News from my studio

Vacation travels and other commitments have left me less time to spend in my studio. Fortunately, my schedule has opened up and I'm starting several new pieces.

My watercolor painting, "Bright Morning Mist," was one of twelve winners in the Rhode Island Watercolor Society's annual calendar contest. I am grateful to the many followers on Facebook who voted for me. Thanks very much!

A newer painting, "The Skipper" has been on exhibit in "Primary Colors," an Open Juried Show at the Rhode Island Watercolor Society, throughout August. It shows my son on his sailboat on a long-ago afternoon on the water off Cataumet, on Cape Cod. 

A few weeks ago I spent an enjoyable afternoon with one of my granddaughters, setting ourselves up in my studio with the goal of completing a watercolor sketch in just fifteen minutes. We used a photo of some cows that I had taken several years ago as our reference. It was fun sharing creative space together, and I was thrilled to see my granddaughter's imaginatively colorful cows appear. 

Finally, I was pleased that an oil painting I completed in 2023 -- "Sturbridge Farm" -- was  displayed in the "Twelfth Annual One" show at ArtsWorcester, 44 Portland St., Worcester MA.

FYI: All of my paintings are now available in my "Daily Paintworks" online gallery. You can access that gallery HERE.  

 

  

Solo exhibit of my watercolors

Williamstown MA

While recovering from cataract surgery, I worked on a larger version of a 10" x 7" watercolor sketch that I completed last month: a view of the pond at Field Farm (a Trustees of Reservations site in Williamstown, MA). This painting is twice the size –– 14" x 10" –– and shows a bit more of the reflected sky in the foreground.  

Some changes...

I've moved my art gallery to a new website hosted HERE. This new site, hosted by at Fine Art Studios Online, shows my largest works, many of them framed and ready to hang. Eventually, I will add a section showing smaller, unframed paintings and sketches. Everything at the new online gallery is set up for easy purchases via PayPal (you don't need a PayPal account to buy a painting -- just a credit or debit card). I'm closing out my Daily Paintworks site, and am very grateful to David Marine and his staff for the opportunities provided to me for the past ten years. If you have any questions, please message me either in the comment section of this post (below) or by contacting me via my Facebook page HERE.  The address of the new site is judithfreemanclark.com

Averie and Ellie...

Several years ago one of my granddaughters visited New York City with a friend, and sent back a few photographs. I was intrigued by the idea of doing a quick (well, semi-quick) watercolor sketch of the two teenagers in sunglasses. After I used my MacBook's photo app to crop out the surroundings, I simply enlarged the image and concentrated on capturing their sunlit smiles. 

Step 1

I sketched in a few details in pencil, but mostly wanted to rely on my eye and a limited palette of transparent colors to build the shapes and emphasize light and shadow. I tried to remember to stop every now and then to capture the progress of my painting –– always a challenge for me once I get started! For the first two steps, I worked exclusively with my favorite #12 Cosmo-Top Spin round brush, as it holds a good point. Colors used in the first two steps: Holbein's Burnt Sienna and Mineral Violet; and Winsor & Newton's French Ultramarine, Burnt Umber, and Sepia. By step 3, and in the final version, I added a few other colors, to help develop shading, add details to the sunglasses, and add the jackets and the background. I also switched to a smaller brush –– a Robert Simmons #4 white sable (synthetic). Colors added in these final steps: Winsor & Newton's Permanent Rose, Cobalt Blue, Raw Umber, Green Gold, and Winsor Blue GS; also Holbein's Verditer Blue. 

Step 2

Step 3

Here is the original photo, taken in Washington Park in Manhattan, and a cropped view that I brought up on my laptop screen to refer to while painting.

Back at the easel...

After way too much time away from painting, I hauled out my oils and easel yesterday so I could start a small (very small) panel. I knew if I chose anything larger than 5" x 7" I would probably step away and leave it unfinished. 

Hence a little study of a barn, based on a photo I took several years ago in western Massachusetts. I sold a watercolor rendering of this barn, but although I'd already done it once, this seemed like the perfect image to be done in oils, and also for getting my creative engines revved up. 

Once the panel dries, I'll add a few final details -- perhaps a fence in the foreground, etc. But for now, this is it. Stay tuned for new images later this week.

Rural Barn, step 1

Rural Barn, step 2

Small Stones Festival of the Arts, 2022

I've had two paintings accepted by the jurors for this year's Small Stones Festival of the Arts, in Grafton, Massachusetts. "Freeman Farm in the Afternoon" and "Daffodil Waltz" were selected to be shown in the exhibition, and also will be included in the hardcover exhibition catalog. Jurors of selection and awards for the 2022 festival's fine art painting category are JoEllen Reinhardt, Susan Termyn, and William Pope. 

Both paintings will be on exhibit in the Great Hall at One Grafton Common, beginning with the Opening ceremony on October 14, and continuing through October 23, 2022. 

Daffodil Waltz
transparent watercolor    17.25" x 17.5"
SOLD

This stylized watercolor rendering of springtime daffodils was informed by my appreciation of Charles Rennie Mackintosh's Modernist motifs influenced by Japanese art in a style that became popular during the early twentieth century. Having studied illustration in Boston during the late 1960s, I find that some of my watercolor paintings continue to refer to that long-ago training. My painting "Daffodil Waltz" leans in the direction of formalized, decorative art although the asymmetry of the image contributes to an Art Nouveau feel which keeps it lively.

Freeman Farm in the Afternoon
transparent watercolor  14.75" x 11.75"

I regularly visit Old Sturbridge Village, and enjoy painting scenes that reflect the changing seasons of New England. This rendering of the Pliny Freeman farmhouse was done on a very hot July day in the early afternoon. My goal was to convey the feeling of bright sunshine. Transparent watercolor is my preferred medium, which I find well-suited to landscape paintings including both architectural elements with crisply accurate edges, and the softer details of grass and foliage. I paid careful attention to the color of the farmhouse, hoping to achieve the "just right" shade of dull red common to many rural buildings of the Federal period (1789-1840). 

Green...

Set-up

The weather being what it is here in the Northeast, I've been doing more plein air work. All week I've spent a few hours in the morning, out and about, trying to capture the feel of this unaccustomed heat wave. On Tuesday, I set up in a local park near my home. My goal: capture the contrast between hot sunshine (relentless, even at 10:00 a.m. it was super-bright, and almost 90F), and the distinctive cooling effect of mature trees that are heavy with foliage. 

#1 Composition sketch

After noting the general composition, I covered the canvas panel, blocking in large areas of color using Ultramarine Dark, and gradually tempering these segments with splotches of lighter green (blending Cobalt, Viridian, Cadmium Lemon Light, and a bit of Cadmium Scarlet) (#2). I ignored the house (it can be seen in the set-up photo), as it seemed unimportant, as did the small stone retaining wall. I'd originally noted a line for the wall in the composition but felt it added nothing to this small panel.

#2 Blocking in more color

After several hours of concentration, it was time to quit. The last image of Tuesday (#3) shows the canvas well covered but lacking the atmospheric contrast I aimed for. I set the panel out on my deck to dry, knowing that after several days I'd be able to resume work on this small piece. Examining the panel on Thursday, it was obvious that the darks needed emphasis. I also toned down the tree trunks which are mostly cool, dark, and in shadow (see the set-up photo) rather than brown. 

#3 Panel at the end of the first day

On Friday morning, I heightened the contrast in the upper third of the image, laying on more Ultramarine Dark blended with Viridian and Alizarin Crimson. To make the "canopy of foliage" effect more pronounced, I eliminated most of the small bits of blue sky which were, in reality, were peeking through the leaves. 

#4 Dreadful details

In a rush of misplaced enthusiasm, I somehow felt it necessary to add a fence to the background, showing it receding from right to left hoping –– incorrectly –– that it would "add something" to the painting. Not for the first time am I grateful that one of the properties of oil paint is its capacity to allow for corrections and "do-overs (unlike transparent watercolor, which is still my medium-of-choice). Here (#4) the painting shows the offending fence, as well as some additional and pointlessly inaccurate, dabs of white on tree trunks and elsewhere (what was I thinking??). The finished panel is shown below after being corrected. 

A simple, and I hope more truthful, rendition of an urban oasis on very hot day in August.

"Leafy Glade, August"
oil on linen panel. 10" x 8"
Available at my Daily Paintworks Gallery, here.

Finishing touches...

I spent this morning working on a new panel (not yet ready for viewing) and this afternoon, I devoted time to putting a few finishing touches on "Study #4, Andover, Maine." This painting was posted yesterday in "Branching out..." It seemed to me that certain areas of the sky needed a bit more cloud cover, and some of the foliage and grassy areas benefitted from heightened contrast. And then there was the challenge of a signature. Most recently, I have been signing my watercolor paintings with an old-fashioned "dip pen" loaded with watered-down pigment. Because I don't have that option for signing an oil painting, my full signature poses a challenge on smaller panels like the ones I'm starting out on. I haven't yet developed the knack for doing extremely small detail work in oils. I'll get there, I hope.

Here's the finished, signed version of the painting I did in Andover, Maine. 

"Study #4, Andover, Maine"

Branching out...

After having spent many decades painting in transparent watercolor, this summer I was intrigued with the idea of working once again in oils. I had originally learned the rudiments of oil painting from my grandmother who, herself a painter, generously supplied me with materials, opportunity, and encouragement. Off and on I dabbled for several years, until other interests diverted my attention once I hit adolescence. Art school would have given me an even more solid grounding in this medium, and others, if I had remained for the entire three-year program, but I left after one year.

Fast-forward to June 2022, when I responded to a Facebook notice about a plein air workshop in Maine. As I added a collection of oil paints, bristle brushes, and gum spirits of turpentine to my studio supplies,  and purchased a French easel, I looked ahead with enthusiasm (and trepidation) to the challenge of jump-starting my lagging creative impulses. 

It was great to meet other artists in such a relaxed atmosphere, and to be in a gorgeous, secluded location, Andover, Maine (near Sunday River). The experience turned out to be a HUGE uphill climb for me in terms of being comfortable with oils, which have virtually nothing in common with watercolors (except for sharing the names of some pigments...). However, I hope I persevered... 

Below are a few of my early "starts" (not finished works) two on the easel were done on the first day of painting, and the other were done on the following day. 

Two beginner panels... 

Study #3, Andover, Maine. Oil on linen panel, 12” x 9”

Study #4, Andover, Maine. Oil on linen panel, 12” x 9”

Portrait sketch of my 2nd great grandmother...

My reference for this watercolor project was a photograph of my 2nd Great Grandmother,  Mary Adeline Benson.

Mary was born in 1863 in Sturbridge, Massachusetts. The photo was taken of Mary shortly before her 1884 marriage to Harry Herbert Stone (1858-1941). At the time of their marriage, both worked in factories in West Brookfield -- he in a box factory and she in a corset factory. 

Although this is a sepia-toned photo, I chose blue for Mary's eyes, as both of her parents' photographs show them with light-colored eyes. I used a pencil to mark the spacing for eyes, nose, and mouth, but my goal was to paint "freehand" as much as possible. 

I worked with a limited palette for this portrait sketch: Transparent Yellow, Burnt Sienna, Sepia, Transparent Brown, and Mineral Violet for face, hair, and dress, and Cobalt Blue, Payne's Gray, and Ultramarine Blue for the background. 

A close look at the reference photo, reveals a slender gold bar pin that Mary pinned to her white collar. That small pin was saved by Mary's youngest daughter, my Great-great Aunt Maude. Before she died, my aunt gave the pin (now more than 130 years old) to me.

Mary Adeline Benson, age 20

Sheep thrills...

Not sure why I find it so satisfying to paint sheep. These are two studies I retrieved from a box of unfinished work in need of attention. Sometimes quick sketches can be saved, but there's no guarantee. These two provided an hour or so of welcome diversion in my air-conditioned studio during a hot and humid holiday afternoon.

"Beyond the City Limits"  

transparent watercolor  10" x 7" unframed

"Sheep VII"  

transparent watercolor  8" x 6" unframed