"Simple Gifts"- 16x 20, oil on linen-Paint America Top 100

"Simple Gifts"- 16x 20, oil on linen
"Simple Gifts" is one of three paintings that has been juried into the 2010 Paint America Top 100 paintings!

This painting has won three other ribbons so far, so I am only sad to see it leave my home where it has held a position of grace in my dining room when it has not been traveling or being exhibited!

If you are interested in purchasing "Simple Gifts", please contact Paint America for purchase info at their website here.

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"Swansong"- 14x18, oil on canvas-paintings of ballet dancers, white swan, black swan

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"Swansong"- 14x18, oil on canvas

Odette is the tragic heroine in the classical ballet Swan Lake. Odette is a princess turned into a swan by the evil sorcerer Von Rothbart's curse, who wants his evil daughter Odile (the Black Swan) to wrestle the handsome Prince Sigfried's heart away from the gentle Odette. The ballet is a love story of enchantment and tragedy, as only the Prince's undying love can break the curse and free Odette and the other swan maidens of the sorcerer's curse.

When I was artistic director of my ballet company back in the 1990's, we performed a full length Swan Lake 2 or 3 different times. The challenges of staging a ballet of this magnitude on a small company were tremendous, but I was ambitious and the rewards of re-creating the magic of that ballet eventually overshadowed the work that was involved. I painted this scene in memory of the many hours of love I put into the restaging of that ballet !

At any rate, the painting has been hanging in my bedroom for quite a while. Very recently I rec'd a phone call asking me if it was still available. Although I had never had a real inclination to sell it, I could hear in the caller's voice how important the question was. And so I said "yes- the painting was available!" without even knowing why. The caller went on to tell me that she was looking for a 70th birthday gift for her aging mother, who was, of course, a former ballerina! I can't describe how happy I was to know that this painting would literally dance 0ut of my home, and into the home of another former ballerina!

It filled my heart with joy!!!

Ballet, art, and music are all similar passions. When one has an artistic passion, it dictates their lives for that particular season. Luckily for me, I no longer need to do an entrechat quatre in order to fill my passion. To the the new owner of "Swansong", all i can say is Merde! May the passion and memories of all that you once had, stay with you always!

"Whatever happened, happened", 16x12, oil on masonsite,

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"Whatever happened, happened", 16x12, oil on masonite,

If you don't get the title, don't worry about it. Here's a little hint, for those who are curious. "The island will tell you what to do". That being said, I doubt that the the island told me what to do when I painted this.

I just needed to blow off some steam tonight, and a loose landscape of a LOST island was just the trick that I needed. I feel so much better now! :0)

I have been taking a portrait workshop the past few days with amazing impressionist, Clayton Beck, and I have been working very hard to understand all this stuff about edges and values and temperature and quality of brushwork. Way over this dumb chick's head! Nevertheless, the experience has been invaluable so far, and I just know the guy with the hat will make a better artist out of me in the end!


Meanwhile, If you are or were a Lostie, (like me), and want to buy this beautiful painting of that one particular island or safe harbor, sheltered by the wind, just hit the PayPal button and hopefully your funds won't travel into another dimension before it goes into my Paypal account!

Ciao.

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"Purple Mountains Majesty", 8x10

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"Purple Mountains Majesty", 8x10, oil on wrapped canvas

I've been working on mountains and brushstrokes lately, and I've had a ball. Sometimes, I get too involved in trying to do the "correct thing", academically speaking. But I always find that when I just experiment, using common sense, I end up accumulating little pieces of knowledge that carry over into my next endeavor.

I hope you enjoy this one! I definitely enjoyed painting it, and I thank God that He has given me an artistic outlet for my passions and creativity!




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"Red Poppies in Provence",14x11, oil on board

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"Red Poppies in Provence",14x11, oil on board

This is one of those paintings that fell together without much effort. No preliminary sketch, no intense thought behind it, just lots of vibrant color and fun! Loved painting it, and since it fell together rather quickly I have priced it well under my normal pricing structure to sell quickly. The photo does not do justice to the painting as the impasto and brush strokes cannot be seen.

Lots of lovely color and pieces of impasto in this one! Take your very own trip to Provence within this painting for a fraction of the price! To see some of my other paintings of the Provencial region, simply type the words, Provence, Luberon, , mas, St. Paul de Vence or lavender into the search box located at the top of the left hand column at my home page or visit my official website here.


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"Mystic Pacific", 16x12, oil on canvas panel, by Maryanne Jacobsen

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"Mystic Pacific", 16x12, oil on canvas panel

Having just returned home from the west coast, I had the opportunity to take out a painting of the Pacific Ocean that I'd done recently and critique it. I realized that I needed to soften everything to make the painting more believable. The Pacific Ocean is a cold body of water. Even though it was August, I felt like I was dipping my foot in an ice bucket when I went into the ocean last week. Then again, the Gulf is almost too warm for most people, and that is what I am used to. Anyhow, the surfers all wear wet suits, even as far south as San Diego, so that tells you that I am not really exaggerating how cold the water is. Because the water is so cold, the mornings on the west coast tend to be very misty, with the air off the ocean hovering in the valleys between the mountains. By the afternoon, however, the sky is usually blue and dramatically beautiful, just as Florida mornings tend to be. I took a ride out to the light house at Point Loma last week and the scene at the top was breathtaking. I was fascinated by the way in which the horizon and sky just melted seemlessly together, with little or no clear definition that sky and water were seperate entities. So in this painting, I attempted to create that feeling of mistiness that hovers over the Pacific Ocean at times, giving it an aura of otherworldliness (is that a word?) that is breathtaking and almost overwhelming in its dramatic beauty.

I always marvel at how close I feel to God when I am in the presence of nature. I feel very thankful to have had so many opportunities to view God's magnificent landscapes and seascapes in my lifetime!

My paintings can certainly never do them justice, but it's a challenge that is rewarding in the effort , nonetheless.


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"Big Sur-late afternoon", oil on canvas

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"Big Sur-late afternoon", 10x8, oil on wrapped canvas

I've done a couple Big Sur paintings, but here's the latest, fresh off the easel. I listened to Joni Mitchell while painting this, since she is one of the lucky people who live on Big Sur.



Lyrics:
Well, I came upon a child of God
He was walking along the road
And I asked him, Tell me, where are you going?
This he told me

Said, I'm going down to Yasgur's Farm,
Gonna join in a rock and roll band.
Got to get back to the land and set my soul free.

We are stardust, we are golden,
We are billion year old carbon,
And we got to get ourselves back to the garden.

Well, then can I roam beside you?
I have come to lose the smog,
And I feel myself a cog in somethin' turning.
And maybe it's the time of year,
Yes and maybe it's the time of man.
And I don't know who I am,
But life is for learning.

We are stardust, we are golden,
We are billion year old carbon,
And we got to get ourselves back to the garden.

We are stardust, we are golden,
We are billion year old carbon,
And we got to get ourselves back to the garden.

By the time we got to Woodstock,
We were half a million strong
And everywhere was a song and a celebration.
And I dreamed I saw the bomber death planes
Riding shotgun in the sky,
Turning into butterflies
Above our nation.

We are stardust, we are golden,
We are caught in the devils bargain,
And we got to get ourselves back to the garden.

Buy this painting on PayPal
Price: $199.00 plus $8 s/h and insurance
Or, send me an email

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Buy this painting on PayPal
Price: $199.00 plus $8 s/h and insurance
Or, send me an email

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"The Mysterious Everglades", 10x8, oil on canvas, great blue heron

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"The Mysterious Everglades", 10x8, oil on canvas

I was driving past a familiar lake today, and there was a great blue heron in the water. Something about him caught my eye, so I stopped the car and got out. The heron's feathers looked weird to me- mottled with white spots. As I drew closer, he flew away.

I could not get him out of my mind. Was there something wrong with his feathers? Was there something wrong with him? I certainly do not know.

But one thing that I do know is this. We are guests on this beautiful planet that God gave us to live in. We need to respect each and every single creature that lives here, and take nothing for granted since this beautiful planet is a gift that comes with responsibility. I believe that we were formed in the image of the Creator and given the wonderful gift of dominion over every creature on the planet. With that gift comes great responsibility, and we have certainly not been great stewards of the planet in the past century.

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"Crazy old bard", 11x14, oil on linen

"Crazy old bard", 11x14, oil on linen

I have worked on this thing for almost a week! And for me- an alla prima painter, it has been torture! Normally I like the challenge of figurative work. But this time I got hung up on hands. When I paint dancers, I don't seem to have a problem with hands. Probably because I spent so many years correcting bad hands in my studio when the girls couldn't get them right. And believe me , bad hands stick out on stage like bad hands in a painting. I didn't want that! I taught the Vaganova method of ballet, which called for very strict hands, fingers and port de bras. I think I can do Vaganova hands in my sleep!

Anyhow, I don't know how much more I should do to this fella. I think he's done. If nothing else, this painting was a wonderful lesson in humility! And we artists sure have a lot of those lessons , don't we?

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"Hills of Santa Barbara", 10x8, oil on wrapped canvas

SOLD"Hills of Santa Barbara", 10x8, oil on wrapped canvas

Going back a few years, we took a trip out to California to help our middle son try to figure out which law school to attend. I was not all that keen on the trip, frankly, wanting him to stay on the east coast and closer to "home".

Nonetheless, when I saw the beauty of California for the first time, I truly understood why he had applied to so many schools on the west coast. During that trip we drove from San Diego, all the way up the coast to San Francisco. It was a fun trip, and along the way, we fell in love with a couple spots along the coast. Santa Barbara was one of them. We had lunch at one of the restaurants on the harbor, and with a view that was close to paradise, I can still recall that the restaurant served the best ahi tuna that I'd ever had.

After lunch we ventured up into the foothills of Santa Barbara, and came across the site of a hidden monastery where we found these words engraved into the stone wall:

"I am a man. No men are foreigners to me. Of one blood are all nations."


My son engraved his own little memento into a tree there, and that tree will contain his words until the tree no longer stands. After he carved his words, we both stood mesmerized, our gaze parallel to the treetops, captivated by the smell of jasmine wafting down from the mountainside.



Refreshed from our lunch and the sweet air, we ventured further up into the mountains and that is where I spied this gorgeous vista:



Although I know that there are a lot of celebrities that live in Santa Barbara, whoever owns this particular casa is under the protective shadow of the mountains and yet high above the sea. And that is the scene that I painted today, alla prima, impressionist style.

I painted this with palette knife only and it has layers of thick, juicy paint.

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"Waiting for Spring", paintings of birds, yellow warblers

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"Waiting for Spring", 5x7, oil on wrapped canvas

With all the horrid weather all over the world, I have been feeling sorry for the birds. I am not sure what it is like for them, but since they don't have warm houses and electricity, I imagine they suffer too, during harsh winters. With this in mind I painted this little miniature of a male warbler, looking forward to spring, just like us humans.

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"Humble Icon", 16x20, oil on linen, Paint America Top 100, american landscapes, Rockport Massachusetts, Cape Anne,impasto, colorful seascapes

"Humble Icon", 16x20, oil on linen

This humble little red lobster shack is a national icon. It has been painted by thousands of artists over the years and has an endearing quality to it, by virtue of its humble stance at this location on a rocky wharf jutting into the Atlantic in the lovely little town of Rockport in Cape Ann, Massachusetts.

When we were in Rockport the past two summers we stayed at The Seaward Inn, an absolutely delightful Bed and Breakfast facing the Atlantic, a few minutes drive from the center of town. We stayed in a little room on the third floor, and we were told it is Whoopi Goldberg's preferred room when she stays at the Inn. The entire cast of A Perfect Storm, including hunky George Clooney, evidently stayed at this Inn during the filming of the movie in 2000, and I can say that both Gloucester, where the movie was filmed, and Rockport are worthy of a return visit. Rockport supports an active artist colony, and I hope to return there again in a few weeks to do some fall plein air painting in that beautiful golden light!

 "Humble Icon" was chosen as one of the Top 100 in Paint America's 2010 competition of contemporary American artworks,!