Sunday Sketchbook: Vermont

I showed these drawings to my travel sketchbook class yesterday, and looking at them, I felt the same pang I did at the yard sale, saying goodbye to my son's teddy bear and my husband's backpack (and I held on to both of them, as it turned out.)

Market and Tower, Santiago de Compostela

Late afternoon quiet before the noise of the night.

Walled Castle in Galicia, Spring

Our first look at the Spanish countryside, and it's lovely.

Newton's Farm, Autumn (panel 4)

The last of a four panel painting inspired by my neighbor's dairy farm, which holds a lifetime's worth of compositions.

Newton's Farm, Autumn (panel 3)

The third in a four panel essay on fall color, afternoon light, and my neighbor's hill top dairy farm.

Ferry Dock, Late Afternoon

At the Marsh Harbour dock, waiting for the last ferry of the day to Hopetown.

Hammock, Hopetown

I'm settled into my cabana at Hopetown Lodge, painting and teaching until it's back home to freezing Vermont on Monday. I've been busy with my enthusiastic class working on composition, temperature, complements, and triads--all that wonderful stuff that painters carry around in their mental tool bags.

Here's my first "Travelogue" study from the Bahamas, and a page from my sketchbook.

Newton's Farm, Autumn (panel 2)

I'm looking back a season, and painting a four panel piece on the theme of my neighbor's farm as I saw it on a few days of intense color last October. I've held on to the painting shown below from a year ago (same tractor from a different direction) thinking it would work well as one part of a larger composition.

Sunday Sketchbook: Figure

A person I can't remember at a meeting I've forgotten. Memo to self: this coming year, always carry my sketchbook.

Sunday Sketchbook: Vermont

Another rainy day, and, at the end, a break in the clouds.

Sunday Sketchbook: Rome

I've been preoccupied with the Vermont landscape for the past few months, and looking through my sketchbooks this morning (and then out at the unending, empty grey sky and white fields) has me feeling a bit melancholy, and missing long strolls through vibrant cities, especially Rome. Here's one page of A Sunday Walk in Rome.

Newton's Farm, Early Morning

Today's painting marks a full cycle for "A Painter's Year", and it's been great fun sharing new images and ideas with all of you. I look forward to seeing what up ahead on our road through 2009!

New York from across Hudson, Dawn

You either love New York or you don't, and I do.

Vermont Apples

Is it my imagination, or do these apples handpicked from a local orchard have more personality (rosier red, more velvety yellows, interesting dimples and curves) than the perfectly generic Pink Lady I could have picked out of a pile at Safeway?

White Pitcher, Morning Light

I painted this Bonnard-inspired still life during a color workshop in my studio this weekend, and was impressed as I always am by the adventurous spirit and hard work of my students--and how much I learn by teaching.

Study: Town, Autumn

Looking down Mill Street in Middlebury towards the river on a late November afternoon. For more about this town see my new blog Let Me Show You Vermont.

Grain Elevator, Bethel, VT

One of those overlapping views I like so much, a composition about relationships of color and shape, functions, eras and associations.

Blue Bucket

We're having a run of balmy weather, and the cows are enjoying a respite of dappled pastures before the next snows blow through.

Top of the Hill

This house has been warmed by many autumn afternoons of sunshine as it's stood resolutely for a century at the top of Main Street in Montpelier.

Seckle Pears

I finally had fruit on my seckle pear tree this year, and managed to save a few from the deer and fill my favorite, oldest bowl (itself rescued from a farm sale a few autumns ago.)