Happy Holidays

Holiday Kisses,  6" x 8"  oil on board, © Nancy Van Blaricom

Wishing you the happiest of holidays.

Thanks to each of you for all the support you've given in 2017

you've helped make it a wonderful year.

Life drawing model, Anna

Anna, © Nancy Van Blaricom, graphite on sketch paper

This is Anna.  She was the last model I attempted to capture the likeness of in the most recent life drawing open studio.

She was the perfect model.  She paid attention to detail and after each break she made sure she returned to the original pose.  

She was dressed in a lovely peasant blouse and although I thought it would be fun to draw her wearing it, I decided to focus on her face.   

I'm not sorry I did.

It had been a long time since I tried to focus on a face drawing ....   but, I think it was a success.

Figure / Life Drawing

I'm so happy that I recently found Life Drawing sessions near me.  A great way to spend 2 1/2 hours a week doing life drawing. 

In 2003 myself and a couple of friends were able to attend weekly Life Drawing open studios.

It was structued differently than this studio.    At that time we had  started out with short increments of time and worked up to 1/2 hour.  

I was never great at life drawing but, oh what fun it was / is to attempt to capture the human body.

Lots of measuring and comparing.

In this studio session there were 7 of us and most of the artists have been in the life drawing studio weekly for the last 4 years. 

I really enjoyed seeing how different each of our styles are.

I was pretty intimidated during this session, but soon started focusing on the work at hand and forgot my fear.  

During this session I worked with charcoal on a pad of newsprint.

  

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Before joining this group of artists I looked back over my work from 2003 ...

When I come upon work I've previously completed and I always wonder why I've hung onto them.  Robert Henri gives me thought on the subject.

No apologizes for not posting in such a long time ...

No apologizes for my lengthy absence in posting  ...

While not apologizing I will share with you some things that have taken place since my last blog post.

Some how there seemed to be a rash of small health issues that came out of the blue.  An aching shoulder, a neck issue, a knee that kept clicking whenever I bent my knee, and a hand/ finger issue.  None of them major ... just an irritant.  Thank goodness thats all behind me now.

Our lovely 13 year cat Odessa was losing weight and not eating like her normal self.  After a few veterinarian appointments she was diagnosed with a hyper-thyroid.

The treatment we chose for her was Radioiodine Therapy.  She had to stay at the treatment center four nights.  We missed her so much during that time, but finally she was able to come home and has spent the last month resting and gaining back some of the weight she had lost.

Its such a relief to have those issues behind us!  And now we are getting back to the good life we enjoy.

Each year Sequim celebrates the development and support of the irrigation ditches which brought water to the once dry prairies of the town.  This year was the 122 festival celebration and celebrated May 5th- thru the 14th. They celebrate with a car show, huge parade, large logging show, & carnival.  To say the least, there is a lot of things going on during the week.  It is a major event and most of the town comes out to celebrate. This year we chose to take a helicopter ride over the town that was offered.  It was our first time in a helicopter and it was amazing to see the area from this perspective.  What fun. When we landed I told my husband we needed to buy a helicopter it was so fun. Hmmm, guess that isn't going to happen.

Pre take-off

We saw some amazing views while on the helicopter ride

The end of March we took our camp trailer down to Southern California to visit our daughter.  It was nice and warm and we could sit out in the morning sun enjoying our coffee.  We decided to come back Hwy 1 & 101.  Heading back up north we started encountering rainy weather as you can see in the photo of the Golden Gate Bridge.

Many of the sights we saw while there and driving home.

More recently, in July, we enjoyed Sequim's Lavender Festival.  There are lavender plants in the yards of many homes not to mention numerous fields in the area.  Each beautiful and smelling amazing.

One of the many lovely lavender fields in Sequim.

Thanks for following along on my art journey.

:: A very good day ::

Earlier this week my friend Barbara and I packed up our painting gear and went to a lovely location in hopes of getting some plein air work done. We both thought this was a perfect location with views in every direction.

Looking east you see a couple of apple trees that still had plenty of apples on the tree … and on the ground. Yes, they made a great snack.

To the north were some huge fir trees.

East were some mature aspen trees as well as some young less developed trees.

And then to the south were the majestic Olympics Mountains and some grazing milk cows.

Dungeness Valley Cows, 8" x 10" Oil on Canvas ~ ©Nancy Van Blaricom

I haven't done many plein air paintings but as I started to set up I realized I had forgotten a few things.  I forgot my phone, that meant no in progress photos.  I also forgot to bring a bottle of water, that alone makes a person thirsty, lol. And lastly I forgot my tripod mount … what attaches my easel to my tripod.

All was not lost. Fortunately I had a small blanket that I carry in my car to set anything on that might soil the carpet in the car.  I spread it out on the ground between the apple trees and had a great view of the cows and mountains.   It was a rather perfect place to be and sitting on the blanket instead of standing was just fine.

As I mixed my paint I tried to remind myself of all the steps I needed to take ...  things I really wanted to remember that would help this be a successful painting day.  I took my time.

• Do a few thumbnail sketches to make sure I would be happy with my design.
• Using a neutral paint color to sketch my design on the canvas.
• Block in my darks ... shadows. Once that is working add some light and color.
• Try to get my values right.

Anyway, you get the idea .. I didn't hurry when working on my canvas.  

After two hours my I felt very happy with what I had accomplish.
I think I am getting the hang of this stuff.

Once home I gave the cows a little more detail since they were quite far away while I was painting.

Wahoo … I'm calling this one a success ! What do you think?