painting

Palm Trees for #WorldWatercolorMonth

| Doreen E. Lepore

July has been declared #WorldWatercolorMonth and it seems like a fun idea to me. I’ll try to post a watercolor every day in July but don’t know if I’ll succeed. If you want to join in or want to know more about it you can go here https://doodlewash.com/world-watercolor-month-july-2016/ on
Charlie O’Shields blog “doodlewash”.

Ranch Palms - watercolor
Ranch Palms – 5×7 – Daniel Smith watercolors on 140 lb. Arches Cold Press

Red Flag

| Doreen E. Lepore
Red Flag
Red Flag

Yes, of course it’s another beach painting from Hobe Sound Beach. But, this time it’s done in pastels. Finally, I’ve gotten around to trying out the pallet of John Pierce Barnes to see how complete it is. Here’s the link to the older post:

http://hobesoundartist.com/2012/06/02/john-pierce-barnes/

It was very complete, just needed to go back to the big box for one stick of a darker tan and one better mid tone flesh color. It was nice to be limited to the smaller selection of colors and yet I felt as though I had plenty to choose from. Makes for a very portable pastel kit. If you do any plein air painting you know that’s a huge plus.

 

Fresh off the easel

| Doreen E. Lepore

More beach paintings! This time I’ve included a picture of each painting in their frames. These are small works, all 6×8 – oil on panel, and look great in wide white molding frames – the width of the molding is about 3 1/2 inches.

The brilliant blue is compliments of Gamblin – go to www.gamblincolors.com and click on Torrit Grey to see the paintings that were submitted. This year all Torritt Grey participants (remember the Torritt Birds http://hobesoundartist.com/2012/09/29/torrit-bird/) received a free tube of “Cote d’Azure” along with another tube (mine was white). The backstory is that their master paint maker, Matt and his wife Liz  went to France for their honeymoon and the water inspired this color. The color is perfect for Florida, hope they keep making it!

The paintings are all down at a small, new boutique in Hobe Sound; Juno Shoe Girl on S. Dixie Hwy.  The shop has a beachy theme and my beach paintings have sold well there. You can find more information about Juno Shoe Girl here: http://junoshoegirl.com/

Tin Roof – Rusted

| Doreen E. Lepore
Tin Roof - Rusted
Tin Roof – Rusted – oil on panel – knife painting – 11×14

This painting was done in Ft. Pierce as part of an invitational paint out.  The last time I was in the neighborhood, this building was completely renovated.  It wouldn’t be my choice as a painting subject anymore because all the character was removed.

The title is from that song by the B52’s – “Love Shack”.  Of course being in Ft. Pierce it was probably more likely a Drug Shack.

John Pierce Barnes

| Doreen E. Lepore

There was an interesting article in the June issue of “Pastel Journal”  titled “History Reclaimed” about John Pierce Barnes (1893-1954), an impressionist artist, who was discovered recently.  The pastel paintings that they show on the Pastel Journal website are stunning.  In order to avoid any problems I haven’t included any pictures of his paintings here.

This link is to the Pastel Journal Blog:

http://www.artistsnetwork.com/medium/pastel/john-pierce-barnes-gallery

You can read the story in the following link,  about how the curator of his paintings, Katherine Stanko, learned that the paintings existed and had been in storage since the artists death or maybe longer.

“THE RESURRECTION OF ARTIST JOHN PIERCE BARNES, RCA Worker and Impressionist Painter” By Hoag Levins is here:

http://historiccamdencounty.com/ccnews145.shtml

What inspires me the most is how wonderful his color choices were and his bold strokes.  Many pastelists blend the heck out of their work and it thrills me to see unblended work from the 1920’s.  It is also pretty easy to put together his very simple plein air palette from his work, which, of course, I had to do.  It seems to be very limited, which is great for going out on location.  Possibly, he had a small landscape set – I don’t know what was available in the ’20’s.  I managed to fit all the colors into a small 5″x4″ box – it doesn’t get better than that!

Since I don’t keep the names of my colors, and now realize I have way too many colors, yet, not enough of these colors, I’ve made a color chart of what his palette probably was.

John Pierce Barnes Palette
John Pierce Barnes Palette – it looks a little dark here but see below for actual pastel sticks
pastels for plein air
pastels for plein air – in a little cigar box

If it would stop raining I’d take them for a test ride.:)