Bad Hair Day, 11x14

SOLD "Bad Hair Day", 11x14, oil on canvas

Yeah, you know what I'm talking about. We all have days like this.

Here's the story behind the painting, in case you're interested.

We have these gorgeous trees here in Southwest Florida called Tree of Gold. Well, I'm sure that's not their real name, but that's what people call them. They only bloom for about a week and then they're done until the following year. Truth is, they aren't very pretty without their big gold blossoms. Well anyway, I went and set up my paints in front of one of these trees not far from my home. It was hot and humid, so I set up on the sidewalk of a county street so the red ants wouldn't chew on me as they would if I painted in the grass. It was also very windy. My easel blew over twice, but no problem. I kept going. A kid on a skate board came whizzing by and almost knocked me over. Then a woman on a bike came by and chided me for blocking the sidewalk because "golf carts need to go through here". "There is abundant grass on either side of the sidewalk in which the golf carts can pass beside me, and in fact one has already done so", I explained to the woman. "You just shouldn't be here!" she screamed at me.

Well, so much for my "Tree of gold" Within seconds it became "Bad Hair Day", as I took my palette knife and just took out all my anger on the poor canvas. It's full of thick, expensive, wasted paint, by the way. Just click on the painting and you'll see how much paint I wasted on this sucker!

If you'd like to purchase this gem of emotional expression, please contact me at maryannejacobsen@aol.com

Note: "Bad Hair Day" has been juried into Art Center Sarasota's newest exhibit, "Masquerade, Mystery and Mischief", which runs through July 3rd. Opening reception is May 14th. Hope to see you there!

Teacher's Pet

SOLD
"Teacher's Pet", 12x16, oil on linen panel

I don't think I was ever the Teacher's Pet. Were you?

Well, wait a minute now.

Maybe I was a bit of the teacher's pet to Mr. Sell in 10th grade English. Mr. Rodney Sell was his full name and he really got me hooked on fine literature. I do think he liked me because I was a very good student. In his class we read a lot of Thomas Hardy. I remember "Return of the Native" very well. That book led me to "Tess of the D'urbervilles", (which was pretty steamy for 1967), which led me to "The Mayor of Casterbridge". I think Mr. Sell was a rather odd duck, much as Thomas Hardy was. A mixture of agnostic with a touch of spiritualism thrown in, and loving the concept of illicit love affairs and rejects in society that are somehow elevated to a hero/heroine status through the expertise of the author. That's how Mr. Sell struck me. I'm betting Mr. Sell is a Joyce Carol Oates fan, too. She's a contemporary author that makes you think about subjects that you normally don't want to think about. I've read a lot of her books, over the years, though lately I find them too disturbing.

I wonder if Mr. Sell is still alive? He was young when he taught me so he might be. Hopefully if he is, he won't read this and discover that I've called him an odd duck. Actually I had a bit of a crush on Mr. Sell, and he was probably the best teacher that I ever had, as he instilled a true love of fine literature in me. In his class, we also read the classic Greek poem "The Odyssey" , and I'll never forget how traumatized I was by the first few pages of that book. Were we really expected to be able to understand this odd prose? But by the end of the book I had become accustomed to the style of writing of Homer and couldn't wait to read more challenging works of literature.

I also recall reading Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter", some Shakespeare, and a lot of Sinclair Lewis in his class. I felt like a more mature, worldly young person by the end of the school year thanks to Mr. Sell, and a great deal smarter than I had been about controversial topics in the world of literature!

I wonder if young people today have English teachers that challenge them the way that Rodney Sell challenged me. I truly hope so.


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Go Fish

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"Go Fish", Hand painted plate

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!

HAh!

THe Arabesque

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"The Arabesque", 11x14, oil on canvas panel

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.





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"Food for thought"

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"Food for thought", 4x6, oil on wrapped canvas, (sides are painted so a frame is not required)

Just a fun little palette knife piece-make it what you wish!



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"Tea in the Garden"

"Tea in the Garden"- 24x24

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.

Fancy Free

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Fancy Free, 8x10, oil on canvas- Framed

Here's a fresh, spontaneous palette knife piece with beautiful color and passages of thick impasto.

If you would like to purchase this painting, please contact Leah at Collector's Gallery and Framery at 941-488-3029.



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Tea in the Garden, 24x24

"Tea in the Garden", 24x24, oil on masonite

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.


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Left Behind

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"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!

Mission San Juan Capistrano

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"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 read more about the migration of the swallows at Mission Capistrano, please go here.
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Victoria, British Columbia

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Victoria , British Columbia, 11x14, oil on wrapped linen

I painted this from a photo taken last summer at Victoria, British Columbia, on the southern tip of Vancouver Island. As you can see, the light temperature that day had a soft, pinkish hue. Victoria is a stunningly beautiful place, with a light quality similar to the Mediterranean. To learn more about Victoria, its wonderful restaurants, gardens and charming bed and breakfasts, please go here.


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Antique French Bottle with grapes, lemons and orchids

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"Antique French Bottle with Grapes, Lemons and Orchids", 8x10, oil on linen

I painted this one back in the fall. Today I added the purple orchids to the top right hand side of the painting. It looks more balanced now. I also enhanced the colors in the grapes and lemons somewhat, which is more in keeping with my style as a colorist.

I'm actually surprised that this one hasn't sold yet . It is so pretty! Okay , so it's not David Leffel, mind you, but it's still darned pretty! (David's 8x10's also cost thousands of dollars!)

Last spring I tried to enroll into a David Leffel workshop that was offered at the Long Boat Key Center for the Arts, where I am a member. It was filled by the time I tried to enroll, in spite of what would have been the highest tuition I'd ever paid for a master workshop! (Don't even ask.)

Anyhow, at least I took a workshop with Louis Tedesco, one of David's most avid students, now deceased (regretfully). So I learned a little bit about chirascuro from Louis. Here's the first version. Now isn't the new version better?

"Antique French bottle with grapes", 8x10, oil on linen



PS: Check out the picture of me mopping the paint off the kitchen floor after 6 hours wrestling with this bottle!

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Wake-up call, Rooster painting

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"Wake-up call", 9x12, oil on canvas panel

Ever have a wake-up call? Something that changes your like drastically, so that you no longer sweat the small stuff anymore? Sometimes we get a wake-up call and we are happy for a while, but then slip back into our old ways of worry and distress. I remember the day that my doctor told me that I might have cancer, back in 1998. It took a week for all the tests to come back, happily negative, and for a few months after that I was gloriously happy, basking in the after-effects of averting catastrophe. Slowly but surely I reverted back to a worry wart, as so many people do in these unpredictable times that we live in.

After I painted that handsome piece of poultry that you see above, I decided to call him, "Wake-up call", since he stands on the hillside poised to cheerfully announce the new day to whoever or whatever happens to be listening. Just for fun I googled wake-up call. I discovered that there is a movie called Wake-up call, a song by Hayden Panettiere called "Wake Up Call" , (appropriate for the broken hearted on Valentine's Day), and a bunch of scary YouTube videos about The New World Order that are called Wake-up call. I didn't watch the video because I didn't want to start off the day depressed, but the introduction to the video said "Do not watch this video if you rely on a rigid belief system to give your life a false sense of security and meaning.The information contained in this film is potentially life changing, but must be watched with an open mind. Unless you are willing to put everything you think you know temporarily on hold, and open up to the possibility that you may have been systematically deceived and lied to
your entire life, this film is not for you. " The movie then started with a scene from The Matrix, a movie which scared me so thoroughly that I had to walk out of the theatre 20 minutes into the film, leaving my teenage son without a ride home!

Whew! Aren't you glad I decided to call my rooster, Wake-up call? Cock a doodle do!

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Tahitian Moon- My first oil painting-WILD!

"Tahitian Moon", 22x28, oil on wrapped canvas, with sides painted

This is the first original oil painting that I ever did by myself, after buying my oil paints back in January of 2006. I have never offered it for sale before for sentimental reasons. To celebrate
a New Year of painting opportunities, I have decided to offer this painting for sale. PLease contact me at maryannejacobsen@aol.com if interested in purchasing this painting.

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The Pansy Party

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The Pansy Party, 16x20 oil on wrapped canvas
"Purple flowers of velvet so suffering From your soft eyes the color of pansies."
John Antoine Nau


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