Coconut Macaroon Pie II

This subject is a commission and because my first version had a funky composition, I painted the pie again….classically centered.

My exciting news vis a vis a new painting project is that I’ve located some PIGS to paint at last. I’ve need pigs for my rendition of the Circe myth and it’s been proving an obstacle, but this week on my way to my friend Josephine’s house, I passed a pen with a very likely-looking pink fellow in it. I determined to stop on my way back. The “fellow” turned out to be a sow, complete with family, but there did seem to be a husband in the background, a boar with a black middle. I drove into the driveway without hesitation and introduced myself (with business card) at the back door. The Lady of the Manor gave me permission to return with a camera, so I’m thrilled!

For today, another poem by John Donne:

The Triple Fool

I am two fools, I know,

for loving, and for saying so

In whining poetry;

But where’s that wiseman, that would not be I,

If she would not deny!

Then as the earth’s inward narrow crooked lanes

Do purge sea water’s fretful salt away,

I thought, if I could draw my pains

Through rhyme’s vexation, I should them allay,

Grief brought to numbers cannot be so fierce,

For he tames it, that fetters it in verse.

But when I have done so,

Some man, his art and voice to show,

Doth set and sing my pain,

And, by delighting many, frees again

Grief, which verse did restrain.

To love and grief tribute of verse belongs,

But not of such as pleases when ’tis read,

Both are increased by such songs:

For both their triumphs so are published,

And I, which was two fools, do so grow three;

Who are a little wise, the best fools be.

Coconut Macaroon Pie, Oil on Canvas, 6×6

Coconut Macaroon Pie

Coconut Macaroon Pie is a specialty of Brewery Creek, a very popular micro-brewery and eatery in Mineral Point. It’s generally served with a decorative drizzle of chocolate sauce too, but I thought that bit was too perishable to stay perfect while I painted, so I left it off. The whipped cream melted in about five minutes, a good indicator.

Here is another poem by John Donne:

Love’s Diet

To what a cumbersome unwieldiness
And burdenous corpulence my love had grown,
But that I did, to make it less,
And keep it in proportion,
Give it a diet, made it feed upon
That which love worst endures, discretion.

Above one sigh a day I allow’d him not,
Of which my fortune, and my faults had part;
And if sometimes by stealth he got
A she-sigh from my mistress’ heart,
And though to feast on that, I let him see
‘Twas neither very sound, nor meant to me.

If he wrung from me a tear, I brin’d it so,
With scorn or shame, that him it nourish’d not;
If he suck’d hers, I let him know
‘Twas not a tear, which he had got,
His drink was counterfeit, as was his meat;
For eyes which roll towards all, weep not, but sweat.

Whatever he would dictate, I writ that,
But burnt my letters; when she writ to me,
And that that favor made him fat,
I said, if any title be
Convey’d by this, ah! what doth it avail,
To be fortieth name in an entail?

Thus I reclaim’d my buzzard love, to fly
At what, and when, and how, and where I choose;
Now negligent of sport I lie,
And now as other falconers use,
I spring a mistress, swear, write, sigh and weep:
And the game kill’d, or lost, go talk and sleep.

I’m continuing to read about Mary Queen of Scotts and Queen Elizabeth I, this interest inspired by Philippa Gregory’s novel, The Other Queen. Gregory paints an alarming picture of suspicion and fear in Tudor England, where a personal avowal of faith or sympathy could bring an accusation of treason. (In Gregory’s book, this malaise of distrust emanates from William Cecil, Lord Burghley, about whom I was certainly given another view. I’d formerly thought of him simply as Elizabeth’s wisest advisor. From another perspective, he was a man who created enemies where there formerly were none.) I wondered how bad it really was and am reading further to find out. A succinct, fun to read, and enlightening account is Her Majesty’s Spymaster by Stephen Budiansky.

Coconut Macaroon Pie, Oil on Canvas, 6×6, Commissioned

German Chocolate Cupcake

In about two minutes, I’m going to eat this! Today is my first Open Studio and Gallery Day for the season (May through October). I’ll be back later to post a poem, but I’ve got a couple more hours to paint.

I’ve just purchased and begun reading a biography of John Donne, entitled The Reformed Soul by John Stubbs. So with reference to that I’ll post a Donne poem:

XIX

Oh, to vex me, contraries meet in one:

Inconstancy unnaturally hath begot

A constant habit; that when I would not

I change in vows, and in devotion.

As humorous is my contrition

As my profane love, and as soon forgot:

As riddlingly distemper’d, cold and hot,

As praying, as mute; as infintite, as none.

I durst not view heaven yesterday; and today

In prayers, and flattering speeches I court God:

Tomorrow I quake with true fear of his rod.

So my devout fits come and go away

Like a fantastic ague: save that here

Those are my best days, when I shake with fear.

German Chocolate Cupcake, Oil on Canvas, 6×6, $200.00 USD

My Trip to Pennsylvania, Part Two

As on every vacation of mine, I was intent on visiting as many art museums and galleries as possible. Before I flew out of Milwaukee, Josephine and I visited the Milwaukee Art Museum to see the Jan Lievens Exhibit. Jan Lievens was a Dutch painter,
a contemporary and friend of Rembrandt (who modeled for him). Although equally successful in his time, he was long in Rembrandt’s shadow because their painting styles were so similar at one point in their careers, a number of Lievens’ paintings were attributed to Rembrandt. They were both among the Utrecht Caravaggisti, Dutch painters who trained in Rome and adopted the unidealized realism and dramatic lighting of Caraveggio. Lievens was original in his compositions and painted in a variety of genres. Later in his life, he was invited to London to paint with Van Dyke. His paintings became more elegant — he even adopted the typical Van Dyke pose — as can be seen in this self-portrait from that period.

Julie and I visited the Brandywine River Museum in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, where we toured the home and studio of N.C. Wyeth. The Museum houses a collection of three generations of Wyeths: N.C., Andrew and Jamie, as well as paintings by N.C.’s mentor, Howard Pyle, and a permanent collection of 19th Century landscapes of the Brandywine area.

On another day we took the train to Phillie to see the Philadelphia Art Museum, which is noted for the monumental Thomas Eakins paintings, the Gross Clinic and the Agnew Clinic. I particularly enjoyed the Moorish Chief by Eduard Charlemont and the Annunciation by Henry Tanner. There is also the Trompe l’Oile Staircase Group by Charles Wilson Peale and the dramatic Life Line by Winslow Homer. These paintings are all magnificent and seeing them with my own eyes underscores the absolute truth that artwork must be seen in person to understand why the experience is impossible to duplicate in reproduction. It is so important to visit museums and galleries to view the actual works as often as possible.

In this Post I’m showing pictures of the lovely creek that flows next to Julie and Tim’s home — there is the constant sound of flowing water…heavenly — and Julie and I walking on the beach at Cape May, New Jersey.

I also discovered an impressive wildlife artist named Laura Mark-Finberg in Lancaster. On my final morning in Pennsylvania, Julie modeled for me as Circe. More on that to come!

On my final

My Trip to Pennsylvania, Part One

I’ve been in Pennsylvania this week, visiting one of my oldest friends,
Julie Good-Kruger (or Julaine Emile, as I more frequently think of her — it was her pen name in our enthusiastic correspon- dence). We were in Oxford, England together as Juniors from Saint Olaf College, as was also my friend, Josephine (see Plein Air Painting at Perry Creek, April 21 Post). We lived together afterward in Northfield, MN, as we finished our degrees in Classics. Julie had spent an extra year in Oxford and dreamed of financing a second degree there by making porcelain artist dolls. She never did that degree, but she was a successful doll artist for years (see Good-Kruger Dolls). I lived with her and her husband, Tim, again for four months in Pennsylvania before I was married, where I learned the process for making original porcelain dolls. After I married Matt, I too became a doll artist for four years, originally with my cousin, Caryn, as business partner, under the business name, Maattala Artist Dolls. Maattala was the Finnish maiden name of both our mothers.

Julie now owns and runs Inglenook Tile, a company that makes brick tiles for interior and exterior use.

In the pictures you see Julie and her daughter, Kristina, in Lancaster’s Historic Market. Below that is the 18th century mill, Julie and Tim bought and restored.

To the right is Lorna Doone, the last Maattala Artist Doll I made , after Caryn left the business to raise her children.

Plein Air Painting at Perry Creek, Day Two

To the right is my first plein -air pain- ting at the end of the second day. I’m planning on returning later in the summer, when the colors of the foliage are present, to work on it further.

I finished the afternoon at the falls further upstream. I began the second painting by painting much more thinly. As you can see from the photograph, there is a large flat rock obscuring my view of the water below the falls, but I’ve decided to remove it in the painting. I didn’t get that far on this painting, but I like my start better and look forward to returning.
Plein-air pain- ting along a pretty stream with the con- stant sound of the flowing water and no bugs, especially with a friend along to while away the time in conversation and reading aloud, has to be one of the pleasantest possible ways to spend an afternoon.

And we didn’t pick up a single tick…..

Plein Air Painting at Perry Creek, Day One continued

The light is, of course, con- stantly chan- ging. I knew from my previous visit that 2:00 was the optimal time for my first set-up location. By 4:30 the light had changed the scene completely, so I knocked off at that point. I’ve posted the canvas after two hours of painting.

After that, Josephine and I went for a walk up stream. There was another spot, shown below with me sitting on a big flat rock, that I wanted to paint on the following day. It is almost entirely in shadow until about 4:00, so I planned to go there after I’d spent the earlier part of the afternoon at my first set-up location.

The rock ledge at the bottom of my painting at the end of the first day appears disconcertingly upright in the painting. I would have to do some- thing about that. Also, the tree on the left would benefit by being narrow- er. That way, I could brush in a little more water on the left side of it.

I’m not very experienced in plein-air painting and am no doubt making all the possible mistakes one can make. I chose a detail of the landscape that I found particularly lovely: I could look through the clear water at the rocks, ledges and ripples of sand that lay at the bottom. Also the rock ledge invited me to scramble down the steep bank and get close to the water. The psychological invitation in that appealed to me. (I did in fact scramble down the bank on the following day, because my camera lens cap rolled down the embankment and fell into the stream, and I had to retrieve it.)

By focusing on this detail of the landscape, however, I’ve made it a challenge for the viewer to orient himself. The hillock upon which I’m standing isn’t in the picture, nor is the extension of the ledge that creates the near bank of the stream. That is why the rock ledge appears to “thrust upward” rather than “lie along.”

The adjustments I made to the composition will show on my Blog for Day Two.

Plein Air Painting at Perry Creek, Day One

Last weekend, April 12, Matt and Geneia and I went for a walk along Perry Creek in Black River Falls, WI, on a visit to my mom’s. I noticed a couple of places I’d like to come and paint. So, when the weather turned out to be so beautiful during the middle of the following week, I decided to go back with my plein-air easle. I asked my close friend, Josephine, if she’d like to go with me, so we drove up on Wednesday and got out to the Creek about 2:00.
I began, as I usually do by drawing in Cadmium Red, as Red is absorbed by other paint easily and tends not to tint the subsequent layers unduly. (Admittedly, this is not my sexiest look!) We tucked our pants into our socks to discourage the deer ticks and sprayed the pant lets with Off. Josie ensconced herself in a lawn-chair recliner with a sun-hat and a bag of books. She read me extracts from Vasari’s Lives of the Artists about Titian and Botticelli.