Mother's Day Surprise

My mother is no longer with us in this life. She loved these pale pink irises, given to her by a neighbor and friend at Mason Christian Village. I did too: they always bloomed around Mother's Day and looked like frilly pink party dresses. So my brothers and I planted them in our yards and my sister-in-law down south sent me a photo of hers, which bloomed a few weeks before Mother's Day.

I painted this watercolor for myself because I feared mine hadn't survived being transplanted into a friend's garden when I moved last summer. Figured I'd make prints of this to give both my sisters in law for Mother's Day this year: they are both dear to me and have always been generous about sharing their children with me so that I love being an aunt.

So guess what??! The friend whose garden we transplanted Mom's irises into brought me these blooms on Mother's Day -- they made it! The real flowers are so much more amazing and beautiful than I could ever paint. And if we can transplant those bulbs into the yard at my new home this fall, my nieces and nephews will be able to get them from there and enjoy them for years to come.

 

When It Rains Outside

 

The plein air painting group I belong to usually paints outdoors every Tuesday starting in April. But this year it seems like it has rained every Tuesday! And I still feel like I'm recovering from a recent health issue so I just don't want to paint outside in the rain.

Luckily we have a place where we can meet to paint indoors in April and May. So I have been working on some watercolor paintings, of which this is one. It's of the Harmon Museum in Lebanon, Ohio where I had a one-woman show two years ago. From Oct 18 to Nov 22, 2025 our Mason-Deerfield Arts Alliance Painters will have a show there this fall. I plan to display 2 large works in that: one oil painting of colorful bell peppers and a large watercolor of an iris in sunlight.

Not sure what I'll do with this painting when I finish it but it's been a good way to stay limber with my watercolors this spring, especially painting an architectural subject which is what I often do en plein air. I've been working on this from a photo I took a couple years ago.

Plein Air - Miamiville OH

 

I finally got outdoors with my weekly plein air group, the Brush & Palette Painters, on Tues Apr 23. Because I was hosting 8 for dinner, I knew I only had 30 minutes in which to paint. And I wondered how much I could accomplish in that amount of time.

I've learned that if I spend one hour each day, what I can accomplish in those 60 minutes varies greatly from day to day. So I recognized that I actually got quite a lot done here in a short time.

It was worth it to get out for the first time regardless of results. Kind of like my first golf game of the year. After so much time off, I forgot what I needed to take with me. And how fast acrylics dry up, even on a wet palette, in half an hour.

Here I was "drawing in paint," just trying to roughly capture shapes and values. The flowers and foliage that usually inspire us at this location hadn't bloomed yet (or bloomed weeks ago), so most of the artists were painting buildings.

I liked the way the sun was shining on this home. But I quickly remembered how fast things can change outdoors when the wind below and the sun kept hiding behind clouds.

But the feel of the sun and the breeze, the sound of the birds, and just being outdoors were inspiring and I can't wait to paint out again next week.

I've been experimenting a lot lately with watercolors and oils, so I decided to prepare for next week in 2 ways: 1) scout out my location ahead of time, so I'll have more time to paint, 2) try a different medium (oils or watercolor).

Irises in Watercolors (24" x 30")

Here's the work in progress as of Monday, March 4, 2024. I have had to get used to not being able to keep the entire large sheet at the same level of detail, as it's taking me much longer to paint this larger size.

Here's where we came from February 26, 2024. The paint is drying quickly enough but this surface dulls down its hue and intensity so I anticipate having to layer over many times to get the effect I want before finishing.

I was bound and determined to get the composition down on the entire sheet in my first session painting these irises on a large sheet of watercolor paper on February 15, 2024.

I so enjoyed painting the colorful peppers in three different media that I decided to do that again with this photograph of irises that inspired me.

Once again, it's going to be a challenge for me, with very few straight lines but this is an image I'll enjoy looking at for a long time as I attempt to paint it in acrylics, watercolors, and oils (with painting knives).

 

Using Watercolors En Plein Air

I like painting en plein air (outdoors) but have mostly used acrylics since I started painting with the Cincinnati Brush & Palette Painters. We go on an annual fall trip and last autumn's was in Hillsboro, OH.

 

This year I want to go to the trip location early and scout out some subjects to paint in advance because I wasted a lot of time doing that in Hillsboro; the sunny weather was pretty and the fall color spectacular so I was just having fun looking at potential painting sites. I liked how the downtown area was decorated with these pumpkins and cabbages, so I decided to see how well I would do outdoors with watercolors.

Enough that I want to take them out with me every week this summer and on our trip to Madison, Indiana in the fall. When I first started painting with this group, I guess I assumed that I needed to finish the work I started that day on site. And I have done a few successful alla prima paintings from our weekly outings.

But even with watercolors, I see that if I can get the basics down on-site, there's plenty of room to go back and work on these paintings later in the studio. I need to keep this in mind when I paint!

It feels sort of like it does when I'm singing in the Sycamore Community Singers or with the Sycamore Presbyterian Church Choir: I find that I sing a lot better once I've memorized the music. I think if I can get "the bones" of a plein air painting down while we're outside, then I'll be free to really paint it once I get back home, with the memory of being on location coloring everything I do with it later.

In business, we used to talk about the Conscious Competent, Conscious Incompetent, Unconscious Competent, and Unconscious Incompetent. As an artist, I think I work best as an "Unconscious Competent" because when it's really happening for me, I'm not even thinking about why I'm doing what I'm doing; in fact I'm hardly even aware of it. And of course, I've certainly been an "Unconscious Incompetent" because one has to be brave and risk failure to be an artist! As one of my old bosses used to say "You can tell how good an artist is by the quality of work thrown into his or her wastebasket (or painted over)."

Right now I'm having a lot of fun being a "Conscious Incompetent" by trying all kinds of things I haven't done for a long time in order to practice, learn, and get better at them. Watercolor painting for example: I started a large one yesterday inspired by a photo of irises that I love. And I may try painting that same subject tomorrow in acrylics. Or even with knives in oils.

Westward Ho! Sculpture at Yeatman's Cove in Cincinnati

Ever since I moved to Cincinnati, I've loved this statue downtown along Yeatman's Cove titled "Westward Ho!" Here's the latest on 12" x 12" canvas painted in oils with knives. I've ordered a dark brown floater frame to try with this. Once the paint dries, I have just a few more things I want to do with it before putting it out for sale at Final Friday March 29 at the Pendleton Art Center in Cincinnati. I'm also going to see what it looks like as a 20" x 20" giclee print.

I had to stop for a while after starting this on Feb 12 because the paint was so wet I needed to give it some time to dry before working on it more.

The photographs I took of it never inspired me like the real thing did. But when I saw it during a recent walk, I decided to work on it as a knife painting.

Rather than crop my horizontal photo, I just squeezed it in my mind to fit onto a 12" x 12" square canvas. Not displeased but still need to work on this some more as I continue to paint with knives and "traditional" (not water-missable) oils. 

Having painted in acrylics for so long, I've forgotten how much more time and patience it takes to paint with other media: watercolors, water-missable oil paints or traditional oils. The first day I started on this,  it took me half an hour just to get the caps off tubes that are still full of good paint, even though I haven't used them in years. Then I had to go and buy gloves to wear, because these paints were not going to clean up with water. And since I didn't have a palette handy, I painted over one of my acrylic paintings in neutral gray so I could use it as one.

I have an unfinished small acrylic painting of impatiens started during the Montgomery Garden Tour last summer. Think I may use it to play with some more knife painting. When I complimented one of our Brush & Palette Painters on her work that won a prize in the Women's Art Club of Cincinnati's Signature Show this year, she told me "the "quest" of experimenting while painting with knives is exhilarating and sometimes a disaster but, happily, sometimes not."

Florida Home Portrait - Winter 2021 before my surgery

This small acrylic home portrait of a house on St. George's Island was a gift from my customer to her friends that hosted them in Florida. Painted in acrylics from the photograph she provided, in my studio, this kept me sane and energized while awaiting knee replacement surgery (TKR).

After I got this photo via email from my client....

I did acrylic sketches on 2 different background colors before painting the finished work

Emailed my customer some progress photos along the way, including show I planned to matte and frame the painting.

That let her give me feedback and we made some changes, such as adding the house number (address).