Small-Art Compendium

Passing Storm 4" x 4" Oil on panel Dark brooding skies -- my favorite motif. That sliver of light on the horizon feels hopeful as you watch the storm pass overhead. For me, watching a storm roll through, especially on a vast expanse of prairie, is a thrill.

Green Harbinger 4" x 4" Oil on panel After a spate of thinner brushy tornadoes (I haven't posted all of those yet), the urge to get the palette knife out again and use it with this subject was strong.

Paper Horizon II 4" x 4" Vintage papers, found papers charcoal, acrylic medium, on panel A small confession: I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing. Collage has me flummoxed. Yet, despite the frustrations to find a technique and a voice, I'm profoundly hooked on following this path of creative expression. One day (if I'm a really really good girl) maybe the Collage Angels above will smile down upon me and grant me a way forward. Until then, it's just a lot of mucking about.

Big White 6" x 6" Oil on panel

Purple Tornado 6" x 6" Oil on panel

White Funnel 5" x 5" Oil on panel This painting has a strong dream quality. The white finger of swirling cloud looks almost delicate as it decides where to touch down. In reality, the painting is a lot greener than the photo indicates.

Dark Blue 5" x 5" Oil on panel Introducing a new series of tornado paintings. Ever dream about them? I do. Some of these new paintings have a dream-like quality to me. True to my pendulum-esque art nature, these paintings are in response to the many recent paintings in impasto (heavy texture) and brighter colors. I used a lot of brushwork and blending to create a softness -- which intrigues me given the magnitude and brutality of the actual thing. They are a powerful entity and image and I'm fascinated to see where this new series goes.

Winter Marsh 6" x 6" Oil on panel I love this little painting. The digital image doesn't do it justice (if I do say so myself). It's small yet has weight and mystery in real life. To me, it actually feels like a winter marsh -- and that's what I'm after, an emotional response.

Spring Marsh 6" x 6" Oil on panel Abstracted expressionist painting of a marsh in spring. The large loose strokes were fun to paint -- the large dark green band of tree-like thingies were made with a 2-inch Hyde -brand putty knife. I found the putty knife at the local Home Depot and couldn't resist.

Summer Marsh 6" x 6" Oil on panel $400 SOLD An abstracted view of a summer marsh. Mostly, I'm an intuitive painter; meaning I work primarily from memory, imagination, or letting the paint guide me. But, I do use references on occasion like photos, painting from life, or plein air -- and in this instance, from a collage I made a year earlier. I've always loved the collage because it's so darned happy and bright and I wanted to capture that in paint. The collage is shown below. Inspiration can come from unexpected places.

Wetlands 6" x 6" Oil on panel SOLD Another motif I've explored over the years is marshes and wetlands. This was painted a couple of months ago and my challenge was to give a sense of lushness and atmosphere. By using the palette knife and letting the painting be as abstract as it needed to be, I feel happy about the piece. Painting loosely or more abstractly is a style or phase that I cycle through periodically. My art journey seems to be one of rebellion: if I'm painting thinly and using brushes for a time, then a major urge to paint fat and juicy with a knife overtakes me. If I'm painting dark paintings, then soon enough, a desire for light paintings will follow. That's why I love these little ones so much. I feel much freer to indulge my creative whims without all the sturm und drang of a larger, serious gallery piece (love those too, of course) .

Neighbors 5" x 7" Oil on canvas panel SOLD Ta Dah! The last one. Although I actually painted these a couple of months ago, the thick white paint is taking its sweet time in drying. Perhaps future ones will be done with more transparent and quicker drying paint colors. Fun experiment and I really like the results. Now I'll go back and study the Wolf Kahn book again and determine in what way my experiments have given me a deeper understanding of his work. I know he gave me insight into my own and for that I thank him.

The Carport 5" x 7" Oil on canvas panel Third one in the series. This one speaks to me of loneliness, waiting, expectation. I like the emotional weight of the piece. My husband calls them the "beach houses," and that certainly works; but for me, I think of them as suburbia. Those endless cheery blue skies, the pitiless uniformity of the houses and the loneliness, waiting, and expectation. These building portraits interest me and I'll definitely do more of them. I'll post the last one in this series tomorrow.

Laundry Line 7" x 5" Oil on canvas panel SOLD The second in the four painting series originally inspired by Wolf Kahn's barns. Where are all the laundry lines? Used to be, you'd see them everywhere. Oddly, I miss them. 8B2BM9A3N5R3

The Fence 5" x 7" Oil on canvas panel SOLD A couple of months ago, I bought a new art book, Wolf Kahn by Justin Spring with an essay by Louis Finkelstein (highly recommend) and I was struck by Mr. Kahn's fascinating paintings of barns and buildings. They have such presence! I felt they were a stolid, silent witness to human experience and I was hooked into trying to paint some of my own. "The Fence" is one of four paintings I did over the course of a couple of days and I'm quite pleased with them. I'll post the remaining three in the next few days.

Nightlights No. 2 5" x 5" Oil on canvas SOLD I wish my picture-taking skills were better, because these digital images don't really show the painting as it truly is in real life. I think I'll stick with this current blog template for awhile.

Nightlights No. 5 6" x 6" Oil on canvas SOLD Ever go driving at night, or fly over a city/town and see lights in the distance and wonder who lives there? What are their lives like? What do they dream about? Who do they love? Lights in the distance is an enduring motif with me as the questions they pose always get me wondering -- who are they?

City Under Clouds 8" x 8" Oil on canvas SOLD The nocturne series are mostly fairly thin backgrounds with palette knife texture in the city lights and in this one, in the clouds. This was commissioned by another artist and I felt honored to be asked.

Nightlights No. 1 5" x 5" Oil on canvas SOLD The challenge I gave myself for this series was how to give the viewer a sense of the grand scale of the vista on such a small canvas. The solution was to keep it simple, clean and contemporary and to exaggerate the horizon line to push the citylights back into the distance.

Luna 6" x 6" Oil on canvas SOLD Last December, I participated in the annual Winter Small Paintings Show at Abend Gallery where I debuted a new series of nocturnes. Seven of the new paintings were exhibited and even before the show opened, all the paintings had sold.

5" x 3" Collage on panel For me, these little collages are about pure fun and creative play. It's so refreshing to try something in another medium -- just experiment without reserve in the making or judgement about the final product.