen-Kallela (1865-1931) was a Finnish painter who is best known for his illustrations of the Kalevala, the Finnish national epic. His work is considered a very important aspect of the Finnish national identity. He changed his name from Gallen to Gallen-Kallela in 1907. In 1894, he moved to Berlin to oversee the joint exhibition of his works with the works of Norwegian painter Edvard Munch.

By 1916, the year of this painting, his style had shifted towards Expressionism, his preferred subject being Finnish landscapes, usually, as in this example, painted from his hide-out wilderness studio in Kallela, looking down through trees towards one of the lakes that dominate the countryside there. The cold blue shadows of the trees in the foreground add interest and strength to the painting. The single, large tree dominating with its unusual composition shows the influence of Japanese prints on his art.

He had returned her after some fifteen years of absence. In 1894-95 he'd constructed this studio on a rocky promontory overlooking Lake Ruovesi. Inspired by the massive farm houses of Karelia that he had visited on his honeymoon, he incorporated into its design many of the ancient motifs that he had found. It was at Kalela that his wife gave birth to their children Kirsti (1896) and Jorma (1898). And it was there that he worked on some of his most important projects.

8
Olivenhain / Olive Grove
Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) Dutch
Oil on canvas, 37" x 29" (w x h), 1889
Dimensions      73 x 93 cm
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Fine Art,
Kansas City, Missouri

Source Wiki edited:
Vincent van Gogh painted Olive Grove at Saint-Remy-de-Provence, France in June of 1889, where he painted at least fifteen paintings of olive trees. At his own request, he lived at an asylum there from May 1889 through May 1890 painting the gardens of the asylum and, when he had permission to venture outside its walls, nearby olive trees, cypresses and wheat fields.

 Van Gogh found respite and relief in interaction with nature. His series of olive tree paintings made in 1889, despite his mental illness and emotional turmoil, are considered to be among his finest works. One painting, Olive Trees in a Mountainous Landscape, was a complement to his most famous The Starry Night.

Irony of Half Up Half Down

Irony of Half Up Half Down

with an orange cut in half set on snow in my yard in Shapleigh, Maine painted on Feb 10, 2024 14" x 11" (w x h), Daniel Smith, Schmincke Horadam, and Winsor & Newton watercolors, selected for light fastness and permanence, and Uniball waterproof fade proof ink on 140 lbs. Fabriano Artistico cold press rough 100% cotton extra white watercolor paper, framed.
$500

Wild Orange

Wild Orange

on the plowed snow of my driveway, Jan 21, 2024, painted Jan 28, 2024 7" x 5" (w x h), Daniel Smith, Schmincke Horadam, and Winsor & Newton watercolors, selected for light fastness and permanence, and Uniball waterproof fade proof ink on 140 lbs. Fabriano Artistico cold press rough 100% cotton extra white watercolor paper, framed.
$500

Orange, Lemon and Precipice

Orange, Lemon and Precipice

in the snow of my back yard in Shapleigh, Maine on Jan 8 2024, painted on Jan 30, 2024, 14" x 11" (w x h), Daniel Smith, Schmincke Horadam, and Winsor & Newton watercolors, selected for light fastness and permanence, on 140 lbs. rough extra white watercolor paper, framed.
$500

Pear Lemon Snow Shapes

Pear Lemon Snow Shapes

on the plowed driveway snow at my home in Shapleigh, Maine on Jan 8, 2024, painted Jan 29, 14" x 11" (w x h), Daniel Smith, Schmincke Horadam, and Winsor & Newton watercolors, selected for light fastness and permanence, on 140 lbs. Fabriano Artistico cold press rough 100% cotton extra white watercolor paper, framed.
$500