Subscribe in a reader
SOLD! Please email me at JamieWG@aol.com to inquire about a similar painting.
6×6″, oils on sealed, primed hardboard, unframed
I love Great Blue Herons, and often see them here on the brook behind my house. This one was painted from a photo taken by my sister.
$150.00 plus $10 shipping and insurance within the Continental United States. For local sales, shipping charge will be allocated to NYS Sales Tax. Please email me at JamieWG@aol.com for International purchases or with any questions.
6 x 8″, Oils on canvas covered hardboard, custom framed (size is 10×12″ including frame)
This is a 6×8″ compositional study in oils for a large painting I’m doing for the headquarters of Putnam County Land Trust, which is the building in the painting. (It used to be called Chickadee Haven by its former owner.) It abuts their 140 acre Peach Lake Natural Area. I felt like having a little color explosion today, so I did it using Charles Sovek’s cadmium orange/cerulean blue light/shadow underpainting. I always like the vibrancy and depth that combination yields. I’ll be doing the larger painting with more of a yellow/violet color harmony, rather than the orange/blue. I’ll be holding onto this painting until the larger one is completed so I can use it as a reference.
Here’s a little idea of how this was done. I started with a mix of cadmium orange and titanium white for the lights, and cerulean blue for the darks. All light areas were blocked in with the orange mixture, and darker areas with the blue:
This is the beginning of the color-adding process:
SOLD! Please email me at JamieWG@aol.com to inquire about a similar painting.
6 x 6″, Oils on sealed, primed hardboard, unframed
Click here to see gifts and personal items with reproductions of this painting that are available for purchase. More products with this image will be coming, so please check back soon!
Many thanks to Rodney and Tamara Money for the photo reference of their adorable bird. BeBe won top bench placement in the African Lovebird Society Pet Writing Contest just a few weeks ago. He is a Dutch Blue Pied Peach-faced Lovebird. Rodney and Tamara are lovebird breeders in North Carolina. You can check out the cute arrivals at their website. Rodney is also a composer, so it’s not surprising that BeBe is playing a piano concerto.
I probably don’t need to tell you how much fun it was to work on this painting, but I do think my lovebird, Mango, got a little jealous.
Click to enlarge:
SOLD! Please email me at JamieWG@aol.com to inquire about a similar painting.
12 x 12″, Oils on Canvas covered hardboard, unframed
Today I had a great time painting with palette knives for the first time in a long time. I must have been color starved after being away from painting much of this week! This was so much fun that I think I’d like to get back to doing some more knife paintings—-perhaps one a week as a change of pace. This is larger than many of my “daily paintings” at 12×12″. The paint is extremely thick and the work is very textural, which is hard to see in a digital rendition. I used a fairly large palette of colors, compared to my usual limited palette choice:
Cadmium yellow lemon
Cadmium yellow pale
Napthol Red
Burnt Sienna
Ultramarine Blue
Cobalt Blue
Cerulean Blue
Titanium White
Tomorrow I’ll finish up a painting I started while my neice was here. I’m looking forward to getting back into the daily painting swing of things again.
I’m off for several days of family activities. Schools are closed all week, and I’ve been having some fun doing things with my daughter and hubby. I’ll be back with more artwork on Monday, February 26, if not before.
Click to enlarge images:
Today was a busy day and I knew I wouldn’t have time for a full-fledged painting, so I began the day by making a two-page grid of boxes in my sketchbook. That way, I could do small thumbnail sketches as I went about my day.
I used a Uniball Vision Micro pen to do all the drawing. For some of them, I used the little Koi watercolor box that’s in the sketch, with a water barrel brush; for others, I used the palette below with an Escoda #6 travel brush (the gold cylinder in the photo). I loved doing this “grid” approach to quick sketches. It made them feel managable on a day when I otherwise would not have done any artwork at all. It looks pretty cool in the sketchbook too!
$115.00 plus $10 shipping and insurance within the Continental United States. For local sales, shipping charge will be allocated to NYS Sales Tax. Please email me at JamieWG@aol.com for International purchases or with any questions.
All proceeds from the sale of this painting will be donated to Putnam Arts Council for the rebuilding of their Art Center and Galleries following the horrible fire on Sunday night.
I painted this interior scene from life while gallery sitting at the Belle Levine Gallery at Putnam Arts Council. Following the fire on Sunday night/Monday morning, this gallery space is no more. Having recently shown about 40 paintings here during the holiday season, it’s hard for me to believe it’s gone. It is such a terrible loss for Putnam County. The sculpture in the painting, “Hawk of the Hudson”, is by the wonderful sculptor Paul Yarden. It was made from driftwood found along the riverbank.
You can read more about the fire and public reaction (including my own) in
SOLD! Please email me at JamieWG@aol.com to inquire about a similar painting.
6 x 6″, Oils on sealed, primed hardboard, unframed
I looked out the window this morning and there was a beautiful sunrise of subdued violets and yellows over the lake. I wasn’t yet set up to paint, and knew that what I was seeing would vanish long before I had a chance to lay out palette and get my brushes. Rather than skip painting a sunrise, I went through photos I’d taken of the view in previous winters. I came across one I’d been meaning to paint for a long time, and spent the morning having a wonderful time doing this painting.
Tomorrow morning, I’ll have to make sure I’m set up earlier to catch it in the moment!
Here’s an update of my show calendar so far for 2007:
March 10-about April 8—Hudson River Show at Freshman Fine Arts, 4 South Chestnut St, Beacon
May 12-June 4—Lower Hudson Valley Plein Air Painters show at Bannerman Island Gallery, Main St, Beacon
June 15-July 1—White Silo Winery (four-artist show)
September—Two-person show with Suhua Wood at Ward Pound Ridge Reservation
October—Artists on Location, Garrison
October—Two-person show with Walter Mosley at Bannerman Island Gallery
December—Solo show at North Salem Library
Of course you can always see a rotating selection of my work in all styles and subjects at The Paint Box in Bedford Hills.
There’s a link on the right to my blog for my shows, openings and other events. Stay tuned there for more news. I’ll add specifics as the dates get closer.
$100.00 plus $10 shipping and insurance within the Continental United States. For local sales, shipping charge will be allocated to NYS Sales Tax. Please email me at JamieWG@aol.com for International purchases or with any questions.
7 x 5″ matted to 10×8, Watercolor on Fabriano Artistico 100% rag paper, unframed
I had a couple of hours of free time while my daughter was at gymnastics, so I went over to my plein air buddy’s studio, which is near the gym, and did a couple of watercolor sketches. Sue and I paint outside all the time together, but not in the winter when it’s about five degrees out! It’s really fun to play with someone else’s still life stuff. She has this sweet brass pitcher that I loved painting. I’ve put it in a double mat, so it’s all ready to pop into any standard 8×10 frame.
It was my birthday a few days ago and my husband got me these gorgeous red sable, Escoda travel brushes, sizes 10 and 6. The brushes come apart and slip inside the tubes that double as handles. This watercolor sketch was my first test drive of the new brushes. I love them to bits! They fit right inside the pocket of my sketchbook cover too.
$150.00 plus $10 shipping and insurance within the Continental United States. For local sales, shipping charge will be allocated to NYS Sales Tax. Please email me at JamieWG@aol.com for International purchases or with any questions.
8 x 6″, Oils on sealed, primed hardboard, unframed
All images can be clicked for larger versions.
I drove up to Massachusetts today to have brunch with my son, and decided to sketch at Old Sturbridge Village while I was in the vicinity. What a fabulous place to draw and paint! It’s an old colonial village, with everything from farms and sawmills to pottery demonstrations and hot mulled cider over an open fire. They do not allow photography nor artwork for commercial purposes, but they had no problem with me bringing my sketchbook around.
These are ink and watercolor in a 5.5×8.25″ Hand Book Journal. They’re done across the two-page spreads, so each image is about 8×10″. The images are a little distorted because the paper doesn’t lie perfectly flat.
I started out in the Towne House (above), on the recommendation of the sweet woman working the Admissions counter. I could have spent the whole day drawing there, but there were so many other things to see!
The Fenno House was my next sketching stop, where this big fireplace with oven and built in cabinets above captured my interest (below). I didn’t realize there was a person spinning wool in the next room! We chatted for awhile about all the interesting things there, and I sketched a couple of them. She gave me a piece of unspun wool to bring home. The little house in the drawing below is the Fenno House.
The District School (below) had a sloping floor so that the students in the back would be able to see the teacher! The benches were built so that the backs served as desks for the students behind.
On the upper right, that brick structure is a huge pottery kiln. When I say, “huge,” I mean about 20 feet tall! The kiln takes 3-5 cords of wood to stoke the fire, and can handle about 800 pots at a time. They fire up the kiln a few times a year.
The image below that one was sketched in the kitchen at the Freeman House and Farm, where I was served hot mulled cider by a woman dressed as a farmer’s wife in colonial times. She was cooking bread pudding over the open hearth in the kitchen. On top of the cabinet is a sugarloaf. The farmer’s wife would break off pieces and grind them with the mortar and pestle.
When I left the farm and continued walking down the road, I saw this picturesque covered bridge over a frozen pond (below). I walked past the blacksmith, sawmill, and some other buildings and crossed over the bridge, heading back to the Village Green.
The bank in the Village Green is really pink! It was getting late, so I headed back to the main building to quickly check out the Clock Museum before it was time to go. On my way there, I came across an artist painting a wall mural based on a colonial woodcut. He’d project a transparency of the woodcut onto the wall, and then do an interpretation in black acrylic on the white wall. It looked fabulous.
I only had enough time left to get to the gift shop. I wanted some kind of a small souveneir, made there at Old Sturbridge Village, to bring home with me. I found the perfect item; it’s a little ceramic inkwell!
WHEW! I finally finished this section of the wall shelf. That red and gold espresso cup and saucer proved to be easily the most difficult still life subject I’ve ever tackled. There were several moments when I thought about removing it from the setup, and replacing it with something else. What a challenge! Not only was the color and glimmer of the gold tough, but getting the geometry right was extremely difficult. However, now I’m glad I climbed the mountain, and I can just enjoy the view!
Below is the painting as it stands thus far. I still need to paint the whole frame of the shelf, which is actually a beat-up old window frame. I’m sorry it’s not a great photo; I’ll get a better one when the painting is finished.
It’s time to get back to this big painting and finish it up. I completed the remainder of the section I started on Friday, and will be starting the last section later today.
Click to enlarge:
Here’s a sneak peek at the whole painting so far, minus the exterior shelf edge. The center vertical and lower right section are still unpainted. I’m hoping to finish up by the end of the week.
36×24″, 25 minute pose:
36×24″, 25 minute pose:
I love drawing on this crinkly brown craft paper, but taking photos of the results is always an insurmountable challenge. I’m finally arriving at the inevitable conclusion that if I like working on this color, I’m going to have to find a source for it that is in a form that stays flatter.
I finally got back to open studio life drawing today. It’s such a great break from my usual art routine. I’ll have 8 weeks of it on Sundays. That should almost get me back to plein air season! The poses were mostly one minute and ten minutes. We only got two, twenty-five minute poses out of the three hour session.
Both of these are available for purchase. Email me if interested.
So, I’m taking one. I went shopping this morning for office furniture for hubby. Once back home, I brought Mango down to my studio to keep me company, but I just ended up playing with him as he chirped and climbed all over the outside of his cage, while I talked on the phone and looked at travel brushes online. This must mean that I need a day off. I’ll be heading down to New York City later for my daughter’s gymnastics competition. Maybe I’ll do some sketches down there. Maybe not!
I’ve got just a section of a section to show for today. So much to paint, so little time!
Click any image to enlarge
I’ve really been looking forward to painting this section with the figures, amber glass, and wooden clock. The little figures came with pianos and piano stools and were given to me by my dad, but they’ve temporarily suspended their duo to model for my painting. I got the beautiful hand-blown amber glass at a flea market. I saw it and just swooned! The wooden clock was a gift from a friend, and was made by her parents.
I still have a few little tweaks to do, but I’ll do them as I move on with the other sections, or at the end. I’m sure I’ll see more to do by then!
I thought it was time to let y’all take a peek at how the whole thing is coming along, so I’ve got two additional images for you. Below is the section I did today with yesterday’s section.
Below is a picture of my studio with the setup and the painting. The painting isn’t as wide as it appears here; that’s the photo distortion at work, and one of the reasons why I prefer to work from life. There is an excitement inherent in working directly from the source. I’d be very bored painting this from a photo, but the character of the objects, the way the light hits them and the warmth of the colors, is something I can really feel when painting from life. It transforms the experience.
Click to enlarge:
Here’s another section of the 30×24″ painting of the wall shelf. This may still need a little more work on the leaves, but I’ll go back and do it at the end when the other sections are finished and I can better judge how it works as a whole. The image above was photographed with a very yellow light overhead. The color is actually closer to the image below:
Many have asked me to take progress images on the sections, which I keep forgetting to do! I remembered to stop for one today. It usually takes me three “passes” to complete a section. The first pass is a basic color stage, where I block in the main colors, lights and darks. Here’s an image taken at the end of that first pass. I usually stop then and take a short break, let the paint set up a little, and then work over all the elements a second time, pushing the lights and darks and starting to add more detail. On the third pass, I make sure the highlights and dark accents are strong enough, and tweak anything that doesn’t look quite right.
Click to enlarge:
I tackled another section of the wall shelf today. Painting that racoon was so very much fun! Below you can see what it looks like with the section from yesterday.
This is about a 10×9″ section of the full 30×24″ painting. The unpainted thing at the top is part of the racoon’s tail hanging down from the upper shelf. Maybe I’ll paint that section tomorrow. Sorry about the glare in the upper right. It’s wet wet wet and the darks are so shiny until it dries.
I ended up having to add a bit of cadmium yellow pale to my palette. I’m using a Masterson palette with a sheet of glass in it that I cut to size. I cover it and stick it in the freezer when I’m done painting.
I’ll have another installment tomorrow, so stay tuned!
Wall Shelf #3, 30×24″, oils on stretched canvas, monochrome stage
Click to enlarge:
I didn’t get quite as far today as I’d hoped, but I finished the compositional stage and as much as I’m going to do of a monochrome underpainting. It’s far enough along to start putting in color tomorrow and working section by section. You can see that I repositioned several items since yesterday. Because the canvas is a slightly different proportion than the actual shelf, and also to emphasize certain elements, I adjusted object shapes to better fill the space. I pull out the old Artistic License when I need to make changes. *grin*
Above is a picture of the still life area in my studio. I love having a U-shaped work area, because I can step far back from my easel to view the painting without tripping over anything, and everything is within reach. The chair is for the computer on the right. I prefer to stand when I paint, unless I’m painting very small. You might think the tarp is there to protect the carpet, but it’s actually to provide additional cushioning for my feet!
I’ll be doing this painting with just four colors and two whites, unless I make an addition along the way. I chose these particular colors based upon what I need to be able to mix for the colors in the setup, and also because I want to steer the painting a little to the warm side. I’ll be using:
Winsor Newton Artist Cadmium Yellow
Williamsburg Cadmium Red Medium
Rembrandt Transparent Oxide Red
My own homemade Ultramarine Deep
Classic Artist Oils Titanium White
Winsor Newton Griffin Titanium White
I’ll be mixing the two whites together in order to get a titanium white that will dry a bit faster. I’m not crazy about the consistency of the Griffin alkyd white, but mixed with the dreamy, creamy Classic Artist Oils version, it works quite well.
My little Peach-faced Lovebird, Mango, lives upstairs, but I have an extra cage down in my studio so that we can keep each other company. He likes to climb around the playset on top of the cage while listening to music and supervising my progress.
I spent the afternoon lugging this heavy, old wall shelf into my studio and filling it with objects from the current scavenger hunt. (See post below.) With my daughter’s help, I was able to hoist it onto the still life table in my studio, where it fit perfectly. I’ll probably still switch out a few items and move things around a bit. Then I’ll be getting down to work on this for the next week or so on a 24×30 canvas.
I’ll be posting daily to show a section at a time. Usually I work on a whole painting at once, moving around here and there over the canvas. My plan for this one is different though. I’ll do a block-in the first day, and after that I’ll likely be going object to object, a few at a time. This is going to be a lot of fun! I’ll be working on it only from life, not from a photo, but from the spectator’s perspective, it’s always interesting to get an idea of what the artist started out with.
This shelf was a flea market find. It’s made from old, heavy 2x4s and weighs a ton! I think after it’s done its duty for this painting, I’ll keep it in my studio to hold supplies.
The Wetcanvas Scavenger Hunt #25 ends tomorrow, so I slipped in in a few more sketches from the list of 26 items. These are 7×11 pages from the sketchbook I made last week. The sketches are Uniball Vision ink pen and watercolor. No time for an oil painting today.
Tomorrow starts a new scavenger hunt, and I’m the host this time! It will run from January 20-January 28 (nine days). I’ll post a link here for anybody who’s interested in joining in. I’ll put the list up early in the morning, and will post it here on my blog as well. Stay tuned!
$110.00 plus free shipping and insurance within the Continental United States. For local sales, shipping charge will be allocated to NYS Sales Tax. Please email me at JamieWG@aol.com for International purchases or with any questions.
5 x 5″, Oils on sealed, primed hardboard, unframed
When I was away in Pennsylvania last weekend, I went to a flea market. I found all kinds of old copper and brass objects, glass items, little bowls and pitchers, and a wonderful set of old mahogany nesting boxes. The woman at the flea market remembered me from last year. She pulled out boxes and boxes of “stuff” for me to sift through. The result of all this is: I have lots of new things to paint! This is one of the mahogany boxes lying on its side with a little brass pitcher peeking out.
Here’s another watercolor sketch set across two pages of the new journal from this past weekend. You can click the image to enlarge it.
I did an oil painting today, but it has lots of darks in it which are causing a lot of glare. I’ll get a much better photograph of it if I wait a day for it to dry a bit, so you’ll see that one tomorrow. In the meantime, I hope you’re enjoying the sketches from my trip. I love working in this new journal. Can’t wait to try some other mediums in it.
My husband and I just returned from a wonderful weekend away. I had some time to do some watercolor sketches in the hotel suite and simultaneously test-drive the new Hand Book Journal that I got from Dick Blick. The one I got is 8.25×5.5″, portrait format. I used it as an 8×10 sheet, painting across the two page spreads. This book by far exceeded my expectations! The surface takes watercolor quite well with minimal wrinkling and it has a wonderful texture for drawing too–not too slick and not too rough. The paper is thick; I’d say it’s not quite the weight of Stonehenge with a similar surface texture. Highly recommended! I’m looking forward to trying it out with colored pencils, acrylics and gouache too. It’s also available in a very cool square format, and in a pocket size version.
SOLD! Please email me at JamieWG@aol.com to inquire about a similar painting.
6 x 6″, Oils on sealed, primed hardboard
When we were in Maine last summer, we went for a sunset sail on the four-masted schooner Margaret Todd. We lucked out with a spectacular sunset. I took oodles of photos, including the one of this boat sailing nearby. Every time he tacked, the light would catch the sails from a different direction. I was so glad to have my camera along!
I got up extra early to finish the painting this morning. I’m going to be offline for a few days after this post, but I’ll see y’all back here on Tuesday.
Click image to enlarge:
This is the inside, 2-page centerfold spread of the Art Journal “Gallery-in-a-book” that I’m working on. It measures a little larger than 7×22″. The painting on the left, plus all of the gold frames, are painted directly on the paper. The other three abstract paintings are original “Art Card” paintings, 2.5×3.5″ each, affixed with removable tape to the paper. I liked the idea of presenting my original miniature paintings in a gallery format without destroying them as individual works. It’s fun to see what they’d look like if they were actually enormous paintings hanging on a gallery wall instead of just a couple of inches top to bottom! The titles of the paintings, from left to right are:
Jester
Struck by Lightning
Evening Music
Dueling Boxes
The work on the two pages is done with black ink, gold ink, acrylic, and watercolor. The writing just above the floor describes the paintings.
You can see my January 6 post below for more information about this 8 page journal. Five more pages to go! The journal will be posted here for sale when it is completed. You can also see larger versions of the individual paintings in my posts from the past couple of weeks by scrolling down the blog page.
SOLD! Please email me at JamieWG@aol.com to inquire about a similar painting.
3 x 5″, Casein on illustration board, framed
This 3×5″ plein air casein painting is beautifully framed and ready to hang on your wall. Casein is an archival, non-soluble (when dry) milk-based medium with brilliant color and a matt finish. It looks similar to oils but without the slight gloss, and like oils, the paint does not lift. It is a wonderful and underused medium that is experiencing a resurgence in popularity, and with good reason!
The image above is a cropped version of the 36×24″ sketch of Amy. I never feel I come away from a life drawing session with a “finished” piece since the poses are so short, but it’s great practice to keep going after that elusive goal. This sketch was done on my favorite brown crinkly craft paper, which makes it hard to get a good photo. I tear off 24×36″ sheets from a huge roll and clip them to a big piece of foamcore. I like working on the midtone surface, since I can just add my lights and darks. Amy is a fabulous model and also an artist, so she always thinks about how a pose will fill the page. The medium is charcoal and pastels. The full image is below.
SOLD! Please email me at JamieWG@aol.com to inquire about a similar painting.
6 x 6″, Oils on sealed, primed hardboard, unframed
I painted this today in oils from a photo I took while visiting my parents in Florida. My kids hate to have their pictures taken, but they were having too much fun to notice.
Palette:
Cadmium Yellow Light
Cadmium Red
Ultramarine Blue Deep
Transparent Red Oxide
Phthalo Green
Titanium White
$50.00 plus free shipping and insurance within the Continental United States. For local sales, shipping charge will be allocated to NYS Sales Tax. Please email me at JamieWG@aol.com for International purchases or with any questions.
2.5 x 3.5″, watercolor and inks on watercolor paper, unframed
Continuing on with some fun abstract experiments……..
This painting began with boxes painted on Arches hot press watercolor paper in acrylic. Next, a black monoprinted image was pressed from a glass plate. Lastly, gold metallic trimming was added.
About actual size:
$50.00 plus free shipping and insurance within the Continental United States. For local sales, shipping charge will be allocated to NYS Sales Tax. Please email me at JamieWG@aol.com for International purchases or with any questions.
Enlarged image:
2.5 x 3.5″, Acrylic and metallic ink on Arches hot press 100% rag paper, unframed
$50.00 plus free shipping and insurance within the Continental United States. For local sales, shipping charge will be allocated to NYS Sales Tax. Please email me at JamieWG@aol.com for International purchases or with any questions.
2.5 x 3.5″, Acrylic on Arches hot press watercolor paper, unframed
SOLD! Please email me at JamieWG@aol.com to inquire about a similar painting.
This is a miniature (2.5×3.5″), gouache on 100% rag watercolor paper, unframed. It is a scene from a photo I took while visiting Little Cranberry Island for a day, off the coast of Maine.
Click to enlarge image.
Scavenger Hunt 22 (See my Dec. 20 post) contained a list of 26 items. These are the five I had left. I arranged them in a still life to finish up the hunt. They are sketched with a Uniball Vision pen and watercolors. The items are:
22. Something cold: ice cube
23. Puddle: The melted water from the ice cube
24. Coaster: What the ice cube is resting on
25. Cutlery: My favorite Henkle knife
26. Something you dislike: Dead flowers!
I’m glad that I managed to finish up all 26 items in spite of a heavy holiday schedule here. It’s been a lot of fun to have this sketching break from the usual finished painting routine. With 14 coming for lunch tomorrow, it’s likely that I won’t be able to get any painting done until at least Thursday, but I hope to get back to the oils soon!
These are all Prismacolor pencil in my 7×10″ Canson Montval cold press watercolor book. Click on the image to enlarge it.
These are items 19-21 of the 26-item scavenger hunt, so I’ve only five left to do by Wednesday to complete the hunt. (See my December 20 posting for more about the Scavenger Hunts.) Hopefully I’ll be able to do at least a couple of paintings after that and before the New Year. The most challenging item by far in the hunt this week is to draw/paint a piece of crumpled foil. I put that one off about as long as possible, and you can see why; mine doesn’t at all resemble crumpled foil. Actually, I crumpled it into the vague shape of a swan in the hope that if it didn’t make it as crumpled foil, it could be loosely identified as a swan. Very loosely. Imaginatively. *smile* I’m giving up on that one for now, though I might throw in some gouache highlights and try to salvage it later. I’m looking forward to seeing what the other scavenger hunt participants do with that one.
The ear belongs to my nephew, Tal, who is one of our houseguests till Wednesday. He was sketching a clementine while I drew his ear.
I cut a twig from a forsythia bush and brought it inside to sketch, to satisfy the “twig” component of the hunt. I loved the little buds forming along the twig stems. Pretty soon, it will be time to force bloom some for a late winter painting.
SOLD! Please email me at JamieWG@aol.com to inquire about a similar painting.
8×10″, Oils on sealed, primed hardboard, unframed
Since I’m so busy through the holidays, I’ve joined an online sketching “Scavenger Hunt” this week, where participants draw as much as they can from a list of 26 items. At least I can keep doing a little artwork, without the pressure of having to turn out finished paintings every day. Sketching is such great practice, and I try to do a day of sketches at least once a month. These are all pen and ink with watercolor in my 7×10″ Canson Montval Watercolor book.
Click on the images to see larger versions. See the post from 12/20 for more information about the Scavenger Hunts.
Click to see a larger image.
Read about the current Scavenger Hunt on my December 20 post below. These are four more list items, done on a page of my 7×10″ Cotman watercolor book.
SOLD! Please email me at JamieWG@aol.com to inquire about a similar painting.
8×6″, Oils on sealed, primed hardboard
Click to view larger images.
The Wetcanvas art website has a Scavenger Hunt that starts every 8 days. Since my time is so interrupted now with holiday goings-on, I figured I’d jump in there and do as much sketching as I can when I don’t have a long block of time for oil painting. You can find the rules and the current list here:
http://www.wetcanvas.com/forums/showthread.php?t=389272
Anybody is welcome to jump in and participate! Basically, you find items to sketch from life from the current list. You can do as many or as few as you like, but it’s a nice challenge to try and complete them all within the 8 day period. You may do them in any size, time frame and medium, but they must all be done from life—no photo references allowed. You can see the current list by clicking on that first image; I wrote it down at the bottom of the page. Some scavenger hunts also include special “challenges” in addition to the 26 items, but this one did not.
It’s such a fun break from the usual routine. For the sketches above, I used a Sharpie marker (just on the first one), Uniball Vision Micro pen, Prismacolor pencils, Koi watercolors, and Golden Fluid acrylics. They are in my 7×10″ Cotman watercolor book.
$115.00 plus $10 shipping and insurance within the Continental United States. For local sales, shipping charge will be allocated to NYS Sales Tax. Please email me at JamieWG@aol.com for International purchases or with any questions.
5 x 7″, Oils on Canvas covered hardboard, unframed
This is a plein air oil painting of one of the roads that winds through the magnificent 4700 acre Ward Pound Ridge Reservation in Pound Ridge, NY. The fields, streams, and beautiful trees on the preserve grounds make it one of my favorite painting locations.
SOLD! Please email me at JamieWG@aol.com to inquire about a similar painting.
Double matted to 5 x 7″ and framed, Acrylic on Arches hot press 100% rag paper
This past summer, our hotel room in Bar Harbor faced the Porcupine Islands. We’d watch the boats sailing in and out of the harbor. This painting was done from one of the photos I took there. The painting itself is 3×4.5″. It is mounted to a backing board, beautifully double-matted to 5×7″, and framed.
SOLD! Please email me at JamieWG@aol.com to inquire about a similar painting.
6 x 6″, Oils on sealed, primed hardboard, unframed
One evening when the sunset was spectacular, my husband and I drove to the other side of the lake to take pictures. This group of people was just setting out in their boat to enjoy the last of a quiet summer evening.Below is the pochade box that I often use for these small paintings, with just the first layer of paint on the panel. The glass palette slides to the side to access the paints and supplies below. I secure the painting panel to a slightly larger board because with a painting this small, once I get to this stage, I hold it in my hand while painting. Taping it to the larger panel enables me to hold it without getting paint all over my hands.
I started a painting today, but was disappointed that I didn’t quite have time to finish it. Yesterday I finished the tweaks on my night painting from the day before, but haven’t had a chance to take the pic and upload it. Hopefully I’ll finish up the one I started today over the weekend, then will take photos of both and upload them here.
To those in the area, I’ll be making the rounds at my shows over the next 24 hours or so with receptions and greetings. Feel free to visit and browse at:
Also, the owner of The Paint Box gallery visited my studio this morning and selected five more paintings, so she now has about 15 down there in Bedford Hills. Stop in if you have a chance!
$100.00 plus free shipping and insurance within the Continental United States. For local sales, shipping charge will be allocated to NYS Sales Tax. Please email me at JamieWG@aol.com for International purchases or with any questions.
6 x 6″, Oils on sealed, primed hardboard, unframed
While waiting outside the gym for my daughter, I pulled out my little pochade box and did a sketch.Painting at night en plein air is great fun, but it sure is hard to see what you’re doing!
SOLD! Please email me at JamieWG@aol.com to inquire about a similar painting.
6 x 6″, Oils on sealed, primed hardboard, unframed
When my Bichon Frise, Rondo, isn’t busy making trouble, he’s asleep on the chair or sofa in my studio. Even though he sleeps for long stretches, as soon as I start to draw or paint him, he gets up and moves, so I have to resort to photos if I want to capture him in paint.
$125.00 plus $10 shipping and insurance within the Continental United States. For local sales, shipping charge will be allocated to NYS Sales Tax. Please email me at JamieWG@aol.com for International purchases or with any questions.
6 x 6″, Oils on Sealed, primed masonite, unframed
Today was the day for all daily painters interested in doing a group theme to paint an egg in some form. I did a Humpty Dumpty version, setting an egg on top of a brick in my studio. I haven’t painted an egg in many years. It was great fun, and I doubt I’ll wait so long before doing it again.
$115.00 plus $10 shipping and insurance within the Continental United States. For local sales, shipping charge will be allocated to NYS Sales Tax. Please email me at JamieWG@aol.com for International purchases or with any questions.
7 x 5″, Oils on canvas covered hardboard, unframed
Well, I confess…..This isn’t leftover from last night; I set it up for the painting. Then hubby asked me where his aspirin went, and I had to tell him it was down in the studio, in my setup. That got some laughs. I still need to touch up the elipse on the top of the glass. I played lost and found edges and then it got…..lost! hehe
Meanwhile, a coat of gesso and modeling paste mix has been added to the two coats of sealer already on the new panels, and they are drying in the studio. Once they get dry to the touch, I put them in letter-holders (found at Staples for a couple of dollars each) to dry completely. This keeps them separated and prevents them from taking up every square inch of surface space in my studio! I’ll apply the first coat of gesso/pumice this afternoon. They probably won’t be ready for painting until the weekend.
My little birdie, Mango, came down to the studio for a visit. I have this open wire playset for him down here, like a cage without sides, so he can have something to climb around on while enjoying some millet and chattering. My daughter made that cute toy for him.
When my framing frenzy was over and the dust finally settled in my studio last night, there were 54 paintings ready to go to the show. I decided to leave two of the larger paintings here, and delivered 52 to Putnam Arts Council’s Belle Levine Gallery this morning. It’s going to look awesome! I’ll try to get some pics to post after everything is hung and ready. I’ll also be at the Gallery on Saturday, December 9 from 2-5, and on Tuesday, December 12 from 12-3 for anyone who wants a personal tour of the exhibit.
For those in Dutchess County, don’t forget that I have 9 paintings left in the Buone Feste show at the River Winds Gallery! It’s right on Main Street in Beacon. There is a wonderful selection of gift items in that show made by local artisans. I splurged and bought myself a pair of gorgeous handmade earrings there.
And let’s not forget Westchester County…. You can see my paintings at The Paint Box in Bedford Hills. There are many small pieces, as well as a 24×36 plein air oil painting of Constitution Marsh in Fall.
Now that all those paintings have been framed, what’s a Daily Painter to do? Why, start making panels to resume painting, of course! My studio has been transformed from Framing Central into The Painting Panel Factory. I’m really eager to paint more square formats. I’ve often used 12×12, but those are a little large for my daily paintings, and I can’t find smaller ones that are reasonably priced. So, I’m making up a batch of 6×6″s, and while I’m at it, more 5x7s and 6x8s too—about 100 in all. The masonite boards are all cut (thanks to some help from my dear hubby), and after returning home from the gallery, I sanded about 30 of them and sealed them with two coats of GAC100 (acrylic polymer emulsion). I’ll follow that up tomorrow with a mixture of acrylic primer (gesso) and modeling paste, then two coats of a gesso/pumice mix.
I hope to get back to churning out a painting every day (well…five days a week) in another day or so with my new panels!
I’m getting ready for a big show at the Belle Levine Gallery, with over 30 of my paintings ranging in size from 2×3 inches to 2×3 feet. You’re all invited to this fun event, which will also feature the work of many local artisans just in time for your holiday shopping. The show opens this Saturday, December 2, and runs through December 22 at 521 Kennicut Hill Road in Mahopac, NY. (More information will be posted on my Shows and Galleries blog. You can click the link in the sidebar on the right side of your screen.)
As you can imagine, I’ve been busy, busy, busy with Framing Madness in my studio. Last night and this morning I framed 8 pastels. Here are a few of them. They are all 16×20″ framed size.
In case you’ve ever wondered what an artist’s studio looks like while engaged in Framing Madness, have a peek. It’s not a pretty sight….and don’t trip over anything, pleeeeease!
$150.00 plus $10 shipping and insurance within the Continental United States. For local sales, shipping charge will be allocated to NYS Sales Tax. Please email me at JamieWG@aol.com for International purchases or with any questions.
6 x 8″, Oils on canvas covered hardboard, unframed
I finally was able to snatch some plein air time today. Hooray! It was one of those spectacular fall days, with the warmth and sunshine you didn’t think you’d find again until spring. I dropped my daughter at gymnastics and headed for a nearby park to take in some rays and test drive my new pochade box.
I hear those giggles among those who know me. “Another pochade box?”, they’re asking. I already have one for oils (which is a little bigger and supports larger panels) and one that I made for gouache. I plan to use this new one for “stealth painting”. heeheehee… It’s so small, and I’ve filled it with watersoluble oils so that I can just use whatever water I have on hand for painting in cafes, my car, or even the kitchen, with no worry about fumes or toxic substances, and no need to carry oil or turp.
Here’s an image of the painting still in the box. You can see there’s a hinged lip at the top of the part that holds the panel securely in place, so that you can slide the panel in and out. The box will hold one 6×8″ panel horizontally, and keeps it separated from the paints so that I can travel with the wet, completed painting.
The palette itself is actually wood, but I covered it with white contact paper for easier cleanup, and because I prefer to mix colors on a white surface. I find it hard to judge the colors and values of my dark, transparent mixes on a dark wood palette. The white contact paper worked out great. It wipes clean easily with a palette knife and rag, and if it gets tattered down the road, I can just peel it off and recover. As shown below, the palette slides to the left, giving easy access to the box’s storage compartments.
Here’s another view of how I packed up my box. I had to cut the handles off some of the brushes so that they’d fit. Underneath that rag is a thumb hole for supporting the box while standing.
For those looking for a small box like this, I give this one pretty high marks. It is sold by Utrecht, and made by Jullian. It is very reasonably priced, and comes with an adjustable leather shoulder strap too.
Today is my husband’s birthday. Amidst the hustle and bustle, my daily painting involved making a card for him. He always takes an apple to work every day, so I had to get the apple in there. Some of the flowers that I bought several days ago are still kicking. I put the survivors into a mug and pulled out my watercolors, then added a little ink pen. I used a 7×10 sheet of Arches HP and folded it in half, so the card is 5×7.
It’s been very hard to get serious paintings done with the holiday looming this week and all the framing I need to do for upcoming shows. I’m hoping to be able to get back to doing some oil paintings next week, if not sooner, and will be keeping my sketchbook, pens, watercolors, and colored pencils close at hand for the remainder of this week!
I spent much of today doodling in medical offices. Thank goodness I had my Moleskine sketchbook with me. I sketched in ink while waiting, then added a light watercolor wash later. Here you see my left hand holding the sketchbook as I was sketching with the right, and the basket affixed to the wall for patient forms. Chauffering my daughter later in the day prevented me from painting when I finally got home, but there’s always hope for tomorrow!
$15.00 plus free shipping and insurance within the Continental United States. For local sales, shipping charge will be allocated to NYS Sales Tax. Please email me at JamieWG@aol.com for International purchases or with any questions.
2.5 x 3.5″, Prismacolor Pencils on 100% rag paper, unframed
I never expected it to be so difficult to draw a popcorn kernel! Maybe I’ll have to do a series. This was quite a challenging subject! This ATC/ACEO-size piece will fit into a standard 2.5×3.5″ frame. It would make a perfect holiday gift for your favorite popcorn lover.
SOLD! Please email me at JamieWG@aol.com to inquire about a similar painting.
ATC/ACEO size (2.5×3.5″), Gouache on Fabriano Artistico hot press
7 x 5″, Oils on canvas covered hardboard, unframed
$115.00 plus $10 shipping and insurance within the Continental United States. For local sales, shipping charge will be allocated to NYS Sales Tax. Please email me at JamieWG@aol.com for International purchases or with any questions.
I just love painting upside down boats! This painting was done from a photo that I took here along the lakeshore the other day. There were more beautiful colors and vistas that I had time to capture en plein air, but fortunately I had my camera with me!
$100.00 plus free shipping and insurance within the Continental United States. For local sales, shipping charge will be allocated to NYS Sales Tax. Please email me at JamieWG@aol.com for International purchases or with any questions.
5 x 7″, Oils on canvas covered hardboard, unframed
One day a month, I do a day of quick paintings or sketches as I go about the rest of my life. Today I had a blast with a sheet of 12×16″ black MiTientes paper and Prismacolor pencils. I woke my daughter shortly before 11am by bribing her with an iced latte. That became my first sketch of the day. The green object on the right is my framing gun. I don’t know how I ever lived without that!
I framed ten paintings today for the Buone Feste Show at the River Winds Gallery in Beacon, NY. The opening is Saturday, November 11 from 5-8pm, and you’re all invited! It is a holiday gift show of fine arts combined with handmade crafts by local artisans. The show runs through January 8, so please stop by if you have a chance. Maybe you’ll find something there for that special someone on your holiday gift list. They’ll even gift wrap it for you!
SOLD! Please email me at JamieWG@aol.com to inquire about a similar painting.
5 x 7″, Oils on sealed, primed hardboard, unframed
I was totally enchanted with this backlit tree along the path around Swan Lake, in the Rockefeller State Park Preserve. Although I was unable to capture it the way I wanted to on location, reworking the painting in the studio gave me just what I was looking for!
$250.00 plus $15 shipping and insurance within the Continental United States. For local sales, shipping charge will be allocated to NYS Sales Tax. Please email me at JamieWG@aol.com for International purchases or with any questions.
What a fabulous, warm fall day to spend along the shores of the Hudson River! The Brass Anchor is a lovely restaurant in Poughkeepsie right on the river, with a marina. It has a spectacular river vista, great food, and the owner is very kind about allowing some artists to paint there. There is a juried art show always ongoing, curated by Virginia Donovan, one of the owners of the River Winds Gallery. The restaurant closes for the winter, so today was the last day to empty the walls. I didn’t want to miss the opportunity to paint the view on this gorgeous day, so I arrived a few hours early to get some plein air work done before collecting my paintings.
Below is a picture of the painting and the scene. I seem to like painting in parking lots. *big grin* When painting on a small panel with a large french easel, it’s easier to secure the panel to a larger panel with tape on the back. That not only enables me to paint all the way to the edges, but also by turning the easel, I can shield my palette from the sun! That little blue-grey hut is the harbormaster’s hangout, and you can purchase sodas and ice there.
I really wanted to paint this scene 16×20. The fall colors were so gorgeous that they seemed deserving of a larger format, but time was short. Perhaps I’ll do a larger version in the studio someday.
After a delicious lunch with a friend, I came home to find a message on my answering machine from Putnam Arts Council, offering me an invitational show. It looks like I’ll have their large gallery to hang my paintings during the time of their annual craft sale…..and that starts in just a month! To say I’m ecstatic would be an understatement. I’ll have three other shows going on simultaneously plus my paintings at The Paint Box down in Bedford Hills. I’ll post info on all of them soon.
$115.00 plus $10 shipping and insurance within the Continental United States. For local sales, shipping charge will be allocated to NYS Sales Tax. Please email me at JamieWG@aol.com for International purchases or with any questions.
7 x 5″, Gouache on 100% rag paper, unframed
I was gallery sitting at the Belle Levine Gallery today. A different show was up this time. Sculptor Paul Yarden had a beautiful piece close to one of my paintings, so I took a seat nearby and painted them together. (In reality, there would be another painting in between them, but I soooo wanted to do a vertical format! His sculpture is titled Torso D, and my painting is Winter Stroll. Painting while gallery sitting makes the time go so quickly. A couple of the artists stopped in too, so it was nice to see some familiar faces and meet some new ones.
5 x 7″, Oils on canvas covered hardboard
SOLD! Please email me at JamieWG@aol.com to inquire about a similar painting.
Fall Reflections was painted from a photo I took at Muscoot Farm in Somers, NY. I’m mainly a plein air painter and haven’t worked much from pictures, but I take photos wherever I go to paint. Over the years, I’ve accumulated thousands of photos that I have yet to paint from! It’s been fun to dig some of them out at last, and paint the scenes I envisioned on canvas years ago, but never got around to painting. I’ve always wanted to do a painting that featured reflections like this, with fall leaves floating on the top of the water. This was a lot of fun to paint, and I’m eager to have a go at a similar subject en plein air soon, perhaps at the brook behind my house.
When I work from photos, I prefer to paint directly off the computer screen, rather than printing them out. The color is much better, and I can crop the image, move it around, enlarge and reduce at will. I can even rotate both the image on the screen and the painting, and work on them both upside down! Here is my initial setup. You can see that I secured the small canvas board to a larger board to make it easier to work with. That way, I can hold the board in my hand, paint right to the edges, and rotate it easily. The canvas is toned a greyed violet, since I saw that as the optimum background for this particular painting. I added a touch of liquin and used an alkyd white to get it to tack up a little faster, knowing I’d want to do a lot of layering alla prima for this painting.
I selected just four colors for this piece (though additional colors are on the palette). I used cadmium yellow lemon, cadmium red medium, ultramarine blue deep, and transparent red oxide, plus of course titanium white. I blocked in the reflections and placement of the grasses, and worked that stage until it was completely finished.
Here’s another image of the still-incomplete painting. After the colors were down, I swept a brush side to side to show movement in the water. Most of the work with the reflections and color was then complete:
Once the painting was at the stage above, I let it set up for a half hour so the paint wouldn’t be so slippery, then went back and added in the leaves floating in the water, and the definition of the grasses at the top, tweaked it here and there, and signed it. Done!
SOLD! Please email me at JamieWG@aol.com to inquire about a similar painting.
5 x 7″, Oils on canvas covered hardboard, unframed
I love this little copper and brass watering can. I got it in a thrift shop, browsing for still life items several years ago. Its unusual shape and shimmer make it one of my favorite still life pieces. I don’t think I’ve painted it for a couple of years, so it’s nice for me to explore it with brushes again.
SOLD! Please email me at JamieWG@aol.com to inquire about a similar painting.
7 x 5″, Oils on canvas covered hardboard
This painting was done from a photograph taken the same evening as the miniature painting I did yesterday. This woman was walking her dog, and came around the bend just as I was snapping the shutter. I told her it was perfect timing. She thought I meant that she’d ruined my photo, but I assured her that the backlit figures of her and her dog would make an ideal focal point! It was a warm fall evening, and she remarked how after 30 years of living in this area, she realizes how fortunate we are to have walks along the Hudson in that amazing light and tranquility.
I wish I could get far enough ahead on the daily paintings to be able to photograph my work when it’s dry, instead of when it’s wet and shiny, throwing glare all over the painting as well as altering colors and contrasts. This painting looks so much better in person, and I know I’ll be able to get a better image of it once it’s dry!
$50.00 plus free shipping and insurance within the Continental United States. For local sales, shipping charge will be allocated to NYS Sales Tax. Please email me at JamieWG@aol.com for International purchases or with any questions.
2.5 x 3.5″, Oils on Canvas mounted to 100% rag paper, unframed
Here’s yet another miniature painting. I really enjoy doing these, so on days when I don’t have time to do a larger painting, they’re an ideal format. This one was done from a photo I took a couple of nights ago while chasing the sunset from one location to another by the Hudson River. It was a beautiful fall evening, with lots of folks out enjoying the unseasonably warm fall weather that night.
SOLD! Please email me at JamieWG@aol.com to inquire about a similar painting.
2.5×3.5″, Oils on primed acid free matboard
It’s another wee painting off my brushes! This one is ACEO trading card size, 2.5×3.5″. It was painted from a photo taken by Deb Leger. (Thank you, Deb!)
In the art world, ACEO stands for Artist Cards Editions and Originals. They are collectible paintings in a standard, miniature format. The size is 2.5×3.5″, like baseball cards and playing cards. They are so much fun to paint and collect that every so often I do a few of them. Some artists sell prints of paintings in that size as ACEOs, but mine are always one-of-a-kind originals. ACEOs are truly fun to collect for those who love art. Everybody can find a place for these little gems, and they are reasonably priced. It’s an easy and relatively inexpensive way to acquire work from some favorite artists.
$115.00 plus $10 shipping and insurance within the Continental United States. For local sales, shipping charge will be allocated to NYS Sales Tax. Please email me at JamieWG@aol.com for International purchases or with any questions.
5 x 7″, Oils on canvas covered hardboard, unframed
For the setup-pic-lovers among you, here’s a photo below of the still life with the compositional placement of the painting. I usually do a painting in three stages. The first is the setup of the items and the basic positioning of them on the canvas. Because the gourds are such a warm color, I use transparent red oxide to sketch in the forms.
Once I have the placement set, I start putting in color for Phase 2, getting in the lights and darks and covering the canvas.
Once that stage is done, I take a short break to get my eyes off the subject for a few minutes, usually with a cup of tea and a browse on www.wetcanvas.com. When I come back to it, I do a check of each item, adjusting shadows, adding highlights, and putting in reflected color, plus pushing the lights and darks a little more.
$115.00 plus $10 shipping and insurance within the Continental United States. For local sales, shipping charge will be allocated to NYS Sales Tax. Please email me at JamieWG@aol.com for International purchases or with any questions.
I think I’ll be painting these gourds from life until they rot and die! This is #3 in the Having Fun With Gourds series. I’m still putting those carnations to use too.
$30.00 plus free shipping and insurance within the Continental United States. For local sales, shipping charge will be allocated to NYS Sales Tax. Please email me at JamieWG@aol.com for International purchases or with any questions.
This image is posted at about the actual size of this tiny painting. I painted this today during this weekend’s WDE (Weekend Drawing/Painting Event) at www.wetcanvas.com. For those not familiar with the WDEs, the host of the week posts 16 images for artists to work from. This week’s host is Deb Leger. I took her sunset image, cropped it, changed some of the cloud formations to better fit the composition, and added a background land mass and water from my imagination.
In the art world, ACEO stands for Artist Cards Editions and Originals. They are collectible paintings in a standard, miniature format. The size is 2.5×3.5″, like baseball cards and playing cards. They are so much fun to paint and collect that every so often I do a few of them. Some artists sell prints of paintings in that size as ACEOs, but mine are always one-of-a-kind originals. ACEOs are truly fun to collect for those who love art. Everybody can find a place for these little gems, and they are reasonably priced. It’s an easy and relatively inexpensive way to acquire work from some favorite artists.
SOLD! Please email me at JamieWG@aol.com to inquire about a similar painting.
5×7″, Gouache on Fabriano Artistico HP
Today was the bi-annual Artists on Location day in Garrison, NY. 85 artists contribute paintings to be auctioned at the Garrison Art Center. Most submit paintings for the silent auction only, but plein air painters can also go out today and paint on location, return by 3pm with their framed plein air paintings, and have those in a live auction in the evening.
I arrived at 8:30 am and submitted a painting for the silent auction, then drove to a nearby location to paint along the Hudson River. It was freezing cold out! Wimp that I am, I painted this 5×7 from inside my car parked at the scene, took some photos of it, put it into a frame, took another pic of it framed, and delivered it back to the gallery at the art center.
Unfortunately, my camera jammed. The only photo that downloaded was this one of the painting framed behind glass, with all the glare and reflections that entails. You can even see the image of the camera reflecting in the painting. Grrrr! I hate it when that happens!
$115.00 plus $10 shipping and insurance within the Continental United States. For local sales, shipping charge will be allocated to NYS Sales Tax. Please email me at JamieWG@aol.com for International purchases or with any questions.
5 x 7″, Oils on canvas covered hardboard, unframed
These are just proving to be way too much fun to be legal! My palette was a little more limited this time. I used Cadmium yellow pale, Cadmium Yellow Medium, Cadmium Red, Transparent Red Oxide, and Ultramarine Deep, plus titanium white of course. I made the ultramarine paint myself, and this was by far the best batch I ever made. Yummmm!
Everybody seems to like setup photos and to see work in progress, so I’ve included a couple more images below. The first one shows my still life setup plus the basic block-in of the composition, done using just transparent red oxide to position the elements on the canvas before going in with full color.
After that, I got carried away and didn’t stop until I was almost finished. Here’s the update pic with the setup, just shy of being completed. There were still some highlights, reflected light, deepening of some shadow areas, and overall tweaking here and there remaining to be done:
I haven’t decided yet what I’ll do for another encore, but these little guys are just so cute…I’m sure I’ll come up with something!
$100.00 plus free shipping and insurance within the Continental United States. For local sales, shipping charge will be allocated to NYS Sales Tax. Please email me at JamieWG@aol.com for International purchases or with any questions.
The fall light was so gorgeous early in the morning. The dark backdrop of trees showcased the foreground birches. I just had to stop right there to capture the moment in paint.
5 x 7″, Oils on canvas covered hardboard
sold
It was a spectacular fall day to be painting on a bluff above the Hudson. About six or seven of us from the Lower Hudson Valley Plein Air Painters were there enjoying what just might prove to be the last really warm day of fall. I’ve painted this Hudson River scene on location in just about every size in every season, but I don’t think I’ve ever done a 5×7 with this tree in it. So, here it is!
7×5″, Oils on canvas covered hardboard
Not For Sale
This is my little buddy Mango. He loves to swing on just about anything. Here he is on his playset swing out on the porch, doing what he does best. He’ll be a year old next week. Maybe I’ll have to do an annual portrait of him. Mango loves to sit on my shoulder in the studio, but he’s not allowed down there when I’m working in oils. This one is currently not for sale because…well….because he’s my lil baby! Besides, there are still one or two little things I need to tweak in the painting.
$125.00 plus $10 shipping and insurance within the Continental United States. For local sales, shipping charge will be allocated to NYS Sales Tax. Please email me at JamieWG@aol.com for International purchases or with any questions.
I dropped my daughter off for physical therapy and was going to paint at a nearby park, but when I saw the color of the trees in the parking lot, I stopped right in my tracks and painted there instead!
5 x 7″, Oils on canvas covered hardboard, unframed
$115.00 plus $10 shipping and insurance within the Continental United States. For local sales, shipping charge will be allocated to NYS Sales Tax. Please email me at JamieWG@aol.com for International purchases or with any questions.
Another beautiful sunrise to paint on location! All the mornings have been like this lately, with dense fog over Peach Lake, which burns off as the sun comes up.
$115.00 plus $15 shipping and insurance within the Continental United States. For local sales, shipping charge will be allocated to NYS Sales Tax. Please email me at JamieWG@aol.com for International purchases or with any questions.
I met with my friend Sue to paint at the lakeshore this morning. The lake was covered with a thick morning fog, so I went inside for more coffee and returned as the remaining haze started to burn off. The trees were crisp and brilliant, with strong contrasts, and the remaining fog blanketed the background over the lake, partially obscuring the far shore. What a sight. Then I realized that I’d forgotten to bring my oil painting pochade box. I didn’t feel like setting up a big french easel for a small painting, so I pulled out my gouache box which I happened to have with me, and painted in gouache instead.
Every time I paint in gouache I wonder why I don’t do it more often. I adore this medium. It has the blendability/opacity benefits of oils, with the water solubility of watercolor, the crispness of acrylic, and the archival characteristics of the very best art mediums (if one chooses their pigments carefully, which I always do). It dries quickly to a nice, matt finish so it’s easy to photograph, can be sent out immediately, and is simple to frame.
SOLD! Please email me at JamieWG@aol.com to inquire about a similar painting.
5 x 7″, Oils on canvas covered hardboard
I’m fortunate enough to live on a lake, and ran out to paint a quick sunset with a painting friend from out of town. There was goldenrod blooming all over the shoreline (which, by the way, I seem to be allergic to)! Tomorrow morning I’m supposed to paint the sunrise with another friend. We’ll see if I can haul myself out of bed early enough on a weekend!
Please email me if you are interested in this painting.
3 x 2″, Casein on illustration board, framed
This darling cobalt blue vase has appeared in many of my paintings. This is a teeny tiny mini, painted from life. It’s just 3″ x 2″, perfect for a tabletop, and comes with the frame shown, which has an easel back to stand it up on your favorite side table, coffee table or dresser.
Orange Tree at Boscobel
2.5 x 3.5″, oils on unstretched canvas
In the art world, ACEO stands for Artist Cards Editions and Originals. They are collectible paintings in a standard, miniature format. The size is 2.5×3.5″, like baseball cards and playing cards. They are so much fun to paint and collect that every so often I do a few of them. Some artists sell prints of paintings in that size as ACEOs, but mine are always one-of-a-kind originals. ACEOs are truly fun to collect for those who love art. Everybody can find a place for these little gems, and they are reasonably priced. It’s an easy way to collect work from some favorite artists.
This tiny painting is of one of my favorite views overlooking Constitution Marsh from Boscobel Restoration in Garrison, NY. The marsh along the Hudson River is ablaze with color in fall, and this tree at the edge of the overview site is always stunning this time of year. I’ve painted the fall marsh there in just about every size over the years, up to 24×36″.
SOLD! Please email me at JamieWG@aol.com to inquire about a similar painting.
7×5″, gouache on hot press watercolor paper
I feel so fortunate as an artist to live on a lake where I can just walk outside to paint or take photos. This was painted this morning from a photo I took while out for an evening stroll with my husband.
SOLD! Please email me at JamieWG@aol.com to inquire about a similar painting.
5×7, gouache on hot press watercolor paper
Saint Basil Academy is a home to children in need, where they are nurtured to adulthood on the gorgeous property overlooking the Hudson River opposite West Point. They kindly allow me to paint there on location, but this painting was done from a photograph that I took there last fall. The property has an amazing history; a former owner had a zoo there! Some of the old buildings are absolutely gorgeous. I’ve started painting those too.
$115.00 plus $10 shipping and insurance within the Continental United States. For local sales, shipping charge will be allocated to NYS Sales Tax. Please email me at JamieWG@aol.com for International purchases or with any questions.
I love painting white objects on a colored surface, catching the reflected color and playing lost and found with edges. I had a lot of trouble getting a decent photo of this painting. There’s some glare in the background, and the background is reading as black rather than the deep purple present in the painting.
$125.00 plus $10 shipping and insurance within the Continental United States. For local sales, shipping charge will be allocated to NYS Sales Tax. Please email me at JamieWG@aol.com for International purchases or with any questions.
This small oil painting was begun on location at a nature preserve adjacent to Playland Amusement Park in Rye, NY, and finished up in the studio today. This was a day to do some quick sketches and reorganize the studio a bit. Once winter hits, I’ll be working in here most of the time. I’ll take some photos soon and post a studio tour here, so you can all come visit!
Tonight is the opening of my show at Putnam Arts Council’s Belle Levine Gallery. ‘Hope to see some of you there!
$440.00 plus $20 shipping and insurance within the Continental United States. For local sales, shipping charge will be allocated to NYS Sales Tax. Please email me at JamieWG@aol.com for International purchases or with any questions.
St. Basil’s Academy is a residential facility for children that overlooks the Hudson River. They are having a fundraiser at the end of September, so I’ve been doing some paintings here to make some sets of note cards for them to sell at the fundraiser and hopefully after as well. This morning the light was spectacular, with the fall color just emerging and the moon still visible in the western sky.
SOLD! Please email me at JamieWG@aol.com to inquire about a similar painting.
8×16″, oils on canvas covered hardboard, framed
This was painted on location along the Hudson River shoreline in Hyde Park, NY. The sky was clear, so there were no brightly colored clouds at sunset, but the strong light dramatically lit the trees and foreground.
9×12″, Pastel on sanded archival paper, unframed
$325.00 plus $15 shipping and insurance within the Continental United States. For local sales, shipping charge will be allocated to NYS Sales Tax. Please email me at JamieWG@aol.com for International purchases or with any questions.
I loved the look of the sun hitting the boats turned upside down along the shoreline. I moved my easel close to them and painted in the midday sun. Oops—I forgot the sunscreen. Fortunately I had a hat on, but the rest of me caught some pretty strong rays. Hopefully the painting was worth it!
12×9″, pastel on sanded archival paper, unframed
SOLD! Please email me at JamieWG@aol.com to inquire about a similar painting.
Good day, sunshine! What a beautiful morning out by the lake. I needed to capture the ‘big sky’ view of the surroundings.
10×8″, pastel on archival sanded paper, unframed
$250.00 plus $15 shipping and insurance within the Continental United States. For local sales, shipping charge will be allocated to NYS Sales Tax. Please email me at JamieWG@aol.com for International purchases or with any questions.
It was my daughter’s first day of school! That meant that I was free to paint by around 7am! I was test driving a new pastel setup, so stayed home by the lake. It was a heavily overcast, dark morning, but I was so excited about finally having a chance to get outside with pastels that nothing was going to deter me; I’d just paint the fog. Once I got set up, I realized I forgot the pastel paper. It’s a good thing I’d stayed close to home!
16×20, oils
I planted sunflowers in my fenced garden this year because they are such fabulous painting subjects, but the deer always ate them when I didn’t have them fenced. I didn’t stake them, however, and they got knocked over in a storm. I did the next best thing and bought a bouquet of them over the weekend. I finally got around to arranging them in a cobalt vase and painting them.
This painting is awaiting a few more tweaks, so is not yet available. I’ll repost when I consider it finished!
SOLD! Please email me at JamieWG@aol.com to inquire about a similar painting.
5×7″, Gouache on hot press watercolor paper
Bannerman’s Island is supposedly haunted, treacherous to reach by boat due to strong currents, and covered with poison ivy. Although it is off limits to the general public, that description makes you wonder why anybody would want to go there anyway! The island has a fascinating history, and the last owner built a huge armory castle along the shoreline, with a residence castle at the peak of the island. He began constructing towers in the water to form a grand entrace, and sunk all kinds of debris around the perimeter to deter trespassers. A huge fire gutted the structures. Some of them are held up only by the poison ivy vines growing up the sides.
You can imagine the thrill I got when I was asked to go by boat out to the island to do a painting for an auction to benefit Bannerman Castle Trust, the organization charged with renovating the exquisite structures. I jumped at the chance. I took some pictures along the way, knowing that painting there on location was not something I’d be able to do again very soon!
I had hoped to return to paint there again this year, but wasn’t able to arrange the date. This is a small gouache painting on Arches hot press watercolor paper, done from one of those photos I took on my expedition.
Welcome to my life as an artist in the beautiful Hudson Valley of New York State. Here you’ll find images of my newest works, along with tales of the trials and tribulations of creation, links to purchase, painting demonstrations, and details of the shows and galleries that feature my paintings.