Sunday Sketchbook: Figure

"The mirror is not you...the mirror is you looking at yourself." What I take from George Balanchine's words is that we are more than what others see in us--and more than what we see of ourselves reflected back from others.

Sunday Sketchbook: Road Trip

I'm on my way to Washington, DC to deliver the NRECA commission--and hopefully have some time to explore museums. It's a beautiful cool, sunny day, perfect for a drive down Route 2, through the Mad River Valley, and due south.

Clouds and Marshmallows

Changing leaves, changing weather, and hay bales waiting for winter.

Stone Bench and Faucet

There are many lovely views at the Riverfarm gardens in Alexandria, but what grabbed me were these angles, curves, planes, and half-hidden coiled hose.

Sunday Sketchbook

I'm in Washington, DC teaching for ten days. This weekend it's a travel sketchbook class, which is always a reminder for me of how much I like the voyeurism of looking at other people's journals.

Trees and Pond

I took my class to a lovely place that belongs to friends of mine, where I could spend months painting and exploring their hand-crafted paradise of ponds, meadows and woods.

Sunday Sketchbook: Road Trip

I'm up in Montreal for the weekend, taking a look at the Musee des Beaux-Arts, getting to know some new neighborhoods, and eating as much ethnic food as I can in twenty four hours. This sketch is from another road trip, where I made the mistake of overindulging in Crispy Creme donuts rather than falafel.

Sunday Sketchbook: London

From my last trip to London, Monday, October 6th, 7:30 pm:
"On the #24 bus again, this time from Charring Cross Road to Victoria. My family calls my propensity for staring at strangers 'creeping", and I know I do stare. But I wonder about them-who are they, where are they going, what's their life like?"

Sunday Sketchbook: London

I spent five hours of this rainy Sunday at the National Gallery, then ate dumplings in Chinatown made by a little old lady rolling dough in the tiny restaurant's front window, and took a long evening walk back to my room on the West End through wet, lamplit St. James Park--all my idea of London at her best.

Two Apricots in a French Bowl

Feels like Provence outside today: clear sun, Vermont mistral.

Indian Bowl and Pitcher with Orange

Back in my own studio again, and still painting oranges. Must be a craving for that warm color. I found this odd little bowl in the same Jaipur pottery workshop mentioned in my February 29th posting, a full portrait of the sisterly pitcher just peeking in from the back here.

Orange and Coffee

Thinking about globalization while I was painting this: cup and fabric from France, Chilean grapes, orange from Spain, and Vermont milk.

Study

A self portrait.

Winter Orange

Sometimes even light looks cold.

January Thaw

There are usually a few days in the dead of winter when we have a warm spell (relatively speaking) with temperatures in the forties. Snow recedes, basements drip, and roads turn rutted, giving us a foretaste of muddy March.

Geranium in Blue Bottle

I have four big pots of geraniums on a shelf underneath a long sunny studio window. I bring them in from the porch steps in September, and they bloom inside through the winter against a background of our cold white front garden.

Maple at the End of Road

For about one week of autumn I can walk down Hollister Hill Road and see this maple glowing bright orange against a very blue mountain. How do you hold on to that image, and carry it into the winter?

Wild Apples

I picked these right before the first frost from a wild apple tree that's in our lower field. I think these little apples have more character and flavor than their cultivated cousins. I made the quilt top years ago from old feed bags I found in a hardware store in Iowa.