Art: Imitating Apple and Imitating Apple Art

I'm so happy with this painting. It's almost as big as me. It delights me so, to paint the actual apple and then be free to paint the bib with the apples, that part feels more abstract. Many thanks to Jennifer Balkan, for teaching me about values and creating depth. The secret: for beautiful shadows, add the compliment of the color.

Apple Still Life Photo

Happy New Year, everyone. I'm just finally sitting down to finish my painting. Our family has been sick for 3 weeks, my daughter especially. I'm suddenly hooked on patterns, especially mismatch patterns with similar color palettes. This from the girl who wears mostly, plain grey, brown, or black. As Harry says, in "When Harry Met Sally," "I feel like I'm growing."

Apple Imitating an Apple (in Progress)

This photo is from last night's last class of this series with Jennifer Balkan. It was an open studio class. It felt MFAish. Which is a dream come true. I'm happy and excited about my "art imitating life imItating art imitating life series." It was hard to get there some Tuesdays, from 7-10 p.m., my that's late for an old lady, but fun city once I made it.

The Sweet Life of Stawberries

Here it is my 300th post. I'm really excited about this painting. I'm taking a second class with Jennifer Balkan, and this is a still life that we set up in last week's class. It was inspired by a conversation I had with my painter friend Kirsten Brooks, where she mentioned that the secret to great art seems to be: "Paint Big." So here it is, my super big strawberry, on a bib that's full of strawberry illustrations. Art imitating life and art imitating art imitating life. Maybe it needs to be bigger still.

Times Square Clock on the North Tower

This is a beautiful clock just off the north tower in Times Square. It took a while to notice it behind my favorite coke bottle.

Times Square Subway Entrance

Times Square Arrows

Times Square Cherry Coke

I was a bit in love with the 3-D coke bottle advertisement. If it was empty you could see the green bottle, and then it would fill up with the pretend soda.

Times Square Virgin Jet on Top of Brewery

This was another wild advertising scheme. Virgin Airways had a jet on top of a building, veiled for a long time it seemed.

Times Square Horse and Buggy

Here is a painting of a horse in Times Square. I can't imagine how it must feel to be a horse among so many yellow cabs.

Times Square Pigeon on the Red Face Fence

There is a red face fence in the middle of the north part of Times Square. It's very Broadway. This is a strange moment I caught on film and then painted.

Times Square News Stand

I like how the magazines came out in this painting, less is more. I know many places still sell phone cards, but they seem strangely out of date in this cell phone world. I do always try to keep one with me when I travel, just in case I haven't any cell phone service, and I need to make a call without breaking the bank.

Times Square Peep Show and Donuts

My husband and I started our Times Square book project in 1997, we went to the square over 250 times in one year. The square was changing every minute. For instance, this painting shows one of the last peep shows, and the little donut shop two doors down was total time travel even then. It was more of a hallway than a full on restaurant. If we went to the square late enough and stopped for coffee, the guy working at the shop would send us home with all the free donuts we wanted.

Times Square Raining Day Folks Exiting the Subway

This is another from my 1997 Times Square series. The first painting I sold in NYC was from this group, and another in the group got me into my first group show at The New Yorker Magazine Gallery.

Times Square North Tower Coca-Cola

The two add towers, north and south, could fill a year all on their own. Here is the coca-cola straight on. The sing behind the coca-cola bottle would switch from diet coke to regular.

Times Square 3-D Coca-Cola from the Side

Did you ever get to see the huge coca-cola bottle in Times Square? The top opened and a straw came up and drank it down. It's gone now, replaced by a newer coca-cola sign. I thought it would be there forever. It seemed so modern then, and now it seems as old fashioned as they get.

Times Square No. 47 Facing South After a Storm

I've been amazed lately how people are now able find my art, art from 2006 that I'm not actively marketing, via the internet. I have so many paintings in storage, never before published on the internet, only in one show or another over the years.

So, I've decided that when I don't have time to paint, I'm going to post some of my older work. My blog will then also serve as a more complete archive of my life as an artist, which by the way did not begin in 2006, when this blog began. It began in 1989 with my first pointalism project done in high school, under the watchful eye of Ms. Mota-Costa, a RISD grad, and genius high school art teacher, at my not so great public school of West Warwick High. I followed every dot, used a grid, and still my piece was not precise, but everyone, including my parents loved it. To this day, that sums up my style of painting: Me, working tirelessly to paint exactly what I see, and somehow walking away with my own interpretation. Completing that project was the first thing in life, other than sports, that I could work on for hours and never notice the time.

Today's blog piece was completed in 1997, my now husband and I, spent one year documenting all the changes in Times Square, (the last days with peep shows and cheap coffee) he with text, me with paint and charcoal. This is number 47 of one of over 250 paintings. One in the series got me into my first show in NYC at The New Yorker Gallery.

New Doll Christmas Morning

This is the first collage I did in 1991. I found it today in the garage. It helped get me into Parsons. It's so detailed that it makes me laugh about how much free time I used to have. I really enjoy the results of magazine collage. There is so much detail in each piece of cut paper.

Heirloom Tomatoes in November from our March Garden

Austin was so hot this summer that our tomato plants bore no fruit until Mid-September. Here are two of the little fruits hanging out with the paprika can my mother-in-law brought back as a lovely gift from eastern Europe. This still life was set up at last night's Jennifer Balkan studio class. It really is something to feel like I have time to paint. I only feel that way in class.

SciFi Loving Feminist

This painting is another from the Jennifer Balkan portrait class I took in the spring. The model spoke of her love of science fiction and feminism during the breaks. I start another one of her studio classes here in Austin this week.