Posts Tagged ‘oil painting’

Carrie’s Painting of the Week

Saturday, February 11th, 2012

Red Sunflowers

By Carrie Jacobson

Here are things that make me happy:

  • My husband, our family and our families
  • My friends
  • God
  • Painting
  • My sobriety
  • Strong weather of any kind
  • The feeling of freedom, even if it’s fleeting, even if it’s just a taste
  • A big sky, with no pesky trees
  • Coffee
  • Bacon
  • Knowing something before others do
  • A clean house
  • A house that’s dirty because I’ve been so busy doing things
  • The smell of dust rising in the early moments of a rain storm
  • The spring songs of birds
  • Going somewhere I’ve never been
  • Change
  • Sunflowers

And you? What makes you happy?

Carrie’s Painting of the Week

Tuesday, February 7th, 2012

Sunflowers, oil on canvas, 30x40

By Carrie Jacobson
The moon was so bright last night it cast shadows on the snowless, frozen ground. And this morning, I heard the springtime calls of birds.

Spring will come, though winter barely visited – and for me, it can’t come soon enough.

The little teeny early spring daffodils are poking up in the garden. As I drove on the highway the other day, I could see the red tinge of buds on the tips of the trees. Often, in the morning, there’s the springtime smell of earth thawing, that rich, dark smell that must evoke some basic essence in us all, some ancestral connection with the soil.

Yes, there are piles of snow in the yard, and yes, my fingers freeze when I take the dogs out in the morning – but soon enough, even the dawn air will be warm, and the grass will green up, and the sunflowers will begin to bloom.

Carrie’s Painting of the Week

Wednesday, January 18th, 2012

Rainbow Sunflowers

By Carrie Jacobson
Winter has settled in for what appears to be a short visit. I find I’m liking the snow, how it half-covers the still green grass, the unraked leaves, the tree trunks downed by the summer’s storms.

I like the white sky and how the patches of white above and below show off the tips of the bushes in the yard, reddening with the whispered promise of spring.

I heard a spring bird four days ago, and doubted my ears. Heard it again three days ago. And today, Peter says there are bluebirds in the grove.

So I have painted sunflowers, sunflowers of wild, marbled colors, sunflowers that sing with the song of summer birds, come calling in the winter’s snow.

This painting is part of the Passages project – 100 10-inch by 10-inch paintings, each on sale for $100. Please email me at carrieBjacobson@gmail.com if you’re interested in this one, and check my website to see more of these paintings!

Carrie’s Painting of the Week

Saturday, October 15th, 2011

Black Dirt Overlook

By Carrie Jacobson
At the end of this week, I am heading to the Outer Banks of North Carolina, to get away, to see something new, to paint.

Since my job at the Record was eliminated, I’ve been able to take a lengthy painting trip every year. This year, I haven’t had the chance. The others have been three to four weeks, marathons of painting and discovery, exhausting and exhilarating and filled with energy to last me through the year.

This won’t be as long, but my hunger for it will give me in depth what I will be missing in length.

I do feel a little odd leaving New England at the height of autumn — but the colors aren’t bright enough to hold me — and I have seen this before. My eyes need something new.

I think all our eyes need something new, even if it is just for a glance, just for a moment. We need to look away, go away, see afar or microscopically close — and then, the middle distance looks fresh again.

I will do my best to remember to post a painting from North Carolina for next week’s Zest!

If you are interested in “Black Dirt Overlook,” which is oil on canvas, 18×36, please email me at carrieBjacobson@gmail.com

Carrie’s Painting of the Week

Tuesday, October 4th, 2011

Deep in the Black Dirt

By Carrie Jacobson
It was great to paint with old friends and new on Sunday, with the plein-air group from the Wallkill River School. We painted at Scheuermann Farms in Warwick, a gorgeous place that, like all the Pine Island farms, was hit tremendously hard by Tropical Storm Irene.

Usually flush with pumpkins, Scheuermann Farms has had to bring them in from Canada. Few onions survived the flood; fewer potatoes made it through. But the pumpkins are beautiful, the farm has a fantastic collection of fascinatingly shaped gourds, and it is a beautiful place.

I got to the area early and started a large painting before moving down to the farm to do my demonstration. That big painting, 18×36, I did on a bluff overlooking one of the farms up the road; I am hoping to finish it here this week.

The Black Dirt region is one of the most beautiful around, in my mind. I love painting skies, and here you have fields, and lines, and greenery and some of the biggest skies you’ll see.

Don’t forget about the Paradise City Arts Festival this weekend in Northampton, Mass. I will be in the Morgan Barn II, Booth 407.

P.S. Those black dots on the painting are bugs. They can be removed when the paint is dry. They’re not birds.

Carrie’s Painting of the Week

Sunday, September 11th, 2011

Inlet, Old Lyme

By Carrie Jacobson

I’ve been itching to get to this spot, a place I love to paint, and I finally made it out there yesterday, and did it feel great!

I’ve often painted this place before, and have usually used a panoramic-type of canvas in a one by three ratio – 8×24, 10×30, etc. This time I tried including more sky, and it gives a totally different feel to the scene.

I painted fast, I tried to paint with sure strokes, I tried to make the canvas feel as open and sun-soaked and brilliant as the day. It was what my soul needed.

***

I have encountered an absolutely great idea, and am about to embark on it, and would love input from you all. I saw a story about a guy who is planning on painting 100 10-inch by 10-inch paintings, and selling them each for $100 – and the notion just captivated me.

I can’t completely explain my fascination with this idea, but the minute I heard about it, I knew I had to do it.

I spoke with a friend who runs a gallery nearby about the idea, and he pushed me to take it a step further. Maybe do 100 paintings as linear pieces, a road, a beach, a journey. Maybe get 100 dog photographs and use a mosaic program to arrange them so that when they are all together, they make an image of a big dog – or a cat. Maybe use one large palette knife only, on all the pieces, or limit myself to one or two colors.

At any rate, I have a lot of ideas going around in my head – and I’d love to hear from any of you, if you all have ideas, about subjects or approaches or limits – or any other part of it. I think this is such a fun project!

***
Start planning now, why don’t you, to go to the Paradise City show in Northampton, MA, over Columbus Day weekend!
This will be my first fall Paradise City show, and I am pretty excited about it. It’s in the same place as the spring show, Three County Fairgrounds, 54 Old Ferry Road (that’s for GPS purposes), Northampton, MA. I will be in Booth 407, in Morgan Building No. 2… You can get more information on the show by clicking here to go to the Paradise City website.
It’s not  bad drive from Orange County, and should be spectacularly autumnally beautiful in four weeks!
***
Next weekend, I am planning on visiting to paint with Wallkill River School painters – and others – at the Pine Island Farmer’s Market. We will be making and donating paintings for an auction to benefit Black Dirt farmers, whose crops were damaged or destroyed by Tropical Storm Irene. The public is welcome to come and watch, and encouraged to participate in the silent auction, that runs through Oct. 8. Artists are donating the paintings in full. The market is located at Pine Island Park, Kay Road in Pine Island.
For more information, check out the Wallkill River School bulletin board.

Carrie’s Painting of the Week

Friday, April 1st, 2011

The Fog Is Rising

By Carrie Jacobson

It seems to me that there was more fog when I was growing up. Sure there was, figuratively – but I mean really and truly in the weather sense of things.

Maybe that’s just my admittedly foggy memory – but now, it seems there’s fog only on rare autumn mornings, when the fog is over the rivers, the night’s cool dreams meeting the morning’s promise of heat.

When I was a kid, we had whole days of fog. Whole weeks, it seems, even. The fog would roll in off the water and blanket the area, and it was a regular thing, as regular as sunny mornings or rainy ones.

I remember living in Idaho and longing for the fog. Longing for days of rain, too. Longing for those gray New England stretches that of course, as a kid, I couldn’t stand. Spend a year in a place where it’s always sunny, and you’d be surprised what weather you’d yearn for.

At any rate, I had a great time making this painting. I feel like I’ve been freed – and I didn’t even know I was locked up.

Interested in this painting? It is oil on canvas, 36×48. Please contact me for price and delivery information: carrieBjacobson@gmail.com