What's on the Easel?

My husband and I took a trip over the weekend to Lynchburg and Staunton, Virginia, to look at some wonderful art and attend a panel discussion about the painter Philip Geiger, who just died on January 6, 2026, much too young, of ALS. I have followed and loved the work of Philip Geiger for decades. If you don't know his work, look him up. You're in for a treat.  Since I've been back I've gotten busy with framing some paintings that are going into the Art at the Mill show (more on that in a later post.) While downstairs in my framing room, I noticed, in a stack of paintings against the wall, my "B" painting. I've been working on my alphabet series, "Still Life A-Z" for over 20 years, on and off. (As you know, I'm now up to "N".) "B" was actually the first painting I completed for this series. I started with "A", of course, but somehow it wasn't coming together, and I was fighting it so much that I put it aside ...

Today I worked for about 1 1/2 hours. I felt kind of foggy, so I had lunch, then went for a walk. My 45-minute walk cleared my head, so afterwards I went back to my painting. I think I worked about another hour and a half. I realized that my drawing was a little off, so I moved things around. I had put the flowers in first and then had to paint the background around them, not easy when the paint is wet! I used a lot of paint and pushed it sloppily around. This painting is feeling freer than usual. I ran out of steam before I ran out of blank canvas, so I stopped before everything was covered. Maybe tomorrow I'll be able to put the rest in. Click the picture for a larger view

I finally really zeroed in and concentrated on my "N" setup. I was kind of dissatisfied with it, so I dismantled what I had and completely redid it. Then I rearranged it again. And again. I decided to lose the Nesting Ninjas. I also took the Nutmeg out and added Nerve Plant and a Nutcracker (even their shadows will be important.) Also a color picture of a Nimbus cloud on the wall. I took all three Nancy Drew novels that I got at the Goodwill and stacked them up. I took pictures of each new arrangement. I was getting feedback from my daughter, husband, and painting friend, but finally I just decided that "composing by committee" wasn't going to work for me, and I said "Good enough!" and starting getting the drawing committed to the canvas. First I gridded out my blank canvas into quarters, and quarters again. I have this nifty viewfinder that I recently made, so I looked through it to make sure my painting included all the objects with their correct dis...

After getting some good feedback from my husband and a painter friend, I decided to remove the nook, necktie and the necklace hanging from the nail. I loved all the wordplay, but it was just too busy back there with all the nesting ninjas, and was very dark and heavy in that corner, so I thought I'd see if it would be better if I simplified it. I did like this arrangement better, but it needed something in the upper right corner, against the wall. On my walk this afternoon, I stopped in at the Goodwill store and was thrilled to find some Nancy Drew books! I bought three, since I didn't know which cover would look the best. I think I've landed on this one. I like the way her flashlight beam is pointing up into the plant, bringing your eye around. I may tweak it a bit more, but I think it's getting close. I want to rearrange the ninjas so that the one on the notebook is the one that has nunchucks tucked in his belt. I'm going to replace that plastic orange with a real...

Well, after finishing "M", I took a nice long break from painting and mainly did jigsaw puzzles while we were snowed in, then I stretched a canvas for "N" and for my new copy at the National Gallery (read about that here ). I've been thinking about and collecting the N objects for weeks, and have set them all on the table. Today I started to seriously look at them and arrange them into a possible composition. I have collected Necco wafers, nutmeg, a Neanthe Bella palm (there aren't many plants that start with N! I wanted Narcissus, but the garden center said they wouldn't be selling them until April. They helped me find this pretty little Neanthe Bella palm, also known as a parlor palm), an Alice Neel book, Ninja nesting dolls, a napkin, a Nacre (mother-of-pearl) necklace, a notebook, a nine ball, a navel orange (I'm using a plastic orange as a stand-in but I will buy a real navel orange when I'm ready to start the painting), a necktie, and a nav...

I let the painting sit for a few days and showed it to some people. One artist friend recommended that I darken the area around the maple syrup bottle, because your eye entered the painting and moved back, but didn't have anything to settle on back there. So today I worked a little on the maple syrup bottle, darkening some of the darks and the shadow beside it, and brightening the lights.  I also tackled fixing the eyes of the mask. I felt that the eye on the right was a little higher than the other eye. Another artist friend said she thought I needed to add some darks around the eyes, because that area looked a little flat. So I worked on the eyes. But then they called too much attention to themselves, so I lightened the pupils and tried to make sure the eyes weren't looking directly at the viewer, but a tiny bit to the side. I hope it comes across. I also worked on the nose and mouth and brightened the cheeks a little. I scumbled a little color over the mask's reflection ...