Sorry there is a glare on this plate that I couldn't get rid of. I sat it in a plate holder to photograph it, but the glare in the coral wouldn't go away. This is my contribution to the Daily Painter's April challenge-"painting outside the box", in which we are asked to paint something different from our usual. So now you know why I never paint fish, especially on china!
This statue and the light pattern across the lawn caught my eye as I was searching for a special site to paint during the Plein Air invitational Paint-Out a couple weeks back. I finally decided against painting it on site, but I wanted to try to paint it back in the studio, so I took a photo of it. I finally got around to painting it, but I wasn't happy wityh the outcome. Over the weekend, I made some modifications to the palm trees overhead and the colors in the foreground, and now I am pretty happy with it. It has good texture in the painting and looks much better in person than on the computer monitor. If you would like to purchase this painting, please use the PayPal button below.
SOLD "Tuesday on the Island". 11x14, oil on wrapped linen- $345
This was painted one Tuesday on the island and although I wasn't drinking Margueritas at the time, the colors and brightness of this Florida morning had me singing Jimmy Buffet songs in my head as I painted! If you're a Jimmy Buffett fan like me, here's a video of Jimmy singing "Coconut Telegraph".
If you'd like to purchase this happy Florida painting, please use the Paypal button below.
"Coconut Telegraph", by: Jimmy Buffett 1980 (For the gang at the Fish House )
Tuesday on the island Not much goin' on The parties are all over They ended just past dawn
The jungle drums are beating With the tales from late last night 'Cause stories bear repeating For everyone's delight
Chorus: You can hear 'em on the coconut telegraph (telegraph) Can't keep nothin' under their hat You can hear 'em on the coconut telegraph (telegraph) Sayin' who did dis and dat Dis and dat, Dis and dat
Now I'm not one to deal in gossip But was he that big a fool To do a belly-buster high dive And miss the entire pool
And what became of sweet Melissa And the boy nobody knew Did Ricardo ever find her I swear it's just between me and you
Chorus: But you can hear it on the coconut telegraph (telegraph) By now everybody knows You can hear it on the coconut telegraph (telegraph) Just who comes and goes Comes and goes, comes and goes
La, la la la, la la la La, la la la, la la la La, la la la, (la la la la la la la) La, la la la, (la la la la la la oooooh) Ah!
It's hump day on the island The lines have all gone dead All the juicy news is history I guess everything's been said
But when the eagle flies on Friday And the boys break out the rum And the joint begins to jumpin' And you'll hear those hot lines hum
Chorus: Ah, put it on the coconut telegraph (telegraph) All the celebration and the stress Baby put it on the coconut telegraph (telegraph) In twenty-five words or less
I want to hear it on the coconut telgraph (telegraph) All the celebration and the stress Baby put it on the coconut telegraph (telegraph) In twenty-five words or less Dis and dat, Comes and goes Dis and dat, Comes and goes
SOLD "The Arabesque", 11x14, oil on canvas panel-$195
Today I was in a funk, wanting to paint, but searching for subject matter. I went round and round and finally decided to do something I haven't done in a long time- paint a ballerina. My very first paintings of ballerinas in 2006 were tedious-I was trying so hard to make sure that every single limb and muscle was perfect as you can see if you look at my website. Today I was looking at a library book that contained paintings by Dan McCaw. Dan paints ballerinas all the time and they are gorgeous in the way that the figure captures the light. However, his dancers are all stationary- sitting or reposing in such a way that the light hits them dramatically and makes them look magical. Nevertheless they are stationary and that doesn't move me very much no matter how glorious the lighting effects are! Dan is an artist that inspires me a great deal-his paintings sell in the thousands of dollars, and depressingly I can't even afford to buy his book, "A Proven Strategy for Creating Great Art".
How sad is that? I think if I sell this painting that I will go ahead and buy his book. The cheapest one I could find is a used edition on Amazon at about $150. Many are much higher than that.
Anyhow, going back to me, I decided that I should try and paint more of what I know something about, and ballet was a huge part of my life for too many years to just throw away and discard, even though my knees are shot and I could probably not balance on one foot for a full minute if my life depended on it! So I painted this impressionist study of a dancer in arabesque today and I love the way that it came out. I like it so much that I am tempted to not sell it. In truth, I have not sold one single ballet painting that I've ever did because they are so very special to me. I do intend to give most of them to my niece, Kaitlin who also loves to dance and was a beautiful Clara in her company's production of The Nutcracker this past Christmas.
But this one I do intend to sell, and hopefully selling it will encourage me to do more ballet paintings- many more. Ballet dancing is a magnificent art- too often overlooked in this country. If you would like to buy this original painting of a dancer, painted by a dancer, please know that you will help me paint more dancers. And it will also give me the funds I need to buy a book by an artist that is incredible in his bold impressionist style and his rendering of dancers.
I made some refinements to yesterday's painting and I am finished. I'm pleased with the way that this came out. Considering the fact that I rarely paint people and haven't had much training doing so, I think I captured the essence of this young woman, wearing the festive costume of her native country. I am going to save this painting for a show or two.
I was pleased to find out that this painting was chosen as the winner in the recent North Port Art Center's contest. It will represent the art center's Spring fundraiser, a high tea and fashion show to benefit the center.
Please contact the art center for more information about the event.
"Spring in Central Park", 12x16, oil on wrapped canvas- $175
I painted this a couple weeks ago and needed to digest it for a while. Today I took it out and revamped a couple things, and I'm pretty pleased with it. The backlit effect is soft and romantic, and with spring right around the corner, we're bound to see couples just like this out for a walk amidst the newly blossoming trees. There's light at the end of the tunnel folks!
If you would like to purchase this painting for $175, plus $8.00 shipping and handling, please use the PAyPal button below.
I made a few revisions to this painting today, and I think I'm pretty satisfied with it now. I also changed the name of the painting to a more positive title, lol.
I will probably make some 12x12 giclees of this one, please email me if you are interested. The price will be about $50 for canvas, and about $35 for a fine art print.
The French Revolution was no laughing matter. Neither was the Boston Tea Party. The title for this painting came to me out of the blue, but seemed appropo in view of these challenging economic times that we live in.
I've been working on this most of the week for a competition at the North Port Art Center. They are sponsoring a Tea Party and fashion show to benefit the art center and will be choosing a painting for the poster marketing of the event next week. The artist producing the winning painitng gets a cash prize so I worked extra hard on this one! It needs a little fine tuning when it's completely dry, but it's pretty much finished.
SOLD "Left Behind", 12x16, oil on canvas panel (Please click on picture for better detail)
Some people have told me that I paint like a millionaire because I use tons of paint on most paintings. Truth is that palette knife work requires the use of a great deal more paint than does painting with just brushes and medium. In these difficult economic times, I have become increasingly aware of how costly my paintings have become to produce, and although I have experimented with using brushes in lieu of the palette knife, I've come to the conclusion that for me the excitement of creating passages of extreme texture within a painting still out weigh the cost restrictions that they impose. (Just don't tell my husband that I said that when he sees that I charged a $60 tube of cobalt violet on his credit card!)
Lately, I have begun the habit of saving leftover paint at the end of a painting session. I gob the color together with my palette knife and swish it all together, sometimes creating mud but oftentimes creating gorgeous grays. Then I smush it over a brand new canvas and start playing with my 'mud". The painting above was a mishmash of gobs of paint left over from the past two weeks' serious painting sessions, and spread like icing over a new canvas in a haphazard "left behind" format.
Yesterday, I looked at the mess I'd created (be glad you didn't see it, too!) and decided to try to make something of the mess. Thus "Left Behind" was produced. As the purple vase began to take shape, I knew that I had to do something with the thick impasto in the lower left hand side of the painting. Thus , the impasto became a discarded, or "left behind" sunflower. The rest of the painting came together quickly after that, once the concept had been created. I left interesting passages of original texture here and there within the floral arrangement, just because I liked them. This painting is a conglomerate of color and texture, without rhyme or reason, so please don't expect perfection on symmetry.
Full of texture and surprise passages, this was a fun piece to do!
SOLD "Mission San Juan Capistrano", 8x10, oil on linen
On Sunday night my husband and I watched migrating swallows create tornados of shapes and patterns in the sky here in Venice, Florida. This reminded me of a visit we took to Capistrano Mission in San Juan California back in March of 2007, while visiting my son in San Diego. The beautiful old Spanish mission is a site where the swallows also return annually to migrate. I took a ton of pictures while we were there , but now I wish I had taken more! At the time the grounds were covered in bright yellow and orange poppies, and the weather was quite gorgeous. I have had a hankering to do some paintings of the mission for some time now, but until I saw the majesty of the swallows in formation on Sunday night, I just didn't get around to it!
I elected not to add the brightly colored poppies to this painting, as I wanted the effect to remain soft and I didn't want the flowers to compete with the beauty of the mission's rosy architecture against the soft southern California light temperature. If you happen to go there for the swallow migration this year, which falls on March 19th each and every year, be sure to have a yummy lunch or dinner at the delightful Sarducci's Capistrano Depot restaurant, which sits right at the historic train depot, just a couple blocks and walking distance from the mission.
I was happy with the way that this little gem came out, and may enter this into the Philadelphia Sketch Club's small painting exhibit that is coming up in a few weeks and which I took part in last year.
If you would like to purchase this painting for $450.00, which includes free shipping, please email me at maryannejacobsen@aol.com, or use the Paypal button below within the next week, otherwise I'll probably just save it for the exhibit which opens next month.
If you would like to read more about the migration of the swallows at Mission Capistrano, please go here.
SOLD "Early Morning Light" 9x12, oil on linen -$495
This is a painting of the same scene that I posted on Saturday, but a different painting. When I went back on Wednesday to finish the painting that I'd started on Tuesday, the light was different, as it was cloudy. So I started a new painting. Unfortunately the sun came out, right in the midst of what I was doing with the light temperature, but I had no choice other than to finish it.
This is the third of the paintings that I did for last week's Paint-out in Paradise. The show runs until Saturday. PLease email me at maryannejacobsen@aol.com if you have any interest in purchasing this painting.
