Claire Obscure

i attend drawing class religiously. some artists will tell you they have "mastered" drawing. really? yes, they took life drawing. for a whole year!

i prefer the more humble michelangelo, whose dictum was "always a student". or hokusai, whose dying words were "if heaven had only granted me five more years, I might have become a real painter."

the routine for life class is pretty much the same wherever you go. some gesture drawing- say 2 minute poses- to get you drawing freely. the poses get progressively longer, and by the end of the night, there are half hour to one hour poses. that's when i put the charcoals away and bring out the oil paints.

so what am i after? freshness, expressive line, brushwork and subtle color are qualities i admire in the masters. this is what i'm trying to get.

a very exciting week for painting sales for me. 3 advance sales of "snow show" landscapes to my dear collectors in canada, and a collector in ohio bought 3 life studies from my etsy site.

A Bit of Alright!

one of my dear friends who has sat for me a few times is none other than the illustrious british born ben barker benfield, author and scholar.
in addition to being very supportive with my work- (ben and linda collect paintings)- ben wants to use one of the portraits i painted for the author picture in his newest book, "Abigail and John Adams: The Americanization of Sensibility," with university of chicago press.
thanks, ben!

good news! more money for doctors without borders, who are saving lives in haiti.
i'm happy that people seem interested in my figure work, which i've been putting on my etsy site. tonight a collector in ohio bought 3!

Social Experiment 101 - Haiti Fund Raiser

just a little report on my little fundraiser for Haiti on ETSY .
2 small paintings sold this weekend to collectors in Boston and Hawaii, and 2 donations were made to doctors without borders! it feels great to turn my work into something really useful. here is one the paintings.

Snow Show!

so what's going on... the next 2 weeks are all about getting THE SNOW SHOW! hung in my (fantastic) loft. i'm so excited to be showing the work of many artists i've known over the years- people whose work i really respect and admire. See my links, most of them are there...
I'll be posting images of their work, for now here's a little painting of my own invention that will be in the show, unless it sells on my etsy site first... (our opening feb. 13th! save the dates!)