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S.Weber

~ Traveler / Artist / Photographer / Observer

S.Weber

Tag Archives: travel

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

 

Waking…

29 Monday Feb 2016

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

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art, challenging yourself, inspiration, learning, paint sketching, reawakening, special place, St Martin, travel, vacation, waking up, Watercolors

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.

I learn by going where I have to go.

From “The Waking”-  Theodore Roethke – 1953

image

It’s a sad thing when your electronic devices remind you that your last post was one year ago… Very sad indeed… Sigh…

Then… Good morning. Waking. Inspired, as always by a tropical sun and warm breeze. Making use of my time and all these reflections and shadows. I’m waking… Going where I need to go.

 

Back on Earth

03 Saturday Jan 2015

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

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Africa, animals, culture, earth, inspiration, intensity, landscape, learning, nature, Ngorogoro Crater, outdoors, safari, sky, special place, Tanzania, travel

Hovering just above the red earth…

trying not to touch the ground.

What is this magic place?

No, no… don’t tell me.

I really don’t want to know.

I just want to stay a little longer. 

Ngorogoro Crater Conservation Area

Ngorongoro Crater Conservation Area

The earth and sky touch each other in a different way. There is a primitive look to the way the clouds hang at the edges before they curl over and flow gracefully on their way across the 20 miles of open space. They move in slow motion, unable to break through an invisible ceiling that prevents them from spilling onto the floor of the crater. Like an enormous stage set for a grand performance, the curtains have gone up and we’re speechless at the prelude.

Taking a break from the studio, family obligations and the daily routine of “life at home” we’ve ventured off to see what there is to see in Africa… well… in Tanzania, anyway. Some other parts of Africa are having their medical and/or political issues… but… Africa is a very big place… a very big continent, actually. And Tanzania has something we’ve been longing to see… very large spaces of unspoiled land where animals roam without barriers. These areas are protected. Access to humans is controlled but, poaching does occur sometimes. The animals are free to go where they want and some do migrate in and out of the parks and conservation areas. Some stay within the relative safety of the controlled parks. I say ‘relative’ because predators are everywhere and few species are spared being the prey of lions, leopards, cheetahs, wild dogs, eagles and others. Some animals are food for others and nothing is wasted… everything nourishes the cycle of life in this amazing place.

Alternatively… you could

26 Friday Jul 2013

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

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clouds, finding beauty, inspiration, Italy, monuments, photography, rain, Rome, travel, wet streets

Puddle Pidgeon

… just wallow in the soggyness of a day filled with angry skies and downpours. There is no use wasting the day. Put on those wellies, put the camera in a plastic bag to protect those vital electronics and go forth and find the beauty in the day. It’s out there… just go find it!

What to do -12

In the Spanish Piazza… Ave Gratia Plena, Dominvs Tecvm, Benedicta Tv In Mvlieribvs… Once a year, firefighters scale the monument on the Feast day and offer fresh flowers.

The rain provides a reflection that is otherwise not there... and an opportunity to capture the forms without the crowds.

The rain provides a reflection that is otherwise not there… and an opportunity to capture the forms without the crowds.

Stop and warm your hands over the chestnut vendor's roaster near the Trevi Fountain.

Stop and warm your hands over the chestnut vendor’s roaster near the Trevi Fountain.

What to do…

23 Tuesday Jul 2013

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

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Italy, people watching, rainy day, Rome, street photography, travel, vacation

… on a miserably rainy morning in the Eternal City… and you want to be out walking around seeing things and absorbing all there is to see and do in a magnificent capital city like Rome. What do you do? You go out and do all of that… and take your camera with you to record what other people are doing out on a rainy morning! What else?

Catch up on your email on the Spanish Steps.

Catch up on your email on the Spanish Steps.

Enjoy getting your picture taken.

Enjoy getting your picture taken… sorta.

Rest your feet and hope nobody takes your picture with this silly orange poncho on.

Rest your feet and hope nobody takes your picture with this silly orange poncho on.

 

Ask young beautiful girls to take your picture.

Ask young beautiful girls to take your picture… it works sometimes.

Stay inside and check out who didn't show up for duty.

Stay inside and check out who didn’t show up for duty.

Try to ignore your jet-lag as long as possi..b..zzzzzz

Try to ignore your jet-lag as long as possi..b..zzzzzz

Make a note to self to pack your own suitcase.

Make a note to self to pack your own suitcase.

Forget about the puddles... it's just a dress.

Forget about the puddles… it’s just a dress.

Sit down, eat gelato, meet new people and talk to everyone.

Sit down, eat gelato, meet new people and talk to everyone.

Is there more? Oh yes… later… Ciao

BTW… from the FREE Dictionary

Word History: Ciao first appears in English in 1929 in Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms, which is set in northeast Italy during World War I. It is likely that this is where Hemingway learned the word, for ciau in Venetian dialect means “servant, slave,” and, as a casual greeting, “I am your servant.” Ciau corresponds to standard Italian schiavo; both words come from Medieval Latin sclavus, “slave.” A similar development took place with servus, the Classical Latin word for “slave,” in southern Germany, Austria, Hungary, and Poland, where servus is used as a casual greeting like ciao. At the opposite end of the world, in Southeast Asia, one even sees words meaning “slave” or “your slave” that have developed into pronouns of the first person, again to indicate respect and humility.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved

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!

Walking in the Past…

05 Thursday Jul 2012

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

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brick buildings, canals, city of lowell massachusetts, factories, garment industry, history, merrimack river, mills, past, photography, river, scott kelby, travel, world wide photo

The dates of the 5th Annual Scott Kelby World Wide Photo Walk 2012 (that is a mouthful!!) have not been announced but I’m waiting to hear!! I missed last year’s walk which took place in October. Winners images are posted on the Worldwide Photowalk site from last October. On two days last fall there were 27,924 people of all skill levels… with all kinds of cameras… walking in 1118 different groups and capturing the world they found where ever they were. It’s a GREAT experience to meet other people interested in Photography and walk a common route that is planned by a group leader and then see that experience through everyone’s eyes. It’s amazing how different the captures are. Leaders select a representative image from what the group captures and submits it to the Photo Walk headquarters where winners are selected for prizes. Of course, the real prize is going on the walk to begin with.

On one of the WWPW I’ve participated in, the walk was through an old mill town along the Merrimack River in the city of Lowell, Massachusetts. The site of the mills and factories along the rivers and canals that supplied the power almost 2 centuries ago was a mixture of sad at the results of the ravages of time… and delight at the rediscovery of the marvelously large spaces that are being renovated and turned into living and working spaces in the heart of the cities. These images are from that walk among the red brick buildings where you could imagine the giant machines turning out shoes by the millions and fabrics to support the garment industry for a westward expanding nation… and thousands of young women coming from the farms of the northeast to take jobs in the hundreds of factories along the Merrimack.

Re-evaluating B&W in the digital world

14 Thursday Jun 2012

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

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art, arts, B&W photography, landscape, nature, photo editing, photography, travel

The Sleding Hill

The Sleding Hill – Boxford, MA

The Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts is presenting a marvelous new look at the works of Ansel Adams from now until October.  It’s a fascinating look at an iconic photographers work… with some surprising images that send me back to my own collection of work to re-evaluate the whole black and white idea in my own portfolio.

Peabody Essex Museum – Ansel Adams: At the Water’s Edge.

In the 60’s and 70’s my photographic interest was totally in the B&W darkroom. My husband and I would build a darkroom in the basement or bathroom of whatever apartment or house we were living in and spend our evenings in the dark with our hands in the chemicals… adjusting exposures, dodging and burning… to achieve the range of tones of the great Modernist photographer who was already a legend.

Adams system involved ‘previsualization’ which meant the artist should imagine what the final print should look like before he even took the shot. Today’s modern digital cameras provide that in the ‘scenes’ setup modes in even the least expensive models… and the digital preview on the screen that shows what you’re about to shoot… and what you have shot!! B&W and sepia toned images are possible without even the slightest bother of a darkroom tray. I wonder what Ansel would say!!

I went back to my own files, in which I’ve only made a few conversions to B&W over the past few years. I was interested to see if the modern B&W processes would turn a few of my favorite images into something new and different. I have to admit that I saw them with new eyes in their new B&W forms. The process let me visualize what they should look like before the conversion and that helped me make the decisions of tone and exposure along the way. A far cry from the smelly darkroom dodging and burning and more satisfying results!!

Rainbow from the Pass

Rainbow from the Pass – Ireland

Murphy's Pub

Murphy’s Pub – Dingle, Ireland

Garden of the Gods - Colorado Springs, CO

Garden of the Gods – Colorado Springs, CO

Johnson's Pond

Johnson’s Pond – Boxford, MA

Maple walk

Maple walk – Bradford, MA

On the road in VA

On the road – Virginia

Witch Hollow Barn

Witch Hollow Barn – Boxford, MA

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