on the bright side

Okay, I will admit this a bit grudgingly. I don't always hate winter and it isn't really all ugly. In fact as many people have pointed out to me, (after I wrote this post) winter can be very beautiful.
I sketched this from memory after returning from a long walk on the Illinois Prairie Path which is right near my home. I had my warmest snow boots  and my trusty companion dog with me. As I returned home, I was struck by the golden lights on the snow as the sun was so low in the sky on a winter day. Contrasting this with the long blue shadows crossing the path in front of me.
This is almost exactly the spot and scene I painted and sketched here and here last fall.

Lenten discipline #1

February 18th is Ash Wednesday.
Carnival, Mardi Gras, good times are over for 6 weeks. I already ate my last square of milk chocolate.
I post this every year, here and here, I really enjoy the season of Lent. It is a time for solemn contemplation and I always want that kind of time. I need that kind of time.
I also need my contemplation time in the studio painting and I am struggling to get what I need.
Lenten discipline: stay in studio painting. (paint with joy) (stop the busyness and contemplate)
Now that I have discovered the joy of painting in oils, I can't stop thinking about what to get to next.  Is it a discipline if you enjoy it? Or, am I fulfilling my act of discipline by giving my full attention to a long awaited gift of my God-given art?

my valentines

I admit I used photos for reference. Sketches made using my phone Sketchbook app after visiting with my two grandchildren.

Turner

A year ago I visited the city of Houston, Texas for the first time. I had a day to explore on my own and went immediately to my first interest, the Houston Museum of Fine Arts, of course! I enjoyed seeing a special exhibition of Impressionist work, but I also found many great treasures in the permanent collection.
As usual I traveled with my sketchbook, here and here are a few of my other "Houston" moments from that trip. I spent a long amount of time gazing at this J.M.W. Turner painting. I had not spent this much time contemplating a Turner before this.
I did this sketch standing in the center of the gallery, somehow this was suspicious activity and the gallery security guard kept giving me hard looks. Perhaps the size of my sketchbook and the colored pencils I kept whipping out of my pockets? I added the color wash a few minutes later sitting in a courtyard by a small fountain.
The rest of this story continues with a Valentines Day date with my husband who considerately accompanied me to see the recent movie Mr. Turner. I really wanted to see this movie and loved every minute of the two and a half hours of it. The information about the life and times of Turner was memorable, many scenes filmed the exact location and circumstances of some of his great paintings. The actor Timothy Spall was excellent as Turner and the cinematography was beautiful. My husband did mutter something about the length and slow pace of the movie being like "watching paint dry." A good time for all nonetheless.

Turner and Sea of Galilee

Sunday in church sketching (while listening of course!) using my tablet/phone with Sketchbook app.

Endless

Endless Chicago winter time means short grey days bookended with icy darkness. The landscape is not so lovely as an artistic black and white photo. As the sun is concealed far behind an oppressive layer of clouds, there are no defining shadows to give our view interesting contrast.
In the endless miasma we see only a photocopy of a faded photocopy of colorless tree shapes and building facades punctuated by passages of faded snow.

photo credit: Diana Wood 2010

Time to get out of the house and go in search of green life and humid oxygen soaked air. I spent a day at the Garfield Park Conservatory with my oils, brushes and traveling easel.
What a relief! As soon as I get some images scanned I will post more.

my new glasses

I came across this funny story that I had illustrated for SRA/McGraw-Hill's Reading Mastery program a few years ago. The toymaker has to mend a number of broken toys brought to her shop and can't see what she is doing. A visiting child points out to her that a pair of bright yellow(!)glasses are in her pocket. Wow, she puts them on and all the repairs are clear and possible now.
And that is how I feel with my new glasses. Wow.

what is it like to be visually handicapped

Now I know what it feels like, looks like, and how one struggles when visually handicapped. Although I am not permanently handicapped to the harsher degree that many others are, I am  sympathetic having lived in a blurry strained world for the past six weeks.
I lost my best prescription glasses on a Frontier Airline flight to Denver in early December. No efforts with customer service have helped to reclaim them so I have had to wait until I could get a new pair along with new eye exams.

Meanwhile, as I was waiting for the new glasses I was under a final deadline to finish the series of Old Testament paintings for my church. I had agreed to have them all finished by the beginning of January.  Monday, January 20th was my very last day to add details and adjustments to the art.

This is an illustration for a story in a reading series that was published by SRA/McGraw-Hill's Reading Mastery.

I have been wearing glasses since I was 10 years old. I am very nearsighted and have severe astigmatism. With my astigmatism as a handicap, the computer is very hard to figure out. The text and pixelated forms are not only blurry, but they change shape in a frenzied dance, waving and doubling back and forth. I love spending time at my desktop reading blogs and looking at art sites. I haven't been able to do that in a while. Hence the lack of posting on this blog also. I can't be sure that I spell correctly when it is all wavy and blurred.

Eye of Christ detail from Easter Vigil series.

I painted the figure of Christ for the last of the Old Testament series with this handicap. To do this work I had to stand nose to the canvas and paint very slowly. With my nearsighted vision I can see detail pretty well if I am 5 inches from the subject. That describes how I have been working for the past six weeks, standing nose to the canvas, unable to step back and judge my progress.

A Prayer for Artists

From The Book of Common Prayer 
(17. For Church Musicians and Artists)
O God, whom saints and angels delight to worship in heaven: Be ever present with your servants who seek through art and music to perfect the praises offered by your people on earth; and grant to them even now glimpses of your beauty, and make them worthy at length to behold it unveiled for evermore; through Jesus Christ our Lord. 
Amen.

I have been working on this painting for my church for weeks, (actually 3 years for the full project). In two more days I will call it finished. A series of devotional  chapters on each of the Old Testament scriptures are being written by various authors and a professional photographer is being hired to take pictures of the entire project, all 10 canvases.  A booklet with Scriptures and explanations for each of the paintings including all the research references and symbolism that we worked with will be produced for Lent. This project has been worked on for a very long time and will be quite a satisfying conclusion to my Lenten journey.
The face of Jesus Christ triumphant and resurrected is the last part of the project for me to complete and I have put hours and days of time and prayer into this work.

(Here is the last big canvas in my living room ready to go back to the church).

Image of my New Year's Day

First shiny new day of the year 2015, bright promise gift wrappings of the new year are still surrounding the day.

I am contemplating this image: Jesus Christ Pantocrator (Detail from deesis mosaic) from Hagia Sophia  for two reasons; I received a copy as icon for a Christmas gift from my family, and I am painting today on the last of the Old Testament Vigil paintings for my church. I need a Christ face reference to work from as I finish this part of the canvas.

Searching to express the good the true and the beautiful.