What have I been doing since we got back from Paris?

Posted on December 9, 2015 by csir2014

I last posted in October when we returned from a month in Paris. My heart is still there, bleeding for the Parisiens we met, we watched and enjoyed. But life has gone on here in Western New York. I entered two juried shows, the first being Buffalo Society of Artists 119th Catalogue Show, juried by Antonio F. Petracca. My two paintings were accepted, and I won the Gold Medal for my watercolor on gessoed watercolor paper, entitled Hertel Avenue Sunset. I found out by text from my wonderful friend and watercolor mentor, Sally Treanor. 2:30 am Paris Time – “You Won!”

The other entry, Sunset on the Black Rock Canal, is much more traditional transparent watercolor. I am drawn to high contrast, strong values and light. These two paintings work with all three.

The other juried show I entered was the Fall 2015 Niagara Frontier Water Media Show juried by Barbara Nechis. NFWS is close to my heart. I’m in my second and last year as it’s president. It is the only Watercolor Society west of the Central New York Watercolor Society in New York State. My two paintings were accepted. Both florals, both with ink and watercolor, therefore considered to be “water media”. One, entitled “Spring Amarylis” is painted on rice paper. I love rice paper! The other, “Hosta No. 1”, is on watercolor paper, and has been selected as the poster image for this year’s Garden Walk, Buffalo, an honor for me as I am an energetic gardener, and our city garden has been on the Garden Walk, missing one year for construction, since 2002.

There are many wonderful galleries in Western New York, and they all put on holiday shows, encouraging art lovers to support our artists community. I’m in two shows, one at TGW Gallery at 497 Franklin Street in the Allentown District of Buffalo. The openings for this show, and the other I’m in at Artsphere at 447 Amherst Street, as well as a lovely handful of other downtown galleries, are scheduled for the First Friday of the month, in this case December. It was a great evening of conversation, food and art. These shows will all be on til the end of the month.

At TGW, I have four paintings, “City of Night Light”, “Canalside 2”, “Bullseye” and “Darwin Martin House.” Darwin Martin sold on opening night. The artwork at TGW for this show is a wonderful representation of the talent in WNY. All work is “economically accessible”, my phrase. Everyone should be able to own original artwork!

At Artsphere I have three paintings, “Roadtrip Sunrise,” “This Year’s Pears,” and “Red Twig”. This is a special show of paintings from Sally Treanor’s students. We meet with Sally every Monday morning, September – June. I’ve been painting in Sally’s studio since 2002. She’s been a wonderful encouraging teacher.

Since the push to create for these shows is over, and Christmas is fast approaching, I am finishing some paintings I started this summer, and trying some new ideas, but I’m going to have to switch gears and attack some of the commissions I have patiently waiting. Time is short! Here are some of the paintings I’ve been working on. I am challenged to paint trees by our proximity to Delaware Park, an Olmsted beauty, and by my fascination with the work of Charles Burchfield. I used to be a docent at the Burchfield Penney Art Center, and during that time I became enamored with Burchfield’s early work in watercolor. These two paintings are greatly influenced by his work, especially the first. I dare to title it “Yet Another Homage to Burchfield”, though that title may change. The second is “Night and Day.”

The painting I just finished, called “Sonia!”, is a solution to the pear and apple painting exercises we were doing in Sally Treanor’s class. Since rediscovering Sonia Delaunay in the Pompidou in Paris, I have been dreaming Delaunay, hence the title, an obvious homage.

So, on to the commissions and holiday preparations. My goal is to post more often.

Til then, enjoy your holidays, one and all!

Painting in Gardens

Posted on August 16, 2015 by csir2014

For the past two years, in July, as part of the National Garden Festival here in my home city of Buffalo I have taken part in the Artists in Gardens, a very enjoyable opportunity for local artists to sit in beautiful gardens and paint. These gardens are open to the public the same time each week, Thursdays and Fridays. I painted in four gardens this year and twice in the same garden last year. I also enjoy sketching and painting in my own garden.

http://nationalgardenfestival.com/garden/opengardens.asp

Here I am hard at work on a pen and ink sketch of Ellie Dorritie’s front yard. I haven’t finished the watercolor additions yet, but here’s the sketch too. A great cottage on Little Summer Street in Buffalo.

I also painted at Arlan and Dominic’s Garden on Norwood Avenue. Arlan and Dom have been involved in the Garden Walk Buffalo since its inception. They have a wonderful victorian home and a yard full of surprises. As a former architect I was drawn to their back porch and back elevation.

gardenwalkbuffalo.com

I drew this in pen and ink and added the watercolor while I enjoyed ice tea and even birthday cake made by Dominic. What lovely people!

There were two other homes whose gardens I painted, one the Timlins’ on Park Street. The point of view was challenging, but I think I did an ok job.This is a beautiful brick home with a very sensitive entry and garage addition. Nicely done!

The last garden I painted in I also painted in for the 2014 Artists in Gardens. 8 Paths Garden is unlike any other I have seen. Such a eye and attention to detail. The gardener has an unusual selection of plants, some that I’ve never seen before.

I also like to paint and sketch in my own garden. Here are a few from the last three years of Garden Walks, together with some photos of our garden.

I also like to pick flowers and make bouquets just as my father the gardener used to pick so that my mom the artistic flower arranger could work her magic. Every bouquet reminds me of them.

Experimenting with Gessoed Watercolor Paper

Posted on May 28, 2015 by csir2014

I have learned something, sometimes many things, from every water media workshop I’ve ever participated in. Just finished one with Susan Webb Tregay which leaves me with Sue perched on my shoulder whispering one of her multitude of quotable quotes all great advice about color and composition strategies. Maybe my favorite is the most piercing -“things not worth painting are not worth painting well”.

All that being said, one of the approaches to watercolor and its paper that has most stuck with me, and continues to challenge me, is what Mark Mehaffey had us try during the Niagara Frontier Watercolor Society’s Spring 2013 Workshop. Paint with watercolor on gesso coated arches 140 lb paper. Two coats of gesso each side, dry in between. Paint in any set of colors you choose all over the paper, best if pretty intense but not required.

My first attempt, after the workshop was over and I had had a chance to mull over all that I had learned, turned into a “harmony of intensity” color strategy without any conscious direction from me. I call it “Loving Burchfield” because it reminded me of one or two of Charles Burchfield’s periods. Being a Buffalo resident, and a former docent at the Burchfield Penney Art Center, I have spent a lot of time studying Burchfield. He was a lover of light and nature, as am I.

My second attempt was not as successful, in my opinion, as the first, and I think it’s because of the rather intense color scheme. It could be relieved with some much lighter tones, and a little more cool areas of contrast to the warm. This is called, appropriately, “Heated Landscape” and is for sale at Art Loft just outside the entrance to the Chautauqua Institution. I don’t want to give the impression that I don’t like this painting – I do! It was really fun to work on. The paint has a mind of it’s own, and even so can be added and subtracted easily provided you don’t care about controlling everything that happens. It’s almost like painting on Yupo, but not quite as slippery.

This painting which I call “Bidwell Market Zinnias” after our summer Saturday farmers’ market, also for sale at Artloft, is among my favorites ever. I started out with a circular swirl of high intensity colors, red, yellow and blue, and moved the paint around, adding and subtracting to come up with a painting I really like.

Friends who know me well, and admire my paintings, have given me some good advice. They say, in one way or another, include some architecture, some neighborhood, in your paintings, even when you are experimenting. So, these two are very recent, and include architectural elements from my home city, Buffalo. The first, “City Sunset” is the view I have as I look out of my studio across the street, almost due West, at sunset. It was accepted into the Adirondacks National Exhibition of American Watercolors which opens August 8th in Old Forge, NY. Very excited to have been juried into this terrific show.

This last painting, called “Canalside” is a view from across the newly constructed memory of the Erie Canal at our Lake Erie Shore, is also a favorite. It will be included in the group show, “Art Exhibition – Seeing and Being: Making Art in WNY Neighborhoods” opening Monday, June 1 at 6 pm at Betty’s Restaurant, 370 Virginia St., Buffalo.

I love to try new ways to work with watercolor and all of the other water media. I am not a young person, though I am a young artist, having really started to get serious about this in the mid 2000’s. Architecture took all my work time and energy for 44 years. I don’t think I’ll be able to paint for the same amount of time….as I’d be painting at age 107, but maybe I’ll still be at it! I’m pretty young at heart!

Buffalo, A Love Affair

Posted on February 9, 2015 by csir2014

I love Buffalo, New York. Moved here from Fredonia, a college town south of Buffalo, in 2001. As luck and love would have it, I was offered a perfect job with Cannon Design, architect/educational planner for their public school projects, and a few months before met Tom Palamuso, a retired teacher and interior designer. We found in each other all the things you look for in a mate. We exchanged vows in December 2001.

Around the same time, probably the winter of 2002, my daughter Cynnie Gaasch, then the curator of the Buffalo Arts Studio, convinced me to take a figure study class at the BAS. Another daughter, Margaret Treanor, convinced another mother, Sally Treanor, to take the same drawing class. Sally and I became friends, and shortly thereafter I signed up for her Watercolor Class, and the rest is history.

It was a natural progression for me to paint and draw my surroundings. As an architect, and an emerging painter, I was and I am still drawn to and inspired by the wealth of Buffalo’s rich architectural environment. The paintings and sketches in this post are a sampling of my 10+/- years of loving this place.

The Heath House The Rose Garden Buffalo Seminary

Sunset Light in Allentown

This is my favorite corner, Allen Street and Elmwood Avenue, where the bubble man blows his bubbles down on the passersby.

View from Within the Botannical Gardens.

I like the stag horn fern that climbs up the right side of this early painting.

Lafayette High School Detail

Tom and I got a special look at Lafayette High School from the construction scaffolding; a treat from Christine Hentz, from the Buffalo Public Schools Facilities Office. Incredible terra cotta!

Homage to Louis Sullivan

My favorite building in Buffalo….no, I love City Hall and the Darwin Martin House as much….well, I do love the incredible terra cotta detailing on this, the Guaranty Building.

Hanging Out at City Hall

More incredibile terra cotta, and brilliant coloration. Tom took the photo I worked from. We didn’t realize until we took a much closer look that there are two workmen “hanging out” on the building. Look closely.

The Casino at Delaware Park

I think that this was the first time that I drew in pen and ink and then added watercolor. I like the flowing freedom of the line. 2007 – 2008

BECHS – The Buffalo History Museum

When I painted this pen and ink and watercolor painting this building was called the Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society. Now its the Buffalo History Museum. The photos I took were just after sunrise, coloring the marble beautiful shades of yellow gold through deep purply blue.

The View From Silo City Dusk at the County Fair

Bethlehem Park

Every time we drove down Route 5, especially at the end of a sunny day, I was drawn to this juxtaposition. Finally convinced Tom to stop so I could capture the spritely row of houses built for the Steel Plant employees many years back.

Wright’s Fontana Boathouse

Painted for a fundraiser for the Boathouse. The light from the sunset on Lake Erie is unsurpassed!

Darwin Martin House Reflections

Looking through the door from the main house into the pergola that connects the restored house to the gift shop. This is a small painting that I love. Still hangs in my living room.