Woman In Autumn; Back In Purple; Woman In Blue And Red; Woman In Blue And Yellow

 I painted these yesterday and today, from life.

Woman In Autumn is oil pastel and oil paint on 11"x14" canvas.

Back In Purple is oil pastel and oil on 12"x16" canvas.

The two small sketches are oil pastel on papyrus, for the Brooklyn Art Library Sketchbook Project.


About Woman In Autumn:

These are the colors of the leaves on the ground this morning.  Although it is a warm windy day today, it looks like and feels like winter is coming.  And that is what I painted.

Woman Among Marigolds At The Eastside Cafe

Painted outdoors, from life, yesterday morning.

Oil and oil pastel, 20"x24" canvas.


About this:

We were outdoors, in the middle of the most marvelous organic garden, with chickens, at the Eastside Cafe. (Check out the Eastside story portion of the Eastside website for more about the garden.)

The day was kind of cool and windy and threatening rain at first, then it warmed up and got sunny and windy. This was a three-hour long session, with breaks.

I painted the dark and threatening part of the morning.

The model, also an artist, was shivering at first, then closed her eyes and kind of sunbathed, fully clothed, once the sun came out. And we enjoyed our cold drinks--our model had root beer-- and painted some more.

Woman In Torn Jeans

This morning's plein air oil painting.

A bit about this painting:  This is painted from life, a 30 minute pose.  The model is lying on a blanket covered with a white sheet, on the grass. The time was close to noon, on a  hot day which started out clear. Dark clouds were moving in. Then, later in the afternoon and evening, came thundershowers.

I need to look at it again in a few days to see what still needs doing.  Already, parts of it stand out as needing repainting/reshaping.

One thing I learned at the Art Institute of Chicago last week  is that I now appreciate Gauguin.

When I first saw his work in person, it was at a special show of many of his works that traveled to the LA County Art Museum when I was about 11 years old.  I didn't like it at all.

This time, I visited a couple of his paintings at the Chicago Art Institute and I loved them, especially Day of the God, a dream/memory painting. ( For a good explanation of the painting, look here.)