For Sale – Page 3 – Marianne Thompson

For Sale

July 22nd, 2014

July 22nd, 2014
Near Christmas Cove, Maine
Oil on Canvasboard, 20 x 16 in

Once again, there is too much glare on the painting to get a good photo – I’ll keep trying. Although I generally avoid painting backlight like the plague, this day I saw it as a challenge. the fact that the scene was so beautiful was all the motivation I needed. It was the water especially that caught my eye. Although I see a spot or two I would like to tweak to improve the painting, on the whole I felt it was another successful painting unfortunately executed on a poor quality canvasboard. Once this and the one below have dried, I’ll carefully remove the canvas from the bent up boards and restretch them. I was very happy with the way the water turned out in this one.

July 11th, 2014 PM

July 11th 2014 PM
North Shore Arts Association, Gloucester MA
Oil on Canvas, 18 x 24 in

Well this was a better day and I was charmed by the skeleton of the old pier, their reflections in the lazily waving water and the cormorants that perched atop them (not pictured.) I was perfectly willing to leave out all the buildings of Gloucester harbor but I suppose as the day wore on and my stubborn brain grew more and more addled by continuous sunlight I decided to drop a few in. I enjoyed the water as always and trying to recreate the clumps of seaweed floating just below the surface. As much as I loved the cormorants in life, in art they just were not working for me. I suppose I could add one or two after it dries, but I doubt I will. I think it works as it is.

July 10th, 2014

July 10th, 2014
Rocky Neck, Gloucester MA
Oil on Canvas, 18 x 24 in

Well, there were many more boats moored in the harbor than are here pictured, but it was only by a late afternoon spark of optimism that I put any in at all. First thing that morning, as I was setting up, I met an older woman who was walking an older dog. The dog walked with difficulty and I knelt down to greet it. She put her forehead to mine and stood there, letting me shower her with all my affection (which for dogs in general, and her in particular, is sky high.) While I hugged and pet her, I noticed she had a tumor on the back of her left hind leg the size (shape and color) of a cherry. The skin on the front of the same foot had been scratched or gnawed off – as if she were trying to get rid of the pain by chewing off her own foot. Then I noticed she had another tumor on the back of her neck. She continued to stand leaning into me, soaking up everything I had to give her. I asked her walker about the sores, and she told me the dog isn’t hers, it belongs to her neighbor who doesn’t take good care of her. The neighbor is strange, and the walker is afraid if she confronts them about the dog’s health, they will stop letting her walk the dog – and the daily walks she gives her are all the dog has to look forward to in life.

They passed on. I was so bewildered at the story that it didn’t occur to me until later that I could have tried to do something to help. I felt that poor, beautiful dog’s quiet long-suffering yearning for relief and affection all day long and I do still. My painting – I stared at the water and tried to paint it because I love water and looking at/painting it usually soothes my mind. The very last thing I added was that orange buoy, after a suggestion from David to try and relieve the big bare swath of water on the right. It was his opinion, after I had, that it didn’t work. In my opinion, it did – completed the story of what had sent my mind to water in the first place – a glaring, throbbing round and cancerous sore that should not be there – but is.

Thunderhead, Flooded Boat

July 5th, 2014
Oil on Canvas, 24 x 30 in

Well, at the island a combination of bad weather and flooding high waters kept me from my initial plan of doing tons of painting. Three days drive there and back and all the business that needs attending to when you’ve been away a month have also kept me from my preferred mode of work. So I was anxious to paint, and I figured the Open Studio (which I had heard is pretty dead in the summer) would be a nice long stretch of time I could use for that purpose, even if it meant painting indoors and not out. Tons of pictures from Canada I would love to work from. So I decided to do this giant cloud, and my dock with a boat I pulled onto it and filled up with water, to prevent it from floating away.

I do not have the ability to tune things out, and there were several conversations going on in several studios around me that in spite of my lack of interest therein – oh well I’ll curtail my excuses. Wasn’t very focused, and was working out the rust.

June 8th, 2014

June 8th, 2014
Kenora, Ontario
Oil on Canvasboard, 12 x 9 in

While in my previous post I may have been whining somewhat about all the variables that arise that can occasionally make painting outdoors pretty damn infuriating, I neglected to mention that in reality, I like the chaos. Maybe not as much as I had yesterday and today, but in general, working alongside all these things that are completely out of my control – the wind, the clouds, the light, the blanketing swarms of mosquitos… you have to hit the ground running and never look back. Sometimes you get someplace magical, sometimes you slip, but you are never, never bored. And you are learning ALL-THE-TIME

June 7th, 2014

June 7th, 2014
Kenora, Ontario
Oil on Canvasboard, 16 x 20 in

Conditions were not ideal. The number of times it blew off the canvas, got splashed by a rogue wave, became the final resting place of dozens of unfortunate insects, got scraped by twigs – etc – was excessive and even a less fiery nature than mine would have revolted. There are drops of water in the sky as you can see. Plein Air up here is just a notch or two more intense, and I’d say this is a decent start to what I hope will be a good few weeks of work.

May 26th, 2014

May 26th 2014
Chestnut Tree, Cox Reservation, Essex MA
Oil on Canvasboard, 14 x 18 in

It was overcast and I tried to focus on the blossoms on this chestnut tree. I can’t get a great photo of it as of yet, there’s too much glare. Some days I show up to paint worrying about many non-paint related things. Sometimes I can shut these out and focus outside of my brain in in my eyes, sometimes I can’t. If I can’t resolve my thinking I strain to resolve the painting. On to the next.

April 2nd, 2014

April 2nd, 2014
Willowdale, on Ipswich River, Topsfield
Oil on Canvas, 18 x 24 in

It was a glorious day to be out painting – quite mild, the river was swollen and beautiful, and the sky was just overcast enough for the color of everything to come out. I had a lot of trouble photographing this – truly, it looks awful in this photo but not as much in person – lots of glare and texture shadows – and there are a few little changes I’d like to make, but on the whole, a day well spent.

March 29th, 2014

March 29th, 2014
Cox Reservation, Essex, MA
Oil on Canvas, 18 x 24 in
(Unfinished)
(sold)

It was one of those early spring days the forecaster suggests could get almost as high as 50 degrees, so you don’t bother to bring a jacket, or wear an underlayer, and go out ecstatic to start soaking in the balmy spring. Except you chose a spot to paint that cleverly exposes you to an icy ocean wind from all sides, and though the temperature in sheltered spots gets as high as 42, where you have chosen to stand might just be cresting 34 – and you, clothed in ill-informed enthusiasm and little else to warm you, do your very best to cover all 482 square inches of canvas, but the amount of shivering and dancing you have to do to try and stay just this side of hypothermic eventually render painting impossible, with about 6 square inches to go.

March 10th, 2014

March 10th, 2014
Ipswich River – Topsfield / Ipswich MA
Oil on Canvas, 16 x 20 in

I had a great day with the “posse” painting in a new and lovely. Again, there was snow on the ground but the temperature was very mild – high 40s. The river was mostly frozen when I arrived but it thawed along the perimeter considerably throughout the day. I feel there’s something I need to do to make this better, I just hope it occurs to me just what that is before the paint is dry.