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S.Weber

~ Traveler / Artist / Photographer / Observer

S.Weber

Tag Archives: painting

Works In Progress…

04 Friday Mar 2016

Posted by Susana Weber in Art, Caribbean, Nature, Painting, Pastels, still life, Travel ~ Photography/Art/Food/Culture, Uncategorized

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art, arts, landscape, nature, outdoors, painting, Pastels, rain, reflections, special place, St Martin, travel, tropical

Aren’t we all?!

Who said something about standing in the spring rain?

Oh, yeah… that would be me.
And here, it happens every day… faithfully. Everything reflecting in the lovely Italian marble floor… so beautiful, so… dangerous. I brought an old box of pastels, broken and worn. I used them years and years ago…I think. I’m so used to my soft pastels in the big box there was no hope of bringing along. So… the old box would do, of course!

Mistake.

I used these? Seriously.

They are the hardest, most frustrating materials. And…they won’t be returning to New England… they’ll be used up or buried on the island where no one will ever think of looking for them. A mystery one day when unearthed.

Until then… a reflective pool after a spring rain.

A work in progress.

After the Rain

After the rain – Pastel work in progress – approx 20×15

Collecting time…

03 Thursday Mar 2016

Posted by Susana Weber in Caribbean, Painting, still life, Travel, Uncategorized, watercolor

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art, arts, beach, Caribbean, painting, pebbles, St Martin, still live, texture, travel, watercolor

For all we really do is stand here

in a springtime rain and wonder if

time is passing by or we are passing

through time. Grasping every moment,

every drop, every breeze, every tick

of time. And do what we should do.

Beach pebbles - 12x9 watercolor

Beach pebbles – 14×10 watercolor

Unfinished but… delicious.

02 Wednesday Mar 2016

Posted by Susana Weber in Art, Caribbean, Food, Painting, still life, Travel, Uncategorized

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art, arts, food, painting, St Martin, still life, Susana Weber, texture, travel, vacation, watercolor

Are you done with those yet? The light isn’t right… it’s not going to be right today. Well… alrig__…. Hey!

Acacados - 12x9 watercolor

Avacados – 12×9 watercolor

 

The Accidental Artist

08 Monday Oct 2012

Posted by Susana Weber in Abstract Macro Photography, Art, Photography, Uncategorized

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abstract, accidental image, art, caribbean blues, close up, country life, decay, grunge, hidden picture, home, local characters, macro, macro photo, painting, peeling paint, photography, texture

The Rusty’s Truck Series

My friend Rusty comes over and hunts out in the woods… during bow season in the fall. When he’s not doing that… or hanging out at the local village store/coffee shop/post office in our little town with the other “guys in pick-up trucks”… he’s up on somebody’s roof. Rusty is an excellent roofer and his truck can be seen in all the best driveways around town.

Strange Sun

Strange Sun – Rusty’s truck series

A few weeks ago, his truck was parked in our driveway… along with a few others as we got some house and yard projects taken care of. Rusty was here putting up staging on the roof for our local house painter. His truck and all his ‘roofin’ stuff was parked under my studio window. I stood staring down at years and years worth of worn wood and metal and paint and welding and rust, and grunge and… well, I just had to record some of all that amazing beauty that was right under my nose… literally!!

Untitled 1

Untitled 1 – Rusty’s truck series

After some friendly teasing about about my taking pictures of his creative welding techniques and a few examples of what I was capturing from the back of the camera preview screen… he was pointing out areas that might be good subjects for a shot. Soon, both he and the house painter were directing my efforts, offering drop cloths and paint buckets as possible subjects.

So… even my friend Rusty is an artist and he doesn’t know it! I hope he enjoys the gallery of images from the “Rusty’s Truck” series.

Carib Sunset ~ Rusty's truck series

Carib Sunset – Rusty’s truck series

Surfs Edge – Rusty’s truck series

Untitled 2

Untitled 2 – Rusty’s truck series

Deep View

Deep View – Rusty’s truck series

A-B-N

A-B-N – Rusty’s truck series

Filling the empty canvas…

16 Sunday Sep 2012

Posted by Susana Weber in Art, Painting, Uncategorized

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art, arts, canvas, inspiration, intensity, painting, special place, St Martin, travel, vacation

The large white space has been knocking around this room and that one for longer that I remember… a 4 x 5 foot canvas… totally empty, that I bought for something that must have been in my mind years ago. Every now and then it would be in the way and it would get shuffled to the basement or the studio upstairs… or even used in the big window in the summer as a sun shade. Forgotten, it would sit in a corner… or behind a stack of frames where I’d eventually rediscover it. It’s accusatory white face gleaming at me… wanting to be painted and hung somewhere… anywhere. It developed a cut from something… a careless moment or pressure from some unkind frame or piece of orphaned glass leaning too close… Oops! so sorry… I hope it doesn’t hurt too much. A 4 inch gash 2 inches from one edge. Now that would have to be fixed before it could be painted… another delay!

Lucy's Snack Inspiration

Lucy’s Snack Inspiration

Several years ago… (God, this sounds awful!) I actually decided what I wanted to paint on the now spotted, fingerprinted and slashed white stretched surface. Vacationing in St Martin a few winters back, I took a photograph of a building whose orange color hurt the eyes to look at it… but, it changed the mood of the day to pass by it’s glowing walls! Everyone who walked in it’s presence looked outlined and “graphic”. One woman walked by in an outfit the same orange color. It was AWESOME! But, even though I could ‘see’ the finished painting in my mind… the start was still years away. Then……………………. I started.

Work in Progress in the photo studio... this thing is BIG!

Work in Progress in the photo studio… this thing is BIG!

The photo is fine for a photo but the painting in my head was a lot closer… a color-blocked composition with a figure walking through it. I rearranged the elements… sky, wall, roof, gate, sidewalk, street, figure… tighter and more focused… the elements becoming an abstract by themselves. Oh, and see that big hole on the right… yeah, gotta do something about that. I sketched the elements out and used a little fixative on the charcoal lines… then rough scrubbed in the blocks of color and values. Because this was so set in my mind, I felt there were few decisions that hadn’t been worked out even though I don’t remember thinking about it that much. I was just executing an already done painting. Weird… Next…

WIP 2

WIP 2

Things started picking up and I put an orange wash all over the figure and the sidewalk. Anything in front of the walls of Lucy’s Snack would glow! The under-painting let’s me work through what the values of the elements should be. I left off the iron gate because it would be easier to over-paint the wall instead of painting around the delicate lines. I really missed it as an element and couldn’t wait to get it back in.

WIP 3

WIP 3

I work on detailing some of the green metal roof, putting in a shadow for the figure on the wall and under-painting the clothing. The time of day is early morning just after sunrise with the sun low in the sky. This is when colors are their most intense, washing out in mid-day and softening in evening. This is the best time of day to photograph… and I love the light. The light is certainly an important subject of this painting. Oh, yeah… the hole is patched. Duct tape on the back and filled the gap with gesso and orange paint. Fingers crossed.

WIP-4

WIP-4

More detailing, building up that glowing color on the walls, adjusting values… darker or lighter… over-painting the clothing to the black and white in my vision… Really missing that gate. She needs that element to walk toward… to be ‘grounded’.

WIP 5

WIP 5

Finally… the gate from the unseen doorway. It adds so much… oh, well… that’s just me. Things are coming together. Lots of adjusting here and there… I think her head looks too big… so, I make it smaller from the back taking out some of the cap in the final. Seeking more movement in the skirt. Finishing the sidewalk textures and the street and painted stripes. The purse looks too important… no, just unfinished. I add a texture and more shaping, a shadow, a reflection from the white skirt on the bottom.

Morning light... Final

Morning light… Final

Is it done? Seems to be. I’m trying not to overwork it. Time will tell.

WIP face detail

WIP face detail

The canvas size makes it hard to see detail… so I’ve included these. It is great to keep a record of whatever kind of art project you’re working on.

WIP Final detail

WIP Final detail

Filling the big white space...

Filling the big white space…

So it’s done… the white canvas is no longer getting kicked from place to place. There’s a fortune in orange paint on it. The price of canvas has doubled since this one was purchased. And the empty white space in the kitchen is filled with something that reminds me of a very special place on the planet. It makes me smile… and want to plan the next trip there!

Change of air

10 Saturday Mar 2012

Posted by Susana Weber in Art, Photography, Travel ~ Photography/Art/Food/Culture

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art, arts, earth, illustration, landscape, nature, outdoors, painting, photography, plants, sea, Simpson Bay Lagoon, St Martin, travel, vacation, watercolor

Change sunrise

Change sunrise

A definite change… still, warmer, humid, mosquitos! Hearing things you don’t hear when the breeze is running… the dog down the hill… a carpenter cutting wood somewhere far off. Preceded by a night of wind and rain that rattled the shutters, the sunrise sky is like none we’ve seen since we arrived. I’ve amused myself with my watercolor postcards, finding hidden pictures on the tiles of the floor and pool lounging when the sun is not quite so high. I’m getting the hang of the watercolors. I’ve never liked the medium… I’m too impatient and tend to overwork a piece by not letting the color dry before I work on top of it. The breeze here taught me something. It helped dry things up and I could see that I had to wait. Learn something every day… try new stuff… keep those brain cells moving… :)))

Hammock on the porch postcard

Hammock on the porch postcard

 

© Susana Weber and Tattoo Communications, 2012. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Susana Weber and with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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