Flying over to Northern Europe this time of year means that even on a night flight it never gets fully dark. I took the first image at 2:00 am off Greenland. When I was a little girl and going to visit the grandparents I loved to stay up and watch the sunrise on this flight…which might be why I don’t sleep on planes even to this day!
When I got to Copenhagen the first thing I had was a piece of Weinerbrød and a cup of coffee. Weinerbrød is the classic Danish breakfast pastry and it is as far from a ‘Danish’ as a pastry can get. Ironically, if you translate the word 'Weinerbrød’ you get 'Vienna Bread’. Come to think of it that was the last thing I ate, I probably need some gelato!
The final picture is a display at Illums a fantastic Danish design store.
It was actually really, really hard to be in Copenhagen and not see my family or spend any time in the country. My next trip I will have to tack a few days on in DK.
Art and Homes
Original Oil Paintings can bring life and vibrancy into homes when decorating. I recently loaned some paintings to a design friend for a house that was being staged for sale. Here are the results!
When I first started doing little videos about my works in process people asked if I could explain my process somewhat.
Unfortunately that's a really difficult question for me to answer. So much is based on decades of practice, muscle memory, experimentation, schooling, and countless hours looking at other artists work and reading about things like color theory and the properties of paint and a million other little things. But I'll try to explain a little of my thoughts on the subject anyway.
The first part of it is the relationship I have with the painting. I might come up with the initial idea of what the painting is going to be, but the rest of it is a sort of back and forth dialogue between me and the painting. With me doing a lot of 'listening' to what the painting needs.
The way this dialogue might unfold is this.
1. Using a colored pencil or really thin paint in a single color, I'll very briefly sketch in what I'm going to paint. Really, it's just to get some landmarks down so I don't need to be thinking about it during the next stage. Here's a picture of what this stage might look like.
2. After that, I try and fill up the canvas or panel all at once. I don't spend too much time worrying about whether the color I am using is right (although I do try and keep my colors clean, not muddy), or whether things are 100% how I want them to be. The idea behind this is that a painting is not individual parts but a whole, and you always need to be looking at it holistically instead of in individual pieces. During this stage I thin my paints with an artists grade turpentine so that they are semi-translucent. This is so there won't be a lot of texture later, so if you want to do a major change you can without sanding. Also, the turp speeds the drying time up A LOT!.
3. Up until now this is pretty much how all my paintings start, but after this the next stage depends on what kind of painting it is. If it's a portrait of an animal for instance I will add several more layers of thin paint to achieve a good realistic yet painterly representation of what I'm painting. If it's one of my landscapes the next stage will likely be the only other stage I'll do. There won't be much in the way of blending or shading, brush strokes will be evident as will texture.
A Recent Commission
A recent Landscape
Hope you enjoyed learning a little more about how I approach things!
