New Fenway Painting

This is a new Fenway oil I just finished. It is more a Kenmore Square motif than a strict ballpark picture. But I am really feeling like the neighborhood around the park is becoming an extension of it.

I really like a lot of the ownership and neighborhood business’s additions.

This new painting is being exhibited and made available at Trees Place, Orleans Ma. And it’s not much of a stretch to admit I have done more Fenway Park paintings than anyone else ever. It’s been a great changing motif for me since my first Lansdowne Street attempt in 1986.

I am having an opening at Trees Place this Labor Day weekend and this painting among other new urban paintings will be available.

This “Boston Skyline, Kenmore Square” oil is 36×48″ o/c. It’s so fresh it is still wet.

For more information: www.Treesplace.com

www.Fenwayart.com

Go Sox

Hyannisport Artists

Today I was able to bring my students to MY teachers studio.

My generous teacher Sam Barber shared his waterfront property with the class, painted with them and handed out cold cans of beer for the critique after.

This day spent by the ocean in Hyannisport, a beautiful August day like today. Breezy, sunny, Kennedy’s everywhere.

He is not teaching anymore but was happy to see my students this once and let them paint on his gracious grounds. Outstanding beauty. Potted plants and statues silhouetting against the sailboats. I had all my students walk around and take photos before they take their supplies out of the car.

I only heard one “I didn’t bring my camera” and one “I don’t know how to use my camera”. If you forget your camera on a day like today it is a great loss.

There are many motifs, too many for just one afternoon. That is why the camera is so important. They were a little overwhelmed trying to decide where to set up and what to paint. But they all did a good job covering the canvas and getting a study down in the two hours there.

Please check out Sam Barbers work at www.Sambarber.com or www.Treesplace.com

That is my last class this month. Starting a new “on location” eight week class- September 19, 2008, please call the Conservatory 508-362-2772 for inquiries. Thank you.

The Marble Palette

It took two hours of scraping to get the old paint off my marble palette. The paint had to be two years old because I have been using a small glass palette in the studio for a couple years. The glass was too small and just not the best feel.

So I finally broke down last weekend and got out the putty knife and razors and took all that old paint off, colors left over from paintings long gone now. After a while I got down to the large marble surface. I even put it in my kitchen sink to wash it with soap and water for the final cleansing.

Yesterday morning I laid out my paints on the marble; light to dark;warm to cool across the top and began to mix the colors on the marble surface again.

What a difference.

Working oil paints and linseed oil on the marble is mixing your colors on a superior surface. There is a tooth to it. Mixing the oils actually makes a distinct sound on the smooth stone.

I will never use anything else in the studio again as my palette.

Contemporary Art Auctions

Are contemporary art auctions good news for living artists?

If I was a professional ballplayer, at my age, I would definitely be retired from hopefully a long career. But I am not. I am a professional artist, just hitting my stride, mid career, in my forties.

There has been a lot of talk about the auction scene on Cape Cod recently, especially about a recent painting at Eldreds Auction House in East Dennis, Ma. A painting had surfaced recently and put up for auction after being in the same family private collection for years. It brought big money and was highly sought after.

And this made me ponder the two small fifteen year old paintings of mine coming up for the Contemporary Art Auction there tonight, selling among many of my peers paintings. Artists I have painted with and show with.

I remember a few years back a conversation I had with a gallery sales woman about my paintings beginning to come up on Ebay and other online auction sites. That I was excited about this, and she looked at me funny like do you really think that is a good thing Loretta?

I don’t know if it’s a good thing, it just is.

It means your work is starting to take on a life of its own, away from your studio.

Fine Art changes hands.

Paintings are admired, bought, sold, and even stolen.

Paintings are moved. That is part of what art IS.

And to me it means I have been around long enough and produced enough good work to see my paintings be resold and begin to re-circulate.

But it also means I am beginning to compete with myself, the new paintings against the old paintings.

The paintings that pay my mortgage against the paintings my clients are hoping will now pay their mortgage.

It’s part of the deal.