an arting life
Drawings and paintings by artist Eibhlin. Oil paintings, acrylics, pen & ink, and sketches.
As I’m writing this, this part of NH is under a blanket of pristine, white snow. It’s “winter wonderland” time again! Initially, I looked at the mostly white landscape and thought, “Okay, not painting this morning.” However, the longer I looked at it, the more I saw the subtle colors in the sky, the snow,…
The sun is back! When I woke up this morning, the skies and the weather map looked like the sunrise would be dismal. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to paint en plein air. (Of course, I had a Plan B ready.) Instead, the clouds broke and the sun came through the clouds, at least…
Among the many things I love about being an artist is the joy I take in colors. Whether they’re the vibrant shades of spring and autumn, or the subtle greys of winter and the sizzling whites of summer… I love color! This morning, the skies were heavy with rain. The colors were similar to yesterday’s…
There was no actual sunrise this morning. Not that I could see, anyway. I wondered if my neighbor, Lesley, was thinking, “There’s no way she’s painting a sunrise this morning.” But… I did! Okay, I’m calling it a “snowrise” because it’s not sunny at all. The could cover is heavy, and as soon as I…
My White Mountains painting is still in progress. Every time I work on it, it energizes me. However, I’m not sure if yesterday’s changes will be evident in these photos. The differences are subtle. However, those small changes are making a big difference in the emotional content of the painting. At left is how the…
Yesterday, I started painting sunrises again. They’re simply oil sketches… nothing formal or fancy. Yesterday’s is on the left, and described in more detail at A New Morning. Generally, I grab whatever smallish, blank canvas is nearby. Today, as yesterday, that’s a 10″ x 14″ canvas board. Technically, these paintings aren’t quite en plein air…
Yesterday, I found a quotation that made me feel much better: “I’m in a foul mood as I’m making stupid mistakes… This morning I lost beyond repair a painting with which I had been happy, having done about twenty sessions on it; it had to be thoroughly scraped away… what a rage I was in!”…
This painting has a quirky history. It began when a commission wasn’t going well. When the commissioned painting was completed, a lot of paint remained on my palette. Most of it was blue. So, I took another in-progress painting off the wall – one that needed a lot more blue – and I worked on…
This salt marsh in Maine has been a favorite subject for my plein air paintings for years. The location is in Kennebunkport, Maine, across the street from the Bush compound. I started painting at this location as part of my “look the other way” series. For that series, I chose subjects that are a 180-degree…
This is an oil painting from my years (1998 – 2002) in Nashua, New Hampshire. The pond is at Royal Crest, and it is magnificent all year ’round, but especially during the fall foliage season. I painted this over a series of afternoons, en plein air (meaning: outdoors, on location). It’s one of my favorite…
England’s Glastonbury Tor is a mystical place. Its legends include fantastic Arthurian lore and unique Christian history. In this painting, I wanted to capture the exhilarating freshness of Glastonbury in the spring. The scene is the Tor late in May when the flowers are in bloom and the grass is a vivid, new green. This…