"Glad To See You"

"Glad To See You", 8x8" oil on cradled 2" gesso board, $135

At the J. Petter Gallery

(269)857-2230

I was so "Glad To See" so many friendly faces at the Petter Gallery this past weekend for the artists' exhibition.  Nine artists set up around the gallery to show their techniques while a guitarist played in the background and wine and appetizers were passed.  This is the little painting I worked on during the exhibition.

One of my favorite moments of the evening was when three brothers, ages 4 to 8 stopped by to watch me paint.  They lined up like silent soldiers and seriously studied every move I made.  To break the ice,  I showed them the particular flowers I was looking at for my painting, and I asked them, "Do you think my painting looks like the flowers?".  The middle brother flatly said "No".  Ah well, can't win them all, I thought to myself, and went back to work while the brothers huddled together and whispered.  A moment later, the oldest brother stepped up and said, "Excuse me, we don't think your painting looks like the flowers, because we think it looks better".  They turned on their heels and marched off to find their parents.

I took a moment to smile and think that perhaps we experienced together what it means to interpret a subject in a painting.  Maybe it doesn't look just like the "thing", but after passing through our eyes, our minds, and our hands, something even more descriptive can be the result.

Starting with a Transparent Wash

"Meditation on Joy"

9x12", oil on canvas mounted on hardboard

The Hildt Gallery, Chicago

I thought I'd try a completely different approach with this little floral abstract painting.  Instead of setting up a floral arrangement to paint from, I thought I'd let the painting "create itself" this time.  

I started the painting with a little bit of paint and a whole lot of Gamsol (a paint solvent) to make my oil paint behave similarly to watercolor paint.  I dropped the different colors on the canvas and let them run together and spill right off the bottom.  All the while, I was observing what parts of the painting were speaking to me.  I wanted to develop the areas I liked with just enough detail without ruining the spontaneity of the abstract underneath.

Little by little, I snuck up on the painting, adding small dashes of color wherever I wanted to.  This was a pretty long, drawn out process.  After every few brush strokes, I stepped back about six feet and asked myself what I should do next.  To me, the process of abstract painting is much more intensive and tiring than painting from a reference.  In abstract painting, it's just you and the painting, without any outside guidance from reality.  

After this painting is mounted and framed, it's off to the Hildt Gallery.

Red Flowers

I confess that I have a stack of dud paintings in my studio that's about neck-high.  Sometimes I'll pull one out of the pile and have a go at it with fresh paint and a palette knife.  I tell myself that it's ruined anyway, so what have I got to lose?

Here's a photo of the ho-hum painting that I started with.  I used the painting as my guide, and fractured and piled paint right on top of it.  I prefer the newer improved painting so much more.  I'd love to know if you agree!

"The Gathering", 10x8"

It has snowed over a foot here in Illinois, so I thought it was time to paint some flowers to remind myself that spring is still in our future!

For purchase information, please click on Ann Feldman The Gathering.

"Summer Shadows", 40x30"

Another very large painting has made its way to the Button Petter Gallery in Saugatuck.  I enjoyed painting this one from an aerial perspective to change things up a bit.

Last week, the two Ann(e) Feldmans (my sister-in-law and I share a name!) made their way to the Santa Barbara Museum to take in the Armand Hammer Impressionist collection.  Oh my!  This exhibit knocked our socks off!  So many beautiful pieces that I'd never seen before.  Here are just a few to give you an idea of what's there.  I hope you'll have a chance to see it someday, if you haven't already.

Berthe Morisot, "View of Paris From the Trocadero"

Vincent Van Gogh, "Lilacs"

 Claude Monet, "Villas in Bordighera"

Edgar Degas, "Three Dancers in Yellow Skirts"

"Floral Impressions", 16x20"

It is such great fun to pick flowers from the garden and set them up on the screen porch to paint. I like the way the light filters through the screen and lights up the flowers from behind.  I painted this one several times, destroying what I'd painted when it seemed that things were getting too tight.  I'm hoping the third time's the charm on this one.  Time to put down the paintbrush!

"Flowers and Grapefruits", 20x16"

My obsessive nature is getting the best of me. I repainted my last painting YET AGAIN.  It's heavy from all the layers of paint underneath.  I kept going back to it on my easel, and it just seemed static to me.  It needed life and it needed even more color.  I loaded up my brushes and went at it again.

A new blog follower (Hi Phyllis) told me that an artist friend of hers would share other artists' works on her blog, along with her own paintings.  I love this idea, especially since I often have someone else's work on my mind as I'm developing my own paintings.  Recently, I've been admiring Joan Mitchell's work, and I think it impacted today's piece quite a lot.  Here is an example of her work:

As you can see, Joan Mitchell was an Abstract Expressionist.  She painted nature in such a free and colorful way, I never get tired of looking at her paintings.  She once said, "If I could paint like Matisse, I'd be in heaven".  For my part, if I could take a drop of the excitement and spontaneity of her paintings and put them into mine, I'd be in heaven too.

"Abstracted Flowers", 16x20"

Creativity can be very fickle.

Since coming home from the holidays, I've been in my studio every day, struggling to bring a certain painting to life.  It refuses to budge, and I leave the studio every day frustrated and down.  Seems the harder I try to get this painting to work, the further it gets away from me.

Today, I decided to try a new course of action.  I put the old painting away and took out a floral that I had started months ago but never finished.  I started to paint with happy abandon, and this painting cooperated with me!  It may not be to everyone's taste, but I was able to let the paint flow without over thinking it.  I feel like I'm out of my creative rut, and that is indeed a good feeling.

"Tuesday Morning", 5x7"

This past month has held a bumper crop of classes and workshops to be taught.  The palette knife painting above was created as a demo for one of my knife painting workshops, and I titled it "Tuesday Morning" simply because that is when it was painted!

Last month's marathon was culminated with a two day Color Theory workshop at Mainstreet in Lake Zurich, IL.  We pared our palettes down to five basic colors plus white, then got to mixing.  People were very surprised to learn that most of the "premixed" paint colors that we buy can be mixed using a simple palette-- including Yellow Ochre, Burnt Sienna, and Viridian.  I still don't think they'd believe me if they hadn't mixed all these colors and then some on their own!

The last afternoon of the workshop, participants painted from black and white references and had to choose a color scheme: Monochromatic, Triadic, Complementary, Split Complementary, or Analagous.  Below are some of the paintings they created.  I was so excited to see the beautiful color harmonies they achieved!

"Sunporch Bouquet" 9x12"

Early morning on my sunporch has the most serene filtered light.  Even a bunch of haphazard flowers from my garden plopped unceremoniously into a milk bottle have a wonderful glow about them. I want to hold on to these last summer moments before they disappear into fall.

For purchase information, please click on Ann Feldman Sunporch.

"The Sentiment of Sunflowers" 24x12"

Sometimes, when I'm feeling "stuck", I'll pull out a completely new shape of canvas to shake things up a bit.  This long rectangular shape allowed me to focus on the abstract shapes of the flowers without having to go into a lot of detail on the vase or the background.

"Flower Dance", 16x20"

"All real works of art look as though they were done in joy." - Robert Henri, The Art Spirit.

This past week or so, I've been searching for the joy, to no avail.  Days on end were spent painting, and each day ended with a thorough scraping.  I had nothing to show for my efforts.  I looked at my work at the end of the day, and saw no joy in the painting before me.  Rather than waste more time (and paint) trying to make something joyless look less so, I decided to scrap it all and start again.  And again.  And again.

Today, I pulled out a painting I had started months ago.  I started to fling paint at it with a palette knife, then I scraped through it and started again.  But this time, I'm happy to say, I saw the joy start to creep back in.  Instead of throwing it on the scrap heap, I'll post it in the hopes that you see a bit of joy in it too!

"Echoes of Innocence", 18x24" And A New YouTube

And now for a little exciting news: I have just finished my very first Youtube!  It is titled "Impressionistic Painting Techniques with Ann Feldman".  I hope that if you have a few minutes, you'll take a look.  Click on Ann Feldman Youtube to visit.  And please feel free to share it with other artists and friends!

Here's a little story behind this painting.  A few months ago, I was playing tennis with my usual vigor and abandon.  All of a sudden, the ball was coming straight at me, and I had a "deer in the headlights" moment.  At the last instant, I put my hand out to block the ball and ended up breaking my finger and knuckle in several places.  Naturally, it was my ring finger, so the wedding ring ended up getting sawed off in the ER.  After forgetting the ring in the examining room, I was reunited with it again later that day.

To say that my tennis friend felt bad for what I went through that day is an understatement!  OK, so here's where the painting comes in:  she sent me these beautiful flowers to speed my recovery, so I decided to paint them.  And here they are!  This painting is available through the Button Petter Gallery in Saugatuck, Michigan.

"Reflections in Blue", 20x24"

Once again, I took a perfectly fine and "normal" looking painting and fractured it to make it more interesting (at least to me).  This one is on its way to the East End Gallery in Nantucket.  I hope it's happy there!

Tomorrow, I'll be giving my very first workshop on Color in Huntley, Illinois to the Pencil and Palette Club.  I've been having many requests for this workshop, and will be offering it in the fall at Mainstreet Art Centre.  The first day of the workshop, we'll concentrate on mixing pure, vivid colors, and the second day, we will be working in the "mud".  I'm looking forward to it!

"The Poetry of Abstraction" 18x24"

Sometimes, when a painting is going nowhere, the more I try to make it work, the worse it looks.  At that point, the best thing to do is to admit that it's a loss and hack away at it with abandon.  It's ruined anyway, so why not?

That is exactly what happened with this painting.  The original version is below, and I hated it.  So I put fresh paint over the whole thing, then took a palette knife to it, fractured it, and painted it again.  I think the new version is more interesting to look at, and the color is fresher.  And what the heck, it's something different!

"The Logic of a Summer Garden II" 20x16"

I had so much fun fracturing my last piece, I decided to do it again!  This painting went with us to Saugatuck and is happily hanging at the Button Petter Gallery.  (Can a painting be happy?  Well, I'm happy that it's there!)

"Abstracted Flowers", 9x12"

I was in the mood this morning to throw some paint around, so I took out my palette knife and went to town.  Is this too much?  Did I go too far?  I confess that this was the most I've enjoyed a painting session in quite some time.  Sometimes a pleasant morning should be the only goal, so I guess in that, I've succeeded.

Daisy Glow, 10x8"

Here in the Midwest, we are starved for sunshine.  As we prepare for the next arctic blast, I thought I'd prop some sunny daisies next to the window and simulate a little springtime!

"Floral Fantasy in Pink and Green", 16x12"

At the Button Petter Gallery

Well, I guess this is "Das Vee Danya!"  I leave in just under a week to travel to Russia with my mother for a celebratory birthday.  We will be in St Petersburg, where we hope to soak up as much art and culture as we possibly can while we are there.  I have attempted to learn a bit of the language-- to practically no avail.  Mostly what I can say in Russian amounts to:  I don't speak any Russian.  I am American.  Which will come as no surprise whatsoever to anyone who speaks to me!

But I am loading up my cameras, expecting to take tons of photos which I hope will become the basis for  future paintings.  Or I may freeze altogether in the presence of such grandeur.  We will see.  Either way, it will be an unforgettable experience, and I can hardly wait.

"Daffodils", 16x12"

At the Button Petter Gallery, Saugatuck, Michigan.