"Brandywine Blues", 14x11, plein air sketch, Jasper Crane Rose Garden, bridge over the Brandywine, Brandywine River, Wilmington Delaware scenes, Maryanne Jacobsen original art, Plein air Brandywine Valley, water reflections, Brandywine Park and Zoo, Monkey Hill

"Brandywine Blues", 14x11, plein air sketch

This is another one of the paintings that I did during Plein Air Brandywine Valley week.

The scene is from the Jasper Crane Rose Garden in Wilmington, Delaware. It was a chilly gray day when I painted there, but enjoyable nonetheless with fall colors just beginning to emerge in the trees.

This painting is available for purchase. Contact me via email at maryannejacobsen@aol.com for pricing.

"Kathy's Vase", 14x11, oil on linen, pink peonies, still life green vase, Maryanne Jacobsen fine art, Peonies, impressionist florals

"Kathy's Vase", 14x11, oil on linen

So if you follow my blog, you probably know that I work on peonies every year during the month of June, when they are in season in northern parts of the country. I go to Trader Joe's in Sarasota and scout out the best peonies I can find, and then the journey begins.

It is definitely a challenging journey to paint these things, because they are troublesome to capture. At least for me.Once they start opening , their petals go on and on forever like the pieces of tulle in a ballerina's tutu.

Here was my set-up in my shadow box in the studio:

I put them in the refrigerator overnight, but the one front and center lost most of its petals when I took it out, so I had to wing it.

I definitely will need another decade, before I can master these beautiful flowers!

"Along Flowing Springs Road",14x11, oil, plein air, paintings of country scenes, Chester Springs art, Pennsylvania art, Chester County art, MAryanne Jacobsen original paintings

"Along Flowing Springs Road",14x11, oil

I just returned from a painting trip to Pennsylvania where I had the opportunity to paint a plethora of lovely autumn landscapes. We stayed in a lovely cottage in the little town of Chester Springs, where I lived and raised my family before moving to Florida.

I did a lot of plein air painting while I was there, as the weather cooperated and the autumn scenery was magnificent.

One of the scenes I decided to paint was looking right up the road from our little cottage at a barn at the top of the winding road.

I thought  that standing in the driveway was a perfect vantage point to capture the nice curve of the road, while being sheltered from any possible country road traffic. Little did I realize that I was standing under a hickory tree that had weapons of its own to throw at this hapless plein air painter!

If you've never seen the nuts of a hickory tree, I can tell you that they are mammoth! Before even getting started on the painting, I took a tumble on the gravel as my foot turned over from one of these nuts that were the size of baseballs. Not to be deterred, I set up under the tree anyway. But that was not the end of the tree's revenge on me.  It kept spewing nuts on my head as I tried to paint the scene!

After a couple welts, I decided I was not going to be target practice for the tree anymore. So I gave up, packed up all my gear and headed back into the cottage.

Happily, I could still see the scene  from the kitchen window, and so I finished the painting indoors.

If anyone had told me that hickory trees could be a hazard to a plein air painter, I would have laughed!

Not any more. I do think plein air painting could be listed as one of the top ten  most hazardous activites that people can do!

Thanks for reading and please feel free to contact me at maryannejacobsen@aol.com of you would like purchase info on this painting.

"Window Sill Neighbors", 14x11, oil on canvas, left over paint, mud, impasto, palette knife floral, flowers, sunflowers, colorful florals, Maryanne Jacobsen art

 "Window Sill Neighbors", 14x11, oil on canvas

I didn't really have any intention on painting yesterday. Made a peach pie, did some other wifey-type things and then decided to clean out the refrigerator. Cleaning out the refrigerator/freezer forced me to address the paints that I store for weeks and often months in the freezer.

Paints being expensive, I am always reluctant to throw away what's leftover on the palette after a painting is completed. So I just keep scrape the palette and keep these piles of paint in two airtight containers in the freezer and take them out and use them as need arises.

Well, the paint clumps had become sticky, and the piles were getting really gross-looking. So on the spur of a moment I decided to do what I call a "left over" painting, meaning that I use all the left over paint and create a painting out of the piles.

I quickly foraged around the kitchen and then the garden and came up with this set-up:

I mentally edited out the toaster, blender and eyeglass case and painted quickly since it was getting dark and my eyes leave plenty to be desired in good light! Much of the paint was mud, which meant I could use some of the cleaner paint  to add color to the mud and still have some harmony.

I used a palette knife for the entire painting, as well as a canvas that was already sketched on. I love it when I don't waste anything! In this case the recycled paint was all used up, and I now have a freezer devoid of paints!

Here's a close-up of the impasto:

I do hope that  all that thick paint excites someone, because these window sill neighbors would love to find a new home!

"Morning Light, Edson Keith Mansion", plein air, 14x11, Sarasota Florida paintings, Paint Sarasota, Light-Chasers, gala, award-winning paintings

SOLD

"Morning Light, Edson Keith Mansion", plein air, 14x11

It has been way too long since I posted in this blog, but I am hoping to get back into a regular schedule very soon.

To begin to catch up, I thought I'd do a post about the "Paint Sarasota!" paint-out that I particpated in a few weeks ago. The plein air competition is run through the Light-Chasers organization, an avid group of plein air painters out of Southwest Florida that includes some illustrious master plein air painters like Bill Farnsworth, Hodges Soileau, Katie Dobson Cundiff and Dominic Avant, to name a few. The group is large and run by  a board of directors, with Terry Mason, of Sarasota, as director.

Terry works very hard, and this year her hard work really paid off when the annual Paint-out and show produced over $10,000 in sales , which will be put to good use to help restore the historic farmhouse at Phillipi Creek.

It was a fabulous night for me, personally. I was gifted with an award by the amazingly talented and wonderful judge Morgan Samuel Price, which included a Raymar wet paint carrier, filled with an asoortment of incredibly wonderful Raymar panels, as well as a generous gift certificate to Sarasota Art and Frame. Here  I am with the thumb's up sign to signal my happiness!

In addition, my painting sold to an amazing artist in her own right, Louise Pond, who took 2 nd place in this year's plein air competition. Here is a picture of Louise with  Morgan.

To complete my hat trick, I won the raffle for Bill Farnsworth's lovely painting of the Edson Keith Mansion, "Hangin' with Albin." Bill is an amazing guy, with boundless energy to both paint and teach. He's won countless awards, been juried into OPA and other prestigious shows over the years, but still manages to hold workshops that are a blessing to artists like myself, who want to improve while maintaining their own signature style. I took one of Bill's workshops recently and cannot recommend him enough as a teacher! Here's the image of my beautiful painting!

The gala was a truly memorable  night and I had a chance to hang out with some special friends as well.

These paint-outs are a lot of work for both the artists and the volunteers, but the rewards are tremendous. The painting above was done on a sunny morning and I love sunny light-filled paintings. It is sold, but if you have any interest in it, please feel free to contact me about a similar commissioned piece at maryannejacobsen@aol.com.

Thanks for checking in! Hopefully I'll be keeping this blog more updated in the days to come!

"Guileless", 14x11, oil on board, paintings of children, little girls, girls with bonnets, children, Renaissance fair

"Guileless", 14x11, oil on board

This is a painting that I started months ago. Every so often I'd take it out and change a few things on it. Finally, I thought it was finished when it looked like this:

I liked the fact that it looked impressionistic and so I titled it "White Bonnet" and called it done.

The other day I took it out again and decided that I hated it. So I totally reworked her face as well as other parts extensively. I definitely think it's done now! The little girl now looks exactly like my niece's little girl. She's a beautiful child and her name is Faith. I met her recently for the first time , and I think I had her in the back of my mind when I decided to re-work this painting.

More often than not, I mess up a painting totally when I go back into it and re-work it. In this case, I'm definitely glad that I took the chance!

"White Bonnet", 14x11, oil on board, paintings of children, children in costume, Renaissance child

"White Bonnet", 14x11, oil on board

It's been months since I painted a portrait but this week I felt that I needed a change from the landscapes I had been doing. I enjoyed painting this darling child a few years back, when I painted "Renaissance Child" and so I decided to try her again this past week.

I used a very different technique this time, attempting a much more impressionistic approach than my previous attempt. I was very happy overall with her face, though I suspect I'll be continuing to work her costume a bit more in the future.

Here is a close up of her face. If you click on the image you can see the detail better. You'll see that there are many spots of broken color applied  and some very thick passages of impasto in the light passages:

I hope to try more experiments with this style in the future.

This past week I was very pleased to receive some samples of new art materials from Jerry's Artarama. In the box was a set of Pro Stroke Powercryl brushes in various sizes. After painting with these brushes all day yesterday I was shocked to find out that they were NOT Chungking bristle brushes at all! They were wonderful synthetic substitutes having all the same qualities of firmness, springiness and paint absorbancy that I normally find only in premium hog's hair bristle brushes. I went to Jerry's website and found that these brushes are recommended for acrylic painters. I can say with confidence that I would also recommend them for oil painters for the reasons mentioned above. Although these are synthetic brushes, they handled the paint with the degree of structure and firmness that I usually require in painting the opaque passages of my work. They also worked well for the transparent passages!They are currently on sale at 55% off at Jerry's. You can go here to read more about the brushes and place an order.I do recommend these fine brushes by Creative Mark!

In addition, I also rec'd some samples of Lukas oil paint. This is not a brand that I would normally think of using but I was very pleased with the overall consistency of the paint. I tend to switch back and forth between different brands of Titanium white because I am never perfectly happy with the overall consistency of the brands I have been using. Lately, I had been mixing Permalba white (which is extremely gooey and watery) with Winsor and Newton (which is far too dry in my opinion) in order to get the overall firm but not dry consistency of paint that I desire. With the Lukas titanium white, I found I had a perfect consistency! I also used some of the cobalt violet mixed with transparent oxide red to get some of the neutrals for the background and for the neutrals in her face. I really liked these paints and noticed they are very affordable and I will definitely purchase them in the future! Thank-you Jerry's Artarama! I look forward to trying the other materials that were sent to me in the near future.

To see the painting I did of this little child 5 years ago, please go here, and if you have a chance, please let me know which one you like better!