My step-mom, Betty, was a potter. People now say ‘ceramicist’, but I will use the term she used. She made many useful items, including all of the dishes we used every day. She also made decorative things, vases, and even a full chess set once! No other potter I had seen the work of carved into their pots the way she did. She made many interesting patterns.
Here are a couple of tiny paintings I did to record my step-mom’s sweet little bowls.
Stainless steel-yikes! This one actually metal. I was hesitant to try it, definitely fine over an old painting. ‘You have to start somewhere department’ as my mother might have said.
#allaprima #allaprimapainting #twohourstilllife #paintingpractice
When the King tides photography project came up, I remembered these rocks painted during a normal high tide. It was a foggy, grey day, but these rocks jumped out strongly while everything else was in the background and soft. I felt a little bit of color would make it feel more “welcoming”. Hey-it’s my painting, I can do whatever I want with it!
#landscape #landscapepainting #waterscape #oilpainting #hightide #contemporarypainting #californiacoast #bayarea #shorebirdpark
Only a loving family can create that glow! Sorry for double post. #oilportrait #childrenportrait #oilpainting I had created a time lapse of the painting start, and it is fun – although much fussing has to be done to set it up correctly–balancing the phone, positioning the light, and painting while trying to stay out of the frame… While I can’t post it here, you can see it on Facebook or Instagram (posted around end of August 2022). Here’s a photo.
This distant view of Pontessieve Village was one I started while on my last trip to Italy. There were a lot of foggy, overcast days, but they sometimes make surprisingly interesting moods. This day had started out with a complete whiteout, but then lightened a bit as the day went on.
You can buy this little painting on Daily Paintworks, it is featured today https://bit.ly/3uhZLEM
This has been turning into a series. Not a series related to each other in any way other than that they are all of children loved by others, who would like to see their dear faces frequently. I feel a bit Beatrix Potter saying “dear faces”, but that is kind of how you feel, especially as a grandparent. While in the midst of parenting, I know it is much more difficult to see the forest for the trees. Sadly, but there it is!
While I often paint using a limited palette this young lady required more colors. She is so fair and blonde, her features become just mildly prominent. I like to try to get a feeling for the person while painting, and, to me, her face seems to shine kindness, fairness, even-temperedness, and I’m sure she is all of those things!
This vineyard painting was beginning in an abstract way, but I didn’t know where to go next. I thought of completing it as a traditional plein air painting, but I really liked the graphic stripes that were there — so I split the difference and added a goat painted in a loose way, with some unusual colors.
This road wound its way through vineyards, fields, farmlands to arrive to a hunting lodge in the Tuscany hills, of Italy. From my first trip to Italy to paint for a week at an old farm turned agriturismo. It was the most delightful trip and great introduction to Italy’s lovely northern countryside – and food! I was never an Italian food aficionado until visiting and tasting the real thing. This painting has gone through some changes – as the years pass I see things I want to change. This latest iteration is much brighter than earlier ones. You sometimes lose something you like, but often gain something else. The future may hold more versions…!
Although I really enjoy doing Plein air painting with my painting buddies, sometimes I just want to paint them instead the landscape. Trees, hills and sky can be wonderful, but it’s nice to change it up occasionally.
If you take a moment to think about it, you could paint anything outside and it would be “plein air” — you could paint an abstract! A couple of weekends ago, I decided to just give it a try. This was not done all at once, I added the artist watching who arrived later, so it can’t be called “alla prima”. Why is it that we use terms in other languages to describe some of these things? Maybe it’s because we feel like it gives it more gravitas or legitimacy as art or something.
Micaela Marsden 