I woke up this morning to a fresh coating of snow. Happy April Fool’s Day!
I found myself wishing for warmer days and so I searched my Google photos for a summertime reference to paint today and happily discovered one that made me feel better about all the white stuff on the lawn.
When I’m walking the dogs I frequently stop to take a picture of the sun lighting up the landscape behind the green trees. Something about all the beautiful warm light peeking out between the leaves makes me feel optimistic about the future. Call me crazy.
Longing for Summer, pastel painting of sunlight through the greenery by Marie Marfia. Available $600
I love this old tree that sits on a the bank of the Pere Marquette River in the Manistee National Forest. I love the way the left branch spirals out into space, a fractal if I ever saw one. I love the holes in the trunk and like to imagine the critters that take refuge there.
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This is a painting I did after walking down a 2-track road that goes along the Pere Marquette River. I really love walking this trail with the dogs. The road is a like a little roller coaster and there are lots of places where people camp. Just a beautiful spot, no matter what time of year. At the end is a place where I can slither down onto the bank and someone even put a couple of steps down there so you could get into the water if you wanted. Not today! Too cold. But maybe in the summer…
This painting is for sale on ebay. When you bid on this painting you’re helping me contribute to AFFEW, a local environmental organization. Thanks for your support! http://ebay.us/lnbF8d
Road Curves Left, 5×7″ pastel on paper, available in my Ebay store starting 1/14/19 at 9pm.
I have been selling my original art on Ebay for about five years. I don’t do it all the time, but once or twice a year I get the urge to start posting paintings. Why do I do this? A few reasons…
It reinforces my daily painting habit. I am under a compulsion to paint every day so that by the time I’m 80 I’ll be freaking awesome at it. Since I’m splitting Ebay sales with a worthy cause (see next paragraph), boom! there’s built-in accountability to keep me on the straight and narrow.
It helps others. This year 10% of my landscape sales go to AFFEW, which is a local environmental group. I spend a lot of time wandering around Mason County, gobsmacked by the scenery, and I want to make sure those beautiful views are around for future generations. Happily, AFFEW does too, so they’re an organization I am happy to support.
I. Need. More. Space. I realize pastel paintings are flat, but when you’re painting every day, they pile up. I have boxes of paintings stacked in the corners of my studio as well as my storage space. So selling daily paintings on Ebay keeps the stacks to a minimum.
It’ll make me famous! Not really, but I enjoy the idea of my art being dispersed to all four corners of the planet. I’ve sold pieces to people living in just about every state in the union plus a few overseas. Frankly, my art is more well-traveled than I am, which I find both sad and hilarious.
It fits my impulse-driven lifestyle. With Ebay a painting sells or it doesn’t within 7 days. If it doesn’t sell I throw it in a re-work pile. Then sometime during the next six months I pitch the re-work pile, usually because I’m trying to make room for a pile of new stuff. Problem solved!
It’s my drug of choice. I get the same dopamine rush when someone bids on one of my Ebay paintings as I do when eating an entire bag of Lays potato chips, but this is better because not only does it mean another painting is leaving my studio, it’s also not making me fat(ter)! Since my goals this year include reducing my weight and my inventory, Ebay is a win-win.
So there you have it, some of my reasons for using Ebay as an art sales outlet. Here’s the link to my Ebay store. Thanks for looking and happy bidding!
Long Shadows, 9×6″ pastel on paper, available in my Ebay store starting 1/16/19 at 9pm.
This is the same place as yesterday’s post but today I just painted what I remembered. I like it better. It’s truer to what I meant rather than what the camera meant, if you know what I mean. It’s fresher feeling, more lively. I like it.
This painting is available in my web store for $110, includes shipping.
One of three pieces that I did yesterday morning after walking through the woods. Not everything is dark! Sometimes there’s light coming through all the trees. Just keep walking! That’s what this piece says to me.
Here I am sitting on the floor in my tiny house, working on the third pastel of the morning. I’ve been trying to do more work per day because I think it’s the only way I’m going to get better. The first two little paintings were fine and I’ll probably post them later but this one is the one that I really liked. Just like the overall ominous quality of it and the way the path just stops dead in front of that line of dark forest.
Tall Pines Over the Pere Marquette, 9×6″ pastel painting by Marie Marfia. Available $110.
Tall Pines Over the Pere Marquette
Made it all the way back to the first campsite but the second one was occupied so we had to cut our walk short a little bit. No worries. The view was spectacular as always and I’m glad I picked this particular dirt road for our walk today.
I really like how this turned out. I tried to keep it simple. Wasn’t sure about adding the dogs on the first day but then walked in this morning and thought, “Why not?” So that’s what I did. I like all the gestural lines around the dogs. I love the dark tunnel ahead of them and the light filtering down through the tree canopy. Enjoy!
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