Now Here's A Landscape

   

Vincent Van Gogh's "Landscape With House and Ploughman," 1889. I finished the puzzle this morning.

Over the weekend, I found a new iPad app to amuse myself and sharpen my eye. It's called Puzzles. I, of course, chose the art series. I had my choice of numbers of pieces. Being new to the app, I chose to work Vincent's marvelous landscape in 42 pieces. With each painting, they give you a little history. Vincent painted this among others a year before he shot himself in the chest and died two days later. He was despondent that his paintings didn't sell and he was living off of Theo.  His despair or shame is not evident in his work. I see rather strength and determination.

I figure this will be a fun app on the beach in between observing the crowds and photographing or painting unaware sunbathers for future painting references. In Mexico, hotel Internet, free and otherwise, goes down in the afternoons roughly between one and four. Only apps like these work.

Halfway There, oil, 11" x 9", March 2013

The trip is weeks away, but I am really anticipating it. I fully expect to be myself by the time we arrive at the airport.  The trick to a full recovery is to keep pushing that limb to move . As my PT sessions wind down, I initiated LWR's  personal physical therapy program to take up the slack and made great strides Sunday, pun intended. I walked twice around the cul-de-sac and up to the second fire hydrant. I have no idea how far that is, just that it is ten steps away from the left turn down a grassy knoll to the pathway that leads to our boat dock--a point about halfway there. By Spring, I should be all the way to the dock and back if I can keep my resolve through chilling winds and icy snow? This little landscape isn't as colorful or imaginative as Vincent's, but its painter has the same determination and drive--she just needs a more off the wall viewpoint. Vincent was off the wall enough to really push the colors splendidly.  

Peinture en Plein Air

Olive Stand, charcoal, 18 x 24"

--for the very first time this year. Actually, I was really investigating how my watercolor easel would do outdoors.

Poplar Stand, charcoal
Painted in 1986, plein air in my last backyard.

Not being made out of wood, as the plein air easel, it is impervious to weather and can probably remain conveniently outdoors through out the summer?  It's also collapsible, has a carrying case, is light weight,  sets up in minutes, easily adjustable, holds cavanses up to 36" high and wide and can be positioned horizontal to the ground for wet into wet  painting--acrylic or watercolor. I chose charcoal for my first outdoor excursion for its facility. My tabour was my side table on the patio.

 I had a wonderful time in the sun and made a note to slather sunscreen straight out of the shower in the future.  My yard is so full of  intriguing vistas, it should satisfy my first season painting outdoors--unless I get an urge to travel down to the lake, then the plein air easel will make the trip.

DISCOVERY:  indoors or outdoor, I cannot sit while painting. I am always on the move back and forth scruitinizing.  Consequently, two hour sessions seem to be my limit. Any time longer and I'm icing my legs all evening. Oh to be forty five again when Poplar Stand was painted with more stamina and more finesse.

Wildfire

Wildfire, 36 x 36", acrylics, in progress once again.

I got out my acrylics for the first time in months, maybe a year?  This painting was the perfect painting to jump into the day before surgery, ( Mark upon mark, color upon color, I could do no wrong. With a painting like this, you just let your self go and respond to  the reference photo--which is actually a rather sedate landscape  with normal landscape colors--sap green, olive--I don't need to tell you. It's a continuous drawing experience. Though it looks done, it isn't.  All the intensity I feel towards the Fall season, (which I do not welcome; it precedes winter) is not there yet. I haven't found the cohesive gray yet. This will be like Summer Shade, a painting that builds over time till I say, yes, that's it.  Landscapes, more about feelings than depicting a scene, provide  perfect balance to the more demanding genre, portraiture. 

UPDATE: it's the day after surgery. My knee is great. The rest of me is hung over. The saline solution they mix the anesthetics in nearly killed me. Saline is salt. Salt in such large quantities sets off my chronic vertigo. Ellis and I didn't talk about this with the anesthesia doctor and he didn't catch it when we were talking about the drugs I take to control the vertigo. The overdose led to a horrible day. Lots of nausea, dizziness and headache.

Today I' m on the mend. Still dizzy, but not nauseous. No energy for drawing, though;I'm hoping later. That will be a sign that I'm on the mend.Meanwhile, my knee is incidental. I'm hardly noticing it. Ellis is one fantastic guy. In spite of my sometimes very annoying personality, he cares enough to stick around and learn how to make my oatmeal. Now he can make bagel, lox and cream cheese sandwiches, old fashioned oatmeal and add noodles to chicken/ matzoh ball soup.His culinary skills are expanding. Next: scrambled eggs. He's my honey. I'm his baby. I'm never going to let him go.