"A Degas Moment", 14x11, oil on linen, paintings of dancers, ballet, young dancers, pink, tutus

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"A Degas Moment", 14x11, oil on linen

I painted these dancers awhile back- maybe 8 months ago. Although I was pretty happy with the painting at the time, I also knew it needed some refinement.

Today I took it out and worked on it most of the day. I softened edges, increased contrast in areas that were focal points (the dancers) and simplified the fireplace, which was one of those old world fireplaces with painted tile all around. Beautiful in person, but a dog to paint!

Keeping in mind that's it's better to suggest than to render every detail, I just concentrated on simplifying the fireplace in order to keep it in its place- a background. Overall, I am happy with the painting now and I can honestly say that it looks amazing in person!

This painting is available through Gallery 444, in San Franciso.

"French Blues", 8x10, oil on board, paintings of France, Provence, blue doors, blue shutters

"French Blues", 8x10, oil on board

Well, as you can see, I finally have California out of my system, and now I am on a French kick~!

Oh lala, how I love all those blue doors and shutters that you see throughout Provence. Can you imagine how positively awesome it would be to live on this little winding street in the French Alps?

This was a fun way to spend another rainy afternoon in Florida-imagining that I am somewhere else as I painted!

On a happy note, I rec'd notification today that my painting, "Dancing Queens and a Pear", was juried into the prestigious American Impressionist Society's annual juried show, to be held at the M Gallery in Charleston in the fall.This is only the second time that I have been successful since I started entering the show 4 years ago, and the competition gets tougher each year, so I am honored to have had this painting chosen for the show! Yippee!

"Holiday Villa", 12x16, oil on board, south of france, French villas, paintings of Provence, gardens, French gardens, French holiday

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"Holiday Villa", 12x16, oil on board

I am reading a book called The Paris Wife, by Paula McLain, which chronicles the story of Hadley Richardson, the first wife of Ernest Hemingway. At one point in the book, Hadley makes the fateful decision to bring all of Ernest's work with her on a trip to Switzerland to see her husband. Waiting for a train, she takes a short walk around the platform, only to find out that the small valise containing all of Ernest's writings of the last four years has been stolen.

What ensues afterwards is a dry spell for Ernsest, in which he finds himself unable to write in the wake of finding out that his work is gone.

It happens to me more often than I like to admit, a dry spell when I can't paint- though I certainly can't blame a spouse who has lost or destroyed my paintings!

Today I took a devil-may -care attitude about beginning a painting, refusing to allow the inner voice inside my head to start telling me I couldn't do it.

It worked. The painting came out pretty quickly and effrotlessly, and I am hopeing that that is the end of my current dry spell for  awhile!

If you would like to take a holiday to the south of France, you may purchase this painting and visit this beautiful villa every day of the year. Now how's that for a nice offer?

Visit my website here to view more of my original oil paintings.

"May Grey, Pacific Grove", 12x9, oil on panel, California coastal landscape by Maryanne Jacobsen

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"May Grey, Pacific Grove", 12x9, oil on panel

I tend to avoid painting scenes that do not have strong light patterns in them because they are a little depressing for someone like me that has seasonal affective disorder. On overcast days, the light key is very different from sunny days, with much less contrast and a narrow value range. It also has a tendency to be a light key in which the shadows are warm and the light source is cool.

The photo below depicts a fairly typical May morning  in Pacific Grove, California, in which there is a thick foggy mist in the early morning hours, with gradual clearing throughout the morning- usually turning to bright and beautiful clear sunny skies by mid-day.

Many areas of California and particularly the mid-coast region has what is called a micro-climate, which often features a weather phenomenon known as "June Gloom or May Grey", presenting overcast or foggy skies in the morning at the coast, but sunny skies by noon during the late spring and early summer months. I took this photo around 11:30ish in early May, just as the skies were clearing and the sun was trying to break through.

Although I tend to not enjoy painting a scene like this, I forced myself to do it, because I need the practice! Living in Florida presents fewer opportunities to paint this type of light temperature and so I felt it would be a good study for me.

We also do not have rocks and cliffs and cypress tress and iceplants like this in Florida, so overall, this painting was a challenge for me. I think for my next painting, I'll settle back into my comfort zone!

If you are interested in purchasing this study, please send me an email at maryannejacobsen@aol.com.

Thanks for visiting my blog today! To see more of my work, please visit my website at Maryanne Jacobsen, Fine Art.

"Dancing Queens and a Pear", 12x12, oil on board, roses, pink roses, dancing queen roses, pear, glass bottles, impressionism

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"Dancing Queens and a Pear", 12x12, oil on board
Note: This painting was juried into the American Impressionist Society's 2013 annual show!

I wanted to take advantage of those three lovely roses that I painted earlier in the week to create one more painting before they were gone. I arranged them with a pear and glass bottles that worked with the color scheme I had in my mind, which was an analogous theme using mostly cools of red, blue and green.

I used a palette knife in the pear and roses and a brush in other areas and so the painting has areas of thick impasto as well as thinner paint.

You can click the image in order to see the impasto better.

"Pas de Trois", 8x8 , oil on board, rose study, pink roses, three roses, roses in glass vase

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"Pas de Trois", 8x8 , oil on board

Set up a few roses in my kitchen and this was the result. See my set-up below.

For those not familiar with the French term, pas de trois usually refers to a dance in ballet between three people. (or roses, lol!)  Typically a Pas de trois in ballet consists of 6 parts.

Yes, this painting did indeed consist of 6 separate parts!

1. Paint in your north lit studio for an hour
2. Realize you can't see a danged thing in your north lit studio including your painting
3. Wipe the whole danged thing out
4. Start over in the kitchen where you are happy to discover that you're not actually blind
5. Find your mojo after another hour of frustration and continue painting for another hour
6. Sign the finished painting and sigh!

Lots of thick paint in this one!

"Pink Ice Paradise, Pacific Grove", 12x16, oil on board

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 "Pink Ice Paradise, Pacific Grove", 12x16, oil on board

One of the things that I enjoyed most about our recent trip to California, was painting the pink ice plants at Pacific Grove. So today and yesterday I set about to paint them again!

It was a cold and brutally windy April day, and as I set up I wondered if the wind would blow both me and my easel over the ledge and to the rocks below! In spite of the wind, I was totally enamoured with the idea of capturing these vivid pink carpets of spreading flowers, and set about to do so.

That's me in the distance painting away happily, as my hubby walked around taking photos of all the beauty:

In the end, I was really happy with my plein air sketch, and have already wrote about it on my blog here, but in case you missed it, here's the way my plein air painting came out:

I suspect that the plein air painting is closer to the local color than I depicted above, but I couldn't help myself in making a decision to push the color in the studio painting that I did today!

Here was the reference photo that I used. I decided to omit the sea wall and concentrate more on the pink carpet effect:

I really enjoyed painting this, and I hope that you enjoy it , too!

"Cap'n Jake's Crab Boat", plein air, 12x12, oil on board

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"Cap'n Jake's Crab Boat", plein air, 12x12, oil on board

Yesterday was one of those rare May days in Florida without much humidity so I decided to go back to Blackburn Point and see if the old crab boat was there. Surprisingly, it hadn't budged an inch since I was there back in March.

So I set up and started painting. The sun was bright when I started but then turned very cloudy. I managed to get enough info down before becoming distracted by the changed light, and decided to call it a day.

The first time that I painted this scene I used a 9x12. I must admit that I like the rectangular format better than the square. The light was much brighter that day as well, and it definitely influenced the light temperature I depicted in the painting.

 "No Crabs Today!", plein air, 9x12

So much about painting is trial and error. Why did the first painting come together more easily than the second, I wondered? Did the clouds affect my mood yesterday? Did I give myself too many color choices by not limiting my palette? The questions that go through my mind after a painting session are usually endless, and I often lay awake for hours trying to figure out what went wrong with a painting.

But I guess the most important question of the day is this? Where are the crabs? Poor Captain Jake is surely gonna go out of business soon if the crabs don't come back! And yes, there has been a dearth of them on the menus in area restaurants as well. Good luck Captain Jake. If you need cash maybe you should charge a modeling fee. I really do enjoy painting this old boat!!!!!!

This painting is available through Galerie du Soleil.

"5th Hole- Pebble Beach Golf Links"-8x10, Pebble Beach Golf Course, paintings of pebble beach, leaning cypress, ice plants, pacific coastal art, golf pro art

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"5th Hole- Pebble Beach Golf Links"-8x10

Pebble Beach Golf Course is world-renowned. The best golfers the world over have played this course, including Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods!  I could understand why after taking a drive along the famous 17 mile drive that stretches from Carmel to Monterrey and along the beautiful Pacific Coast that the Pebble Beach Golf Course calls home. As we passed the course, we ran into a couple deer that were taking their time sauntering among the holes along with the golfers!

There was an abundance of gorgeous objects for an artist like myself to feast my eyes on, in addition to the deer, which included the wind-blown cypress tress, the spreading pink ice plants and golden poppies as well. Overall, the Pebble Beach area is not just a golfer's paradise, It is an artist's paradise as well!

PS: I'm now thinking of taking up golf!

If you have a dad or hubby who is a golf enthusiast, this painting would make a great Father's Day Gift! If he can't play at Pebble Beach, he can at least imagine it! Right?  (Sigh.)

If you are interested in purchasing this painting, please send me an email at maryannejacobsen@aol.com, and please check out my website here.

"Eventide" 12x24, oil on panel, eucalyptus trees, California impressionist art, California art, sunsets, colorist art

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"Eventide" 12x24, oil on panel

I definitely left my heart in California- among the ice plants and cypress groves and majestic parades of towering eucalyptus trees! I can't wait to go back!

In the meantime, I'll have to be satisfied with painting from photos of our vacation.

"Sarasota Bay View", plein air, 9x12, oil on panel

"Sarasota Bay View", plein air, 9x12, oil on panel

I painted this a couple months ago during the Morgan Samuel Price workshop but never posted it. I recall that during the critique Morgan said the painting had good depth.

This was what I was looking at that day, from the grounds of the Ringling Museum:

Must be nice to have views like that to look at every day!

Please email me at maryannejacobsen@aol.com if you wish to purchase this plein air study.

"Cypress Cove", 12x16, oil on board, Point Lobos, Cypress grove, cypress trees, Carmel art, Monterrey cypress trees

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"Cypress Cove", 12x16, oil on board

This is the first painting that I did after returning home from California a couple weeks ago.  I never had a chance to post it because I've been busy with a large commission. I decided to take a break from the commission for a week or so, and now I need to catch up on my blogging!

Cypress Cove is a beautiful cove in Point Lobos where there are ancient cypress trees that literally hang from the cliff side! One of these is called Old Veteran. Here's a photo of Old Veteran that I took on the day we were there:

Note: Please do not use my photos with permission!

Further along Cypress Grove Trail are clusters of cypress trees rising above the headland above waters that are an almost unbelievable shade of bluish-green. That was the scene that was the inspiration for the painting above:

It's hard to appreciate the color of the water from a photograph, but even from the photo, you can see the strong viridian colors in the water!

It was a rather complicated scene to paint, but I did enjoy it , as it brought back such lovely memories of such a beautiful place! To learn more about Point Lobos State Reserve, you can read about it here.http://www.pointlobos.org/

"View from Cypress Grove Trail", 20x16, oil on linen

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"View from Cypress Grove Trail", 20x16, oil on linen

This is the same scene that I painted en plein air while visiting Point Lobos State Reserve last week. I did not have the plein air sketch since it had sold, so I wanted to do a larger painting of that beautiful spot while the subtleties of the scene were still fairly fresh in my mind.

It's funny how much harder this one was for me to do than the plein air sketch. Painting from a photo just doesn't cut it anymore, once you are used to painting from life!

If you are interested in this painting, please contact Gallery 444 in San Francisco.

"Valley Sunset", 8x10, oil on panel, eucalyptus tree, California art, sunsets, mountains, Impressionist art

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"Valley Sunset", 8x10, oil on panel

The third thing on my bucket list of things I absolutely had to paint while I was in California was a eucalyptus tree. In my mind, these tall, magnificent trees epitomize grace, mystery and resilience. Their wispy, lace-like leaves hang down in soft patterns, in much the same way that Spanish moss clings to the live oaks that we have here is the southeast.

On Saturday, we drove out to Julian, a western town  in San Diego county that came into being during the California gold rush. It hangs 4,000 feet above sea level and boasts bakeries, antique shops and old- Western style architecture  that attracts tourists. After walking around Julian and eating fresh baked apple pie, we drove back down the mountain to San Diego, just as a magnificent sunset appeared above magenta -colored hills. The sunset and surrounding countryside were breathtaking to behold and I did my best to memorize the moment as we traveled along the hillside.

On Monday, I went to Balboa Park to paint eucalyptus trees as there are literally dozens there. I only had an hour to paint so I wasn't able to complete the scene. Instead, I decided to encorporate my sunset memory with the wispy eucalptus tree  I had begun and what you see above is the result.

I cannot believe how inspiring the California landscape was for me. I do hope I can return there again before my days on earth are over!

If you would like to purchase "Valley sunset", please send me an email at maryannejacobsen@aol.com.

"Pacific Grove Ice Plants", 14x11, plein air, ice plants, Pacific Grove, Lover's Point, pink flowers

"Pacific Grove Ice Plants", 14x11, plein air

Another "must paint" on my bucket list while I was in California were ice plants. These beautiful pinkish purple flowers covered the coast like a plush carpet in Pacific Grove last week. It was extremely cold and windy on the ledge next to the ocean when I set up my easel, so I had to work quickly. I loved having the cypress trees in the background as well.

Eventually my bag blew off the ledge and my easel almost went with it, at which point I decided to call it quits. If you'd like to know more about ice plants, here's a good link. If you would like to purchase this painting, please send me an email at maryannejacobsen@aol.com.