Again and Again

When I began art making in in 2006, I entertained a short period of thinking each rendering had to be of a different subject.  But I quickly realized how silly that was, having had some exposure to art history in college.  Didn’t Monet do a lot of haystacks?  And lilies?

And how about Degas with his ballerinas?  Winslow Homer at sea?  Not to mention (but I will) Georgia O’Keeffe with her massive flowers and striking New Mexico scenes.  Not that I am placing myself on a level with the above, but rather to simply say it is good to paint favorite subjects again and again.  Each work will differ from its predecessor, and there is infinite variety possible via palette, season, details, mood, and the list goes on.  Again and again.

I like to do waterfalls, ships in peril (I don’t want to BE on one, just to paint it), trees waving in the wind, adobe structures, gardens, bowls of fruit—and pots, pitchers, bottles, and jars often in the setting of a windowsill.  There is something about the bones of structure, even in the evanescent ideas I like to present.

At the top of the page you see what is one of my very first attempts at watercolor.  In a book, I’d found a repro of a painting by Fine Artist Jeanne Dobie, where she portrayed bottles in a window not by painting the bottles themselves but rather through showing the liquid color contents of the bottles surrounded by white paper representing light.  Pretty leaky bottles (mine—Jeanne’s were stunning).  But that was 2006 and it was what it was.

The next one down is a quick colored pencil sketch through the window of a rented condo in Santa Fe NM, where we spent a wonderful Easter week with our son, Karl, and his family in 2008.  The NM scene is followed by three more window bits with stuff in the windows, then followed by an albeit primitive and super child-like rendering of Milwaukee’s South Side as viewed through a lobby window at St Luke’s Hospital where my husband was undergoing cardiac care.  That painting, as odd as it is, is close to my heart because of the stressful time it represents in our family.  Painting IS therapeutic!

The domes of Milwaukee’s South Side, historically Polish and Serbian, are followed by a 2013 window scene—getting just a little bit more presentable.  Then comes a 2016 scene which I like a lot.  The print doesn’t do the painting justice, as in real life the colors and shine are noteworthy—and so is the real life size, which is 20″ x 24″.  I like wet, blurry effect, which was achieved with Gum Arabic.  (I tend to get that name mixed up with what I put in my gluten-free baking:  Xanthum Gum.  I hope I don’t get the gums mixed up in the cookies!))

One more of blurry bottles.  I like the frayed and fringy effect in the yellow/purple on the right side—produced by wet color introduced alongside another, slightly drying paint.  This works best on wet paper, and I love it even though it drives some watercolorists crazy.

And finally, the 12″ x 16″ pictured below is my very latest studio creation.  The wood on the window was textured by dropping Winsor & Newton Texture Medium onto the wet paint with a pipette or medicine dropper—one more tool of the trade available with acrylic ink bottles, or from your local pharmacist.

Since I will probably go on doing window scenes, along with Peril at Sea, etc., I am covering the latest in this series with one name, “Dans la Fenêtre”—because I am besotted with the FRENCH LANGUAGE (in which my proficiency is nearly zero on a scale from one to ten.  🙂

Margaret L. Been — March 18, 2018

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It’s not what it is . . . .

Awhile back I overheard an hilarious comment made by my husband, Joe, when he was on the phone with his cousin, Tom in Minnesota.  Joe was catching Tom up on our lifestyle, and he said:  “Margaret paints a lot but she doesn’t paint what it is.”  Too funny, and so true!

A few days later, a ten year old great-granddaughter, Brynn, was visiting.  She sat at our dining room table, gazed around at the walls, and then remarked to me:  “Your paintings are beautiful.  If someone would tell me what they are I’d think they were even more beautiful!”  Too precious!

Yes, I love abstract art with perhaps just a little hint at “what it is”:  out-of-focus renderings with no consideration of accurate representation or correct perspective.  I’ll share an obvious secret with you: I cannot draw worth a hoot, so the above descriptions of my efforts are accurate and all I can successfully do.  My trump card is COLOR and I am delighted to be able to manage that!

But also, the fuzzy/blurry/far-out kind of art is exactly what I like in our home—with a few exceptions:  my friend, Janet Roberts’s*  large, drop-dead-gorgeous, realistic oil paintings which Joe and I are privileged to own and display; some 19th century tinted family photographs in exquisite antique frames; a slew of wild-west prints culled from antique shops and  yard sales; and plenty of current family photos.

I love it when someone asks me what I had in mind with a specific painting.  Sometimes, not much I’ll admit.  But other times I’m thinking of something in the process.  The above sample incorporates my nostalgia for the campfires we had every April through September when we lived on a lake in the wild Wisconsin northwoods.

I painted the campfire as a raging inferno, with good reason:  I was recalling a friend who visited and insisted on throwing huge fallen branches and loads of birch bark in the fire pit while causing Joe and me to hold our breath in astonishment and a bit of concern.  But we had a hose handy and never needed to use it.  “Thank you, Lord!”

Here are some more “not what it is” paintings: 

1) Outside the small cathedral where our granddaughter, Jamie, and her Leonardo were married on an unbelievably perfect September day in 2013:  For me, the main things to convey were the autumn sunshine, the Norman architecture of St. John’s Northwest Military Academy Cathedral, and the red door which—on Episcopal Churches—symbolizes the shed blood of our Savior on Calvary.  ⇓

2)  An imaginary glimpse at city life at its creative best—with plenty of planting against walls and in courtyards, and many islands of greenery:  Years ago Joe and I toured the countryside in England, Scotland, and Wales—staying on sheep farms and basking in the goodness of it all.  On our last day in Britain, we stayed in the country near Gatwick Airport, and took a train from Dorking to London.  All the way into the city I marveled at back yards viewed from the train—nearly every one with a welcoming little garden and garden shed. 

Such a garden-oriented city culture is wonderful to me!  There may be many in the USA as well, but the only such cities I have visited are San Francisco CA and Bellingham WA.  Maybe due to our local climate, year-around city beauty is hard to find in Midwest USA.  Yet Britain has long been especially known for gardening passion. ⇓

A not-so-obscure image of one of my favorite states, New Mexico—where terra-cotta, turquois, and coral colors predominate and the air is redolent with the fragrance of piñon pines:  ⇓

Here is a collage which I did several years ago, while dreaming of the Japanese Tea Garden in San Francisco—in line with the previously depicted “creative garden city” rendering:  ⇓

One of my favorite high school memories is that of performing in the chorus of Gilbert and Sullivan’s H.M.S. Pinafore.  Forever, Little Buttercup’s solo, “Things are seldom what they seem; skim milk masquerades as cream . . . .” will ring in my ears.  That’s the case with my art.  It’s not what it is!  🙂

Margaret L. Been — June 3rd, 2017 

*For a treat, you can GOOGLE “Janet Roberts, Fine Artist, Brookfield Wisconsin.

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“Plein air” via literature . . . .

I am greatly blessed with the gift of a visual mind.  When I read, the scenes described in a book loom large before my eyes in living color.  Although I dearly love words, it’s actually the pictures which words evoke that thrill me—or terrify me, whatever the subject of the text may be.  Plot and character development are “biggies” in successful fiction, but for me it is a sense of place and the scenery which rise up larger than life.  I’m perfectly happy with a virtually plot-less novel and one with few characters, if the book abounds in adjectives and adverbs which delineate a scene so vividly that I think I am really there—en plein air!

Visually oriented people are tremendously contented with being “armchair travelers”.  I can take extensive voyages, pilgrimages, and treks anywhere in the world—all from the comfort of my sofa or my “read in bed” 1/2 armchair which serves as a sit-up pillow.  (What an economical way to go!!! 🙂 )

One of my favorite American recent writers is Louis L’Amour.  Yes, Louis was tremendously skillful at plotting, and his characters are amazingly individualistic—never the fare of “canned” formula fiction.  But most of all, I love this author for his painterly writing.  And he is my first assignment in my self-programmed Autumn Painting Agenda of painting en plein air via literature.  With words before me, I can pick up my brush and render my take on the scene described.

The above watercolor on Arches (pronounced “ARSH”—it’s French) 140 lb. cold press paper was inspired by the following description in Louis L’Amour’s SACKETT BRAND:  “The sun was just below the horizon and the red rock cliffs were weirdly lit.  Out of the west a tiny puff of dust lifted, grew, and became a fast running horse.”

I’m very excited about painting passages of literature.  Additional Louis L’Amour scenes may be forthcoming, plus quotes from painterly poems—including my own poems.  From long before I found the courage to pick up a paint brush—in fact for most of my life since early childhood—I have happily painted with words.

Margaret L. Been, 2013

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The Places We Love

I have never been able to appreciate the dilemma of individuals who say, “I’d like to write, but don’t know what to write about.”  My answer is, “You have a life!  So write your life!  Write about the people and places you love!”

Over the last six years, since I began painting, I’ve often recalled my own advice!  Although I’d love to paint the people I love, alas.  My skills are inadequate, at least at this point.  But I can, have, and continually do paint the places I love.

You will recognize the above paintings as representative of “Out West”.  That region of our nation is dear to my heart— especially Colorado (my “second home”), plus New Mexico and Northern Arizona (my “adopted second homes”).

Next you will see glimpses of a part of my actual lifelong home, known to most Wisconsinites as “Up North”:

And here is my current home in Southern Wisconsin. ↓ These renderings were inspired by life inside and outdoors in our beloved Nashotah:

So there you have it.  I’ll never run out of excitement over the places I love—past and present!  And “future” is going to be the most exciting of all!  But my finite mind cannot begin to comprehend how to depict the new Heaven and earth!  I’ll just have to wait and see!  🙂

Margaret L. Been, ©2012

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Variations on a Theme

Variations on a theme can apply to more than music.  Here ↑ is a southwestern scene which I made with Elegant Writer® pens, on 140# greeting card paper—specifically for water media art.  You write with the pen, and then go over the lines with a damp paint brush and wonderful things happen.

Then I ran the scanned and filed picture through a couple of different options on my HOME PHOTO STUDIO® program, an economically priced alternative to PHOTO SHOP®.  Voilà!  Variations on a theme.  ↓

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A Surrogate Trip

This is the time of year when we’ve occasionally gone to New Mexico in the past.  I am traveling in my mind, and my paintbrush follows—all the way to Santa Fe.

Margaret L. Been, ©2012

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