Autumn Bouquet, Trying a new triad of paints

6"x6" oil on gallery wrapped stretched linen

$150 includes shipping/insurance

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In between painting ventures over to Barn Island, and working in the studio on a bigger piece, it's fun to take time for these little ones set up in the studio- mainly an exercise in shape and color. Trying out a new (to me) triad of color, Prussian Blue, Indian Yellow, & Perylene Red, all by Gamblin. Oh yeah, add a bit of Titanium white - you can get an incredible range of color from these 4 tubes! The triad is transparent, but you can get opaqueness from the white.

 Colors of Autumn 

all in one bouquet,

Mimicking the foliage

 of the surrounding trees. 
 

Zinnia Party

6"x6" oil on archival panel, $150

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This week I've been working on a larger painting of our zinnia garden. It really bloomed to abundance this year! Today I had to wait for the sun to come back out before continuing on it, so...I just cut a bouquet to bring inside and paint!  

Peonies In Asian Pottery

8"x6" oil on Belgian linen mounted on archival panel

$200

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Another painting from 'the vault'...one of my favorites actually. I just love having fresh cut flowers in my studio window, especially if they're ones we've grown in our garden. This pottery vase with it's wonderful color and design complements every thing that blooms out there. So how can you have flowers all year long? Art of course! 

Italian Sunflowers, North Light, Gray Day

8"x6" oil on linen mounted on archival panel

$200 unframed

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Click on the image to see it larger!

A really nice one from 'the vault' that I had almost forgotten about! We planted this variety of Italian Sunflowers in our garden in previous years. I think I do miss them! They are a smaller flower head, and a creamy - buttery - pale yellow that goes really nicely with the hydrangeas we grow. Hmmm...already thinking about what I'd like to grow next summer!!  Cut flowers are so wonderful to bring into the studio to paint!

Family Swim

20"x24" oil on gallery-wrapped linen, unframed

$1200

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This painting is mostly in brush work rather than palette-knife. Yet, the paint handling is still similar,  lush, and plenty of it.   

and yes, I'm still thinking about how much fun I had on this beach trip! Looking forward to the next one with great anticipation!

Cafe Sol - SOLD!

6"x8" oil on Belgian linen mounted on archival board

 For more information about this painting click here, or contact me here.

Summer sun, shade under a big umbrella, dining 'al fresco'

Mango lemonade, iced mocha, what'll you have?

This is where I'll be painting on Friday, July 6th, late afternoon, Cafe Sol on Main Street in Niantic, CT. Today I just wanted to try a little 'something/study' from notes and memory. Who knows what I'll find tomorrow - there will be a band, and it's looking like quite a crowd will be out and about for Opsail2012CT! So much happening at McCooks Beach with 24 ships arriving out in the Bay!! Am I excited?? You betcha!!

Crocosmia Summer Blazes

8"x6" oil on linen mounted on archival panel

For more information about this painting follow this link or contact me here.

Brilliant orange-red set afire by the sunlight

bouncing on long stems among long thin leafed foliage

the humming birds love this stuff.

They dance among the blossoms

drinking in the nectar of life

chattering their pleasure

and singing to me while I paint. 

Weir Studio, Autumn Afternoon

10"x8" oil on Belgian linen mounted on archival panel

"Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul." ~John Muir

While at the J.Alden Weir Farm on Monday, I pulled out my sack lunch of PBJ & a banana & a pear & enjoyed the shade at a huge stone table that Weir had installed in his life time. Looking like it was part of the landscape I marveled that I could sit at the same space where he had spent time, and painted his family on that very spot as well! Across the yard from where I ate was his studio. The afternoon sun was catching some of the surfaces and turning that deep red to an almost coral orange glow. A magnificent tree had practically grown up against the building.

Technique-wise I had wanted to try a bit of brush work with my palette knife, as Camille Przwodek had done when I studied with her. Sometimes she would lay in the whole painting with a knife, sometimes with a brush, going intuitively, depending upon how fast she needed to go, how much detail, etc. I knew the afternoon sun would be changing fast. Our days are getting shorter and shorter up here in CT as fall marches on. So, I laid in the building and blocked in most of the basic areas with a brush on this one, then came back in with a knife on much of it. Finally the light had changed drastically enough to call it a day!

I really was taken with Muir's quote- and it seemed to really go along with everything I had encountered on my visit to the J. Alden Weir Farm. Weir certainly had a sense of beauty in nature, and preservation. Muir, a Scottish-born American naturalist, was an early advocate of preservation of wilderness in the US, and living during the same years as Weir.

For more information regarding this painting, please contact me here.

Oh yes, and more good news to share- I had a painting juried into the New Britain Museum of Art - 42nd Annual Juried Exhibition. Juror for the show was Elizabeth Ives Hunter, Executive Director of the Cape Cod Museum, in Dennis, MA. I'm so thrilled to be a part of this museum show! My submission for the show was the recent 12"x12" plein air work, "Chincoteague, Late Afternoon".

Coastal Light and Calm

6"x6" oil on gessoed masonite archival panel

"Becoming inspired requires that you be curious about, and attentive to, feelings that emerge to help you reconnect with your original self." - Dr. Wayne W. Dyer


This summer I've been doing a lot of exploration in subject matter, size of paintings, and added another color to my palette that I haven't used in over a decade. But I take the advice of "notice what you notice" (what do you really love to look at?)- and I have the good fortune to have done a lot of painting from life this summer!

I have always sold my plein air works as finished paintings, they are usually gone before I even think of using it as a reference in the studio for a larger, or different sized painting. Listening to Dyer's advice about becoming inspired made me realize I had already done just that. I love the big abstract shapes in nature, the effect that light has on color...that changes each hour, each minute of the day.

Making this little gem available before I take on a big one! This painting is available from my DailyPainters.com gallery (check out Newest Paintings) or contact me here.

Late September Morning

6"x24" oil on linen (2 stretched canvases, 6x12 each)

I've been wanting to paint this bit of garden all summer. Especially for the peegee hydrangea at the corner of the fence. It starts out with limey green blossoms early in the summer, which gradually get huge and a warm white. As summer turns to autumn, they turn a rosey-mauvey-burgundy color. This it the 3rd summer in our garden - and the blooms on this one this year are huge!

This piece can be purchased (unframed) from my DailyPainters.com gallery or contact me here.

Sundance To Spring

12"x12" oil on archival board

"It's spring fever. That is what the name of it is. And when you've got it, you want - oh, you don't quite know what is is you DO want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so!" - Mark Twain

This quote made me laugh. Is it the wishing for Spring that makes me so restless? I've been on a de-cluttering kick the last several days. I wonder if that is just part of wanting the 'newness' of Spring to be here, or if it's just good to "clear the house - clear the head" kind of thing. Which I think works, as I finished the painting I started the day before!

"Sundance To Spring" is a 12"x12" oil on archival board. Contact me at this link for more information about this painting, or to purchase.

Looks like March is going to come in "like a lion". They're calling for wind gusts of 50mph, with rain and there's likely to be lots of snow melt-off. Crossing my fingers that there's no flooding around here!

Welcome to my latest new subscribers! I do hope you enjoy the paintings, photos & stories! I always love hearing comments from my readers!!

Green Cottage

6"x8" oil on Belgian linen mounted on archival board

"I can envision a small cottage somewhere, with a lot of writing paper, and a dog, and a fireplace and maybe enough money to give myself some Irish coffee now and then and entertain my two friends."
- Lt. Richard Van de Geer

The second painting on Friday during my Chincoteague Paint-out last week-end:

Over on Maddox Street, about 9am the sun is still moving quickly and making some interesting shadows under the eves and porch roof on the front of this house. I love to see the varying temperatures of light as it glances across the angles of buildings. Top that off with the gorgeous crepe myrtle on the front corner of this cottage and I've got a wonderful complimentary color thing going here. I'm set up on the lawn of a hotel just across the street, in the shade of the hotel sign, so there is no direct sun on my canvas or palette (makes it easier to see what you're doing!) Now if you've been to Chincoteague, you'll know that there are several bands of roaming ducks- being surrounded by water, this should not come as a surprise. I was wondering if they would come up and start pecking at my paint tubes, but they kept their distance. Whew, dodged that little bullet. So again, to start a painting, I indicate the large masses- with 'masses of paint' and block that in with these considerations in mind: warm vs. cool colors and light vs. dark values. As a painter, you'll find that if you allow yourself to block in with simple shapes first(and fairly abstractly), and get that canvas covered, the details you add on top of that will finish things up easily. And I am so glad I chose those shadow shapes immediately and got them indicated with the initial block in. As the sun continued to rise, the shadow shapes continued to change and weren't near as interesting as when I first saw them!

*Painters, make your decisions early and stick with them, see them through to the end. If you really must change for something 'better' you can always do that later. But if what you saw at first is the best, and you haven't gotten that down on canvas, it's more difficult to go back to the shadows that "used to be there". By 11am I was wrapping things up, the sun is high in the sky and I was ready to move to my next selected painting
spot.

Contact me to purchase this painting: roxannesteed@gmail.com

Welcome to my latest new subscribers! I do hope you enjoy the paintings, photos & stories! I always love hearing comments from my readers!!

Italian Sunflowers North Light Gray Day

8"x6" oil on Belgian linen mounted on museum quality board

"If the English language made any sense, lackadaisical would have something to do with a shortage of flowers."
- Doug Larson

It was gray and overcast today, which makes for a nice cool silvery light in my studio. I'm still thinking about Hensche's teachings from Camille Przewodek's workshop. Cool light, warm shadows...there's a lot of wonderful color in shadows on gray days.

In the meantime, I have a commission painting started (hints....wedding, Ireland, hmm, what could be more romantic??) I head out tomorrow to go 'fetch my mom' and bring her up here to visit....so it looks like my posting will be a bit dicey for the next several days...unless I find a Panera....and a good bit of free time. I think I might have some 'chores' with mom before we head back up here. Hubby will hold down the fort up here & keep the flowers growing.

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Price: $150 USD plus $10 USD s/h
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Eden Roses In The Dragonfly Teapot - sold

8"x8" oil on gessoed masonite artboard

"One may live without bread, not without roses.”

- Jean Richepin

I thought we were expecting a line of thundershowers across our end to the state today...of course, it never materialized. By that time I had cut off several blossoms to fill this favorite teapot that I use for holding flowers. This variety of rose has a soft fragrance (but not overpowering) and is climbing part of our fence-line...draping over it just beautifully!

Peonies In Asian Pottery

8"x6" oil on Belgian linen mounted on archival panel

"Let us be grateful to people who make us happy; they are
the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom."
- Marcel Proust


Many years back, as a Navy wife stationed in Virginia Beach, I met a fantastic gardener. She had the most wonderful 'cottage garden' and on top of that, she worked for a florist who bought many of the blooms in her yard! They were special things that not many other florists carried...or could get at all. Now I was a newbie in the neighborhood garden club, trying to learn what would grow in the latest environment I had been transferred to. This amazing gardener had invited us all over to tour her garden....and upon finding out I was a painter, I was invited back to paint whenever I wanted! Oh what a treat!

Fast forward to the future...we have retired from the Navy, and have settled in Mystic, CT....and are in the second summer of our own cottage garden. Dear hubby does most all the heavy duty grunt work (like tilling up those CT potatoes...ie- rocks). But I frequently do some 'therapeutic' weeding to keep up appearances!

Ever since I had seen peonies in this fabulous little garden in Virginia Beach, I knew one day (when we quit moving around), I'd be growing those too! AND cutting some for my own arrangements without the trip to the florist! They are such luscious flowers. Many thanks to Cristin Larson, aka The Garden Consultant for helping us choose hardy varieties of plants that make this place look like Monet's dream! And thanks to my husband for tilling up the ground to plant these peonies!

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Peonies In Asian Pottery

About This Painting:
Here's what's currently blooming in my garden. It's nice to have enough to cut & bring inside to my studio for painting!

Media: oil on Belgian linen mounted on professional artboard
Size: 6 in X 8 in (15.2 cm X 20.3 cm)

How to Purchase:
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Memorial Day

10"x8" oil on Belgian linen mounted on archival board, plein air

"Each moment is the fruit of forty thousand years."
- Thomas Wolfe

In honor and memory of our fellow military members; for those who did not return, for those far away from home today, and for those still at home with loved ones serving far away....our thoughts are with you today and always.

My hubby has been wanting to put up a flag on our house, as well as bunting for the 'flag day holidays'. So that's where we were yesterday, up in Rhode Island, seeking out a flag store! Of course, on the way home, we stopped by "Farmer's Daughter" nursery to bring home a few things. But that of course is another story for another day. The grill has been dragged out, cleaned up, cranked up, tried out, & is ready for today, too!

Contact me roxannesteed@gmail.com if you are interested in this painting!

Side Garden, Late May, 4pm Light - plein air in the artist's garden

10"x8" oil on Belgian linen mounted on archival board

"Anything under the sun is beautiful if you have the vision - it is the seeing of the thing that makes it so."
- Charles Hawthorne


I timed my day around the light on the side garden today. Wait for it, wait for it....NOW! Gear is set up & ready to go, the light changes so fast in the late afternoon. Luckily, I've watched this spot...staked it out....to find that "time of light" that appealed to me the most. I wanted an interesting light pattern on the stones, as well as the fencing & arbor. I also knew if I waited too long in the season I'd miss the purple stalks on the ajuga that I've edged some of the stone path with. Just as I was quite into get things blocked in....my neighbor's kitty came over to sit on the warm stones....staring off into the plantings. He sat still just long enough for me to decide to include him! It's a charmed space, and another bit of delight around every corner!

*****Saturday, I'll be up in Marlborough, CT at a Plein-air Invitational Event sponsored by Artisan Framing & Gallery, 45 North Main Street. I'll have some of my plein-air work there in the gallery, and the ones painted this weekend will be presented at the opening in June! More info to come! But if you live in CT, take a drive over & have a visit. I'd love to see you!

While it's wet & unframed:

Buy this painting on PayPal
Price: $150 USD plus $10 USD s/h
Or, send me an email