Judith Freeman Clark, paintings

Reference photo, 5/2010 Sometimes I like to paint in a realistic style. This photo I took, of a Cub Scout marching in a Memorial Day parade, challenged me in several ways. I wanted to render the figure carefully, and also be faithful to the areas of skin-tone, sunlight and shadow. Doing close-up work was another aspect of this challenge. Adding hair, and the stitches on the fabric, meant using a very small brush and painting by 'suggestion' rather than an emphatic statement. After determining which details to keep (e.g. the little boys in the background) and which to eliminate (e.g. the brick paving, because it distracted from the red stripes in the flag), I penciled in basic shapes. I used a photo-copy overlay with graphite paper underneath to trace the large shapes and maintain their general proportion and positioning. I then began to add color –– a mix of indigo and cobalt –– working from top to bottom. (Sometimes I work from right to left, because I'm left-ha...

"Like Life"   sold Two years ago, I was on a sabbatical leave from my position as a parish priest. My goal during that leave was to devote more time to creative pursuits.  I came across this entry from a blog that I kept during my sabbatical, and thought it would be of interest if I posted it here, since it shows the way one of my paintings took shape.   "First Week of June, 2011" My painting is going well... the bright, sunny days definitely make a difference for me, as I can see light and shadows in ways that  translate to the process of putting paint on paper. Yesterday I resumed work on a painting I'd sketched out more than a year ago. It's from a photo I took in 2009, when Robin and I vacationed at Maryland's Eastern Shore, in a cottage on the Chesapeake Bay. Work-in-progress:  "Like Life" Many images that appeal to me are of places, people, or objects I've photographed some time ago. It seems tha...