Aqueducts - by North Carolina Painter, Sue Scoggins

This artist, me, finds it a bit difficult to come up with new subjects. Landscape, landscape, landscape. Pears! Fruit!  I mean how many times can one paint the same "scene" of the water and the sound or of wildflowers.  For quite some time now, I've wanted to break out of my routine and find NEW discoveries.

It takes a lot of thought.  In fact, often, more time is spent in thought BEFORE the painting than the actual process of painting itself. That's why it's hard for me to paint unless I have days of solitude before hand. This summer, when not doing commission work, I've spent time going through my old travel sketches of summers in Italy and France. The first thoughts that come to mind is the old world architecture. Arches and aqueducts have solidified in my head.  They are everywhere and many date back to 300BC.  So aqueducts it is! There is no end to the modern paintings this will bring.

Let's get started.  This sort of takes me back to the color and design days in college.  Believe me...those were ancient days! But, I remember having a project similar to this where I constructed a geometric tree with shapes and colors.  I suppose since math was my thing, the geometry is right up my ally. The supplies are here...orange ink, charcoal pencil, oil sticks, oil paint....here goes.  What have I been waiting for?  (like the frying pan in the sink?)

SOUTHERN LANDSCAPE - by North Carolina Painter Sue Scoggins

Discovery
40x60 oil on gallery wrapped canvas

It's been a challenging January.  Don't know about the rest of you, but, the creative juices just haven't been flowing.  Recreating yourself, staying motivated, energy, spontaneity.....it's doesn't just come on command.

But, after putting down my brush, meditating, picking up my feet (as in exercise)...breathing in some fresh air..getting the blood moving, the energy is beginning to flow.

This painting was completed just before Christmas.  My last painting of the year.  It was like a serious  calculous problem, a jigsaw puzzle and SO MUCH FUN!  Perhaps one of my missions in life is to spread color in this world...this side of Heaven.

Sunny Day in France-by North Carolina Painter Sue Scoggins

France on a Sunny Day

12x24 oil on gallery wrapped canvas

The sun is coming out and the days are getting longer.  I'm a creature of the sun and the sea.  There's just something about it.  As I have been contemplating what paintings are going in a show at Tidewater Gallery in June, I've been painting whatever comes to mind.  I've also been exploring some new techniques.  Scraping is such a good thing.  Scrape on.  Scrape off.  It takes away the attempt at perfectionism and lets the true colors come to light.  I just love that.

Stand Alone - A tree line by North Carolina painter, Sue Scoggins

It's another snow day in Raleigh, NC and a date with my easel!  For several weeks now, I've been preparing for a solo show at Tidewater Gallery at the coast. Images keep swirling in my head but few have landed on canvas.  It's challenging to nail myself down to one style or subject. Guess that's the "color in between the lines" sort of thing.....I can't!

While in France last year, I sketched several tree lines. Those rows of green things  (we're not suppose to call them trees, we're suppose to call them shapes) became compelling.

So, last night, behind my eyelids, I was envisioning this one white tree from one of my sketches. This little guy has been ruminating in my brain since last July.  How about a traditional?  An experiment in studying the classics.

The underpainting actually began the night before with a rough sketch on linen canvas,  using a paper towel instead of a brush.  Used just cad red and alizarin crimson thinned with turp.  Swiped on.  Wiped off.  Dried over night.

Up and ready, this morning, I turned on Yo-Yo Ma playing Ennio Morricone...Moses and Marco Polo Suite.  The music and the colors engulfed me and before I knew it 6 hours and two boxes of raisins  had gone by. 

I began by darkening my darks and trying to get a bit more definition.  Scrubbed on.  Scraped off.

I determined which area was my lightest.  Which was my brightest.  Which was my darkest. I began with a large brush.  But, when I laid down my long line of purple in front of the trees, I just picked up my pallet knife and couldn't put it down.  Seriously!  It was stuck to my hand and I couldn't let go.  It began to scribble and move color all over the canvas....sort of like a ouiji on steroids! 

Stand Alone

20x24 oil on linen

MUSEE GRANET, the Pearlman Exhibit - a traveling art blog by Sue Scoggins

The right half of
La Montagne Sainte Victoire

My friend Catherine and I said our last goodbye yesterday.(That's Caterrreeeeene, with a rolled r).  She was such a highlight of this trip.  She'll be off in the country to teach next week.  I'll be heading back to the USA.  My easel now has a new home with her.  It's too heavy and takes up too much room for me to carry back and maybe this will encourage her to pick up the oils again.  Thank you, Catherine, I'll remember our heartfelt conversations.

Did you know that Cezanne painted his beloved Monte Sainte-Victoire mountain 87 times?  He died of pneumonia at 67 years old after being caught in a rain storm while painting it for the 88th time.  Now, I'd say that was a magnificent obsession.

After beginning to sort, toss, cut and finish up things, I decided to take one last visit to the Musee Granet to see the Pearlman Collection of Cezanne.  I don't usually rent those little recorded tour headsets, but I finally talked to myself and said, "Self.  How are you going to learn if you don't listen?"   I found myself mesmerized as it was told as a dialogue between Henry Pearlman and a questioning little girl.  Cezanne's first exhibition was after being "rejected" in the Paris salon show and his  first solo exhibit wasn't until he was 56 years old.  Pretty interesting.  He pretty much became a recluse and no one knew where he was...even thought he was dead.  I guess that's a common thing about artists....they get lost in their painting, become isolated, sometimes forget to even eat.  (Of course, that's not the case with me.  Eating, that is.)

In one room, I found myself completely spellbound by his most famous painting, La Montagne Sainte-Victoire.  I examined every brush stoke and every color against color.  I'd move from one side of the room to the other.  Other's did the same.  In fact, waves of people would come in and just stand as if in some sort of a dance trance, shuffling around as if hypnotized by it's movement.  Sketching them had to be quick. How could a painting of a mountain be so captivating?  Aix en Provence is very proud of their Cezanne.

Bye, bye Musee Granet.  Bye, bye Cezanne.  Bye bye La Montagne Sainte-Victoire.

Here's my interpretation of the exhibit!

Ok....what's a girl to do?  I'm traveling solo.  I'm not a bar hopper.  I don't shop much.  I can't find a cycling group....so what am I to do?  PAINT!  DRAW!!  STUDY ART!

This morning, my paint brain was really cooking.  I don't know why...it just was.  Any of you artist folks, you know who you are, know what I'm talkin' about.  Something inside just starts revving up....until it just has to come out.  Look out...if I just had some big canvases.  ...but I don't.  Cherries were in my brain.  I'm not posting them yet.  They are not finished...but they are well on their way.

In the meantime, I walked to the art store and bought glue.  My sketchbook needed a bit of glue.  I needed to update my sketchbook page with the Klimt exhibit!

SOOOO, yesterday, I finally made it to Les Baux en Provence!  The reason I wanted to go there was to see the Gustav Klimt exhibit in the caves.  After a mile walk to the bus station, 3 bus changes, and a walk down into the cave, I MADE IT!!!!!  It was amazing!  I could have stayed for hours.  If you've never seen anything like this..which I hadn't...all of the artists works are projected onto these huge cave walls...simultaneously on walls, floors, all around the cave. ..to glorious symphonic, head tripping music! I would have been an embarrassment to every single one of my kids.  BUT, my grandkids would have been trippin' with me!   Everywhere you look were continuous images of his works.  And everywhere you walked, the view looked different.

If you don't know who Gustav Klimt is.....he's was a prominent Austrian painter who used a lot of gold and bold colors and was known for his eroticism in female subjects.

I would have walked for miles to see it.  Hmmm....come to think of it....I did!