For Sale – Page 7 – Marianne Thompson

For Sale

March 17th, 2012

Birdhouse Inferno
March 17th, 2012
Cox Reservation, Essex, MA
Oil on Canvas, 16 x 20 in

This was a bad day – I had run out of white, so had to use this ancient dry spackle-like “underpainting white” that I had for some reason, which stank to high heaven and dried way too quickly. I started with the sky and worked downwards, and you can see the deterioration of my calm as things steadily got worse (easel broke, etc etc etc.) And I have wanted to paint these birdhouses for months, because the colours in the grasses and stones around them are breathtaking – but when my ire is up, I forget that the colours actually only constitute a small fraction of space in an ocean of grey. I wanted to show them as I saw / felt them, so I did… this may go on the “disasters” page soon

February 20th & 21st, 2012

February 20th & 21st, 2012
Marsh, looking towards Crane’s Beach
Cox Reservation, Essex, MA
Oil on Canvas, 16 x 22 in

This is a picture I took with my cellphone, so not great quality – but the painting is one I like. Again, trying to navigate the dynamics of very subtle tone / key changes. I feel like I am learning a lot, getting somewhere.

January 24th, 2012

January 24th, 2012
High Tide
Cox Reservation, Essex, MA
Oil on Canvas, 18 x 24 in

Cloud Cover Clearing

Cloud Cover Clearing
January 10th, 2012
Cox Reservation, Essex, MA
Oil on Canvas, 18 x 24 in

I started painting when the sky was all a blanket of steely cloud, and tried to keep up as the cloud cover began to split and give way to a crystalline blue.

January 6th & 7th, 2012

A Patch of Winter
January 6th & 7th, 2012
Cox Reservation, Essex, MA
Oil on Canvas, 18 x 24 in

As it says, this little patch of ice and snow was all that could be found on the marsh that I felt was suitably wintery. The flattish area between the reeds fills with water when the tide is up, and this patch of ice managed to form at some point between tides.

January 1st & 2nd, 2012

Prairie Snow, Saskatchewan
January 1st & 2nd, 2012
Oil on Canvas, 18 x 24 in

(I worked from a photo on this one, and am not too thrilled with how it came out. It looks to me like a collage of pastel mini-marhsmallows. I don’t like working from pictures anymore, even though experience and memory can break through the two-dimensional summary that is a photograph, in this case, I don’t think I pulled it off. I’ve been missing snow this winter, there hasn’t been any – which is why I wanted to try this.)