Making an effort to do more daily paintings. Check out my Youtube page for more time lapses.
Those Clouds Look Interesting, soft pastel on sanded paper, 12×12″.
This one is inspired by a drive back from the Ludington State Park where we’d dropped off our camper for some friends of ours to use. I said something like, “Those clouds look interesting,” and Steve promptly pulled over so I could get some pictures. Next day I pulled them up on my computer and made a painting.
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It was a beautiful day to paint outdoors, warm and sunny with a bit of a breeze. I was in Grand Rapids, Michigan with my friends, Deb, Mary and Sue. They’d registered to paint in the Festival of the Arts Plein Air event from 10am-1pm and I’d driven an hour and a half from Ludington to join them. I wanted to enjoy the company of friends whom I hadn’t seen in far too long and also get a little painting in.
We’d been assigned to paint in the middle of downtown at Studio Park, a patch of astroturf surrounded by trees in concrete boxes, with a giant movie screen attached to one of the three buildings on the perimeter.
Our adventure started out pretty well. Sue was working on a careful preliminary sketch, Mary and Deb were painting in watercolor, and I had my soft pastels out. I decided to focus on Mary who was seated in the shade on the astroturf. I liked the stark shadows on the building behind her and her red hair against the bright green grass. By 11:20 I had put away the first piece to finish later and started on a portrait of Deb working under one of the trees lining the plaza. Just then a woman with a pony tail and yoga pants walked up and told us we had to move. She’d apparently reserved the space from 11:30am-1:00pm for her yoga class. Whoops.
Shaded Mary, soft pastel on sanded paper, 11×14″.
Mary asked politely if the woman needed all the space for her class and she said she absolutely did, whereupon she proceeded to cover the entire park with florescent orange cones, indicating where all the students were meant to spread their mats.
The Summer 2021 issue of Pastel Journal coincidentally features a ton of stories about the joys and trials of plein air painting. Tales of artists who get chased off their spots by alligators (Florida), sheep (Maine), bugs (everywhere) are par for the course. But this was the first time I’d heard of a paint out session disrupted by mat-toting people in leotards.
At least Mary and I were the only ones who had to move. We’d had the bad luck to set up on the astroturf in the first place. The others were fine where they were, Sue on the perimeter sidewalk painting café tables in the alley, and Deb sitting on a bench off the grass.
My plein air set up that day was pretty basic. I had a small pastel box that opened flat and attached to a tripod using a camera mount. The easel with pastel paper mounted on top of that and then I hooked my backpack under the tripod for ballast. To move, I just grabbed the tripod with one hand and my backpack with the other and carefully walked up the steps surrounding the grass. I wanted to be closer to Deb, since she was the subject of my second painting. But before I could set everything down again, a gust of wind flipped both easel and pastel box off the tripod and onto the cement.
Yoga happening in front of me. My rescued pastels in the box next to me.
I remember thinking, “Wow, that was quick.”
In the past, when my pastels have hit the dirt (cement, floor), I’ve cursed and thrown things, but that day I wasn’t even that upset. Maybe it was endorphins from having spent the last hour painting in the sunshine. Maybe I was on my best behavior because I was in front of my friends. Whatever the reason, I was more worried about getting everything cleaned up before someone plowed through it and got pastels all over their shoes than anything else.
The aftermath. Paint nothing but pictures, leave nothing but dust.
Deb Squints, soft pastel on sanded paper, 14×11″.
Deb helped me pick up the pieces and someone else found a push broom to sweep up the dust. Then more friends dropped by to say hello, and I ended up spending the rest of the session catching up with them, getting lots of sympathy for the pastel disaster and trying to paint some more.
Stuff happens. Pastels break, rain turns your work to puddles, people say weird things when you’re out painting in public. None of it mattered. It was still a beautiful day. I got to hang out with people I love. I spent an hour or two making paintings. It was all good in my ‘hood.
Besides, it could have been a lot worse. There could have been alligators.
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To wrap up last month’s Art Show in three words, I’d use “breezy,” “grateful,” and “normal”. The weather was breezy both weekends, and the shoppers were grateful to be able to do something normal for a change.
A little bit of normal, 8×8″ pastel on sanded paper by Marie Marfia. $250.
This is a pastel of my booth with some shoppers in it and their very patient doggy waiting in the front. He was a lot more interested in what was happening in front of him than behind. Since he’s facing the check out tent, maybe he was attracted by all the flapping tissue paper as we attempted to wrap up the more fragile items without everything flying away from us. It was sunny, yes, but also very windy! One of the perks of living near Lake Michigan is there’s almost always a breeze to be had.
All in all, it was a pretty successful couple of weekends. One of the things we heard over and over was how nice it was to do something “normal.” Normal in this case being an art show. So many events got cancelled this year, it was nice to have a show and put up signs and sell stuff. So I’m calling this piece “A Little Bit of Normal” because that’s what it meant to so many people.
Laurie says she’s done with art shows after this year, so I may have to stage one of my own. Stay tuned. I have some ideas about this and they involve a new studio space in my own front yard! It’s going to be so cool. I can’t wait.
Thanks for coming out and supporting us. It’s one of my favorite memories from this year so far.
If you’re interested in purchasing this piece, email me.
Whew! The holidays are done and it’s time to start resolving, right?
This year I want to concentrate on remembering that I have enough of everything I need and to give as much as I can to causes I believe in. I think this has something to do with me turning 59 this year. There has been some research on 9-enders, that is people who are of an age ending in 9, and hey, that’s me. These 9-enders tend to do significant things at these times of their lives, like run their first marathons or start non-profits to help others, so I’m in good company when it comes to making some changes.
One of those things that I feel strongly about and would like to support with my art is the environment. So I’m going to re-start selling my daily paintings on ebay and donating 10% of sales to a local organization called AFFEW (A Few Friends for the Environment of the World). They educate the public, do beach clean ups and sponsor hazardous waste collection days, among other things. I hope you’ll help me support them by purchasing a daily painting or two.
“Through a Screen of Pine” 9×6″ pastel on paper by Marie Marfia. Available soon on ebay.
I plan to start the auctions of daily paintings next week Monday, January 14, 2019. Here’s a link to my ebay store. Please bookmark it and check back often to see what’s available.
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I Just Fed You – pirate skeleton and parrot on sale this week!
So you should totally buy one of my pirate skellies to celebrate! Here’s “I Just Fed You” on sale this week only, September 17-23, 2019. Comes in lots of different sizes to fit anywhere in your captain’s cabin or poop deck or down in the bilges! Aarghh!
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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Walked around the Custer cemetery today after dropping Sam off at work. I like all the towering pines there and the dogs have lots of things to sniff. We skirted the cemetery proper and made our way down an almost completely overgrown path leading to the river. Alas, there were people fishing along the opposite bank and I didn’t want to disturb them (Roger went on full alert as soon as he heard humans talking). So I settled for a picture of an angler through the trees and we made our way back to the car and home.
This is a study based on a photo of the light through the trees. The river is just beyond the tree line.
Had a very nice weekend with friends up in Leelanau County. It sure is pretty up there. Steve took some pictures of the lakeshore. We were hiking around on Lake Michigan, looking for ice caves. Saw a few but I generally stay away from the edge of the ice. I have a fear of being trapped under ice. When Steve used to take the kids out to look at ice caves I would stay home and worry. It was easier than going along and worrying.
Anyway, we hiked around and played some games and celebrated an old friend’s birthday. This is her last year as a fifty-something. Hope it’s a fabulous one.
I’m going to try to step up my daily painting game in anticipation of our vacation coming up at the end of March. I’d like to have enough daily paintings to keep seven at auction the whole time I’m away. We’ll see. If I go back to my old practice of two a day, I should have plenty stockpiled by the time we leave on March 18.
This painting is on ebay as of 9pm tonight. Bidding starts at 99¢.
At least it gets me off the couch in the mornings. Truthfully, if I had my way, I’d spend all day on the couch eating bonbons and flipping through Imgur on my iPad, but the dogs aren’t going to let themselves outside and since our yard isn’t fenced (yet!), I have to go with them.
This involves piling them into the back of my minivan and driving out to the woods. See, I’d walk them around the neighborhood but there are too many potential pitfalls involved with this, i.e. other loose dogs. So my preference is to drive about five miles south on Walhalla Road, turn off onto any one of half a dozen “seasonal roads” and tromp around the Manistee National Forest for an hour.
The dogs get to sniff and dig around, I don’t have to clean up after them (although I’ve unofficially adopted the first two miles of 6890 because, let’s face it, people are pigs), and we all get some fresh air and exercise.
Sometimes we see deer, sometimes a dead snake, and once Roger thought for sure a cat walked out of the ferns not six feet in front of him, but it was a skunk and he was not allowed to get any closer to it although he fussed a bit about my decision. I held firm, though. You should see the divots my feet left in the road even two weeks later. I held on for dear life, I’m telling you.
So how does this make me a better painter?
It provides subject matter, of course. I won’t tell you how many pictures of my dogs are on my Google drive right now, but it’s a lot. Like thousands. Sometimes I keep my finger on the camera button, snapping pic after pic of Roger digging in the dirt just to get that one glorious moment when he leaps back into the road to try to catch up to whatever he’s smelling off in the distance.
It lets me paint wonderful scenes of my dogs enjoying the great outdoors. I used to think I went out to the woods for me, but really, I go out there for them. They’re the ones that are having the great time.
I guess I’m jealous. Here I am, covered in Deet to keep off the bugs and checking for ticks and bears and swiping at deer flies and those two are just loping along with their tongues hanging out, having a grand old time. Every. Stinking. Morning.
I love it. I love them. I’m a lucky girl to have these lucky dogs.
You can find more of my daily paintings on ebay including the ones pictures here. They start at 99¢ and the auctions last for 7 days. Good luck and happy bidding!
