Kiss My Aster

Today I felt like finding some flowers to paint.

So, I went to Brooklyn Botanic.

8x10 oil

These asters were REALLY talkative!

They had a lot to say about how they should be painted.

Like, in an excited way- and there were so many of them.... they were basically shouting helpful thoughts at me the whole time... which I greatly appreciated as I didn't actually know what I was doing.

It could also have been the helpful cadre of dead artists who I'm constantly begging for assistance... but the asters definitely had things to say as well.

*******

Floral plein air is tricky because you always have to arrange it and do 100% of the composition from scratch. Nature kind of sucks at arranging flowers well, for painters at least.

It's not like a full landscape, where you can take most of the composition from nature, use what's already there. Nope.

The layout:

Plus, I'm not a floral painter.

I haven't done a lot of them.

That means I have to problem-solve the unfamiliar, which slows me down.

This painting took FOUR HOURS!

I haven't spent that long on an 8x10 plein air for YEARS.

When I looked at the time, I was shocked!

I do feel like I was basically hand-held thru the whole thing though, which was nice.

What the asters said, in no particular order:

Less is more!

What you choose to leave out is just as important as what you choose to put in

The focal point is the star

If you really hate that section, wipe it off and start over!

Watch your intervals- no even spacing

Keep under-values dull and dark, build slowly through value and chroma

Shapes of color with texture instead of painstakingly marking every petal, which isn't fun and looks dumb anyhow

Definition in select petal edges

What is really important here?

What is another way to say this?

High chroma against greys

Don't freak out because you don't have to paint all those small flowers, you'd better not actually

Indicate!

Lights on the outer petal tips

Negative space sculpting

Keep brushwork nice and controlled, intentional

Smooth those sharp edges!

Be careful of overstating!

There was probably more.

It all came at me fast, at the same time, and constantly.

I need a lot of practice!

I got such a good download from this painting.

That's been happening nicely lately. Edge transitions with hue/value changes, stuff like that.

Exact color match:

Hiding from Sept 11 Stuff

I am hiding from the world today.

It's the 25th anniversary of 9/11, and I want nothing to do with any of it.

MAYBE...maybe... if I feel like it, I'll paint over at Jamaica Bay tonight but I'm not sure.

Last year on Sept 11 I had such a bad and unexpected PTSD attack, and I just want to lay low this year and stay away from all of it, including social media and the news.

I'm feeling ok but also strongly feeling the need to tune everything out.

I can't believe it has been a year since last year already.

Ok I know that statement sounds dumb but I feel like last year 9/11 was ... yesterday.

So, maybe I'll go out and paint later, we'll see.

Small Weird Fish & The Bonkers Day

I have a crazy couple of days at work because of a rather chaotic live event I was called in to support.

And by chaos I mean CHAOS.

Well, I'm not involved with the chaos, thankfully.

My involvement meant I had to be in the office at 8am.

The commute is about an hour and 20 mins.

This was especially fun because I was on the hotline last night and the trains were messed up coming home, so I didn't get to bed until almost 1am for a 5:15 wake up.

Also, I got the best present ever for Daya upstate!

She also needed a few grocery items, so I put together a nice care package for her.

The plan was to stop over at Juilliard after work.

I packed everything and was very mentally organized, because being prepared is one of my superpowers.

I was SO prepared!

AND I left right on time!

*********

As the 5 train pulled out of Grand Central, I realized I FORGOT MY LAPTOP BAG.

My work phone was in there too, because of course it was.

Wow.

I have never done THAT before!
It was the weight of Daya's care package.

That's why I didn't register something was missing.

Usually when I forget something important, I notice right when I get outside.

But the physical weight of everything felt right so I just didn't notice.

Well, there was nothing to do except complete my trip to the office, tell my manager that I f'd up, and go home and retrieve my laptop bag.

I said to my manager, I f'd up.

And he didn't even care... he said don't worry about it, go home and get your laptop and don't stress or rush. Wow, it wasn't a big deal at all!

Ironically, if I had put my work phone in my regular bag, I could have just used that and not had to leave.  So I left and came back and all was well. I was back by 10am.

Timothy was in from LA to help with the event.
I told him I forgot my laptop and he just started laughing.

*******

So, I got Daya the best present ever.

She likes stuffed animals and has several in her dorm room.

I saw this plushie rainbow trout and knew she had to have it.

There was a larger one too, but I couldn't fit it in my pack, so I got the small one.

I call it Small Weird Fish.

Since I brought it to work, I showed my colleagues- including my manager and Tinothy, who also collects stuffed animals.

The unanimous professional consensus is that the fish is "F*cking Awesome" and "Epic".

Timothy and I took a selfie with the fish.

Daya likes the fish.

Name is pending.

39 Panels

I'm working from home today and it is also a recovery day from the weekend.

And I have 39 panels I could tone...

I don't always tone panels, I'm fine painting on white, but if I get around to batch-toning I'll do it.

I like toning panels in natural earths, spread in a physically thin layer on the panel... no solvent unless absolutely necessary.

So, I got out several tubes of Rublev natural earths and some of those Maimeri d'Italia paints from forever ago...also natural earths.  They are seriously perfect for beautiful toned panels.

My new size 16 Rosemary Ultimate brush is officially my new favorite panel-toning brush! You can scrub and scrub with the Ultimates and they don't even notice!

I toned 39 panels in various natural earths and laid them to dry on Daya's floor.

(I think this is a good use of her room!)

This should keep me stocked probably until next Memorial Day.

This brush is amazing... it's also fun to just... carry around!

Rosemary brushes are actual magic wands!

Angry Cats & The Jerrys Box

I'm home.
The Amtrak ride was a little over 8 hours, longer than the ride up.

It's because I took a different Amtrak line.  I took the Maple Leaf line up, which goes to Toronto.

Coming back I was on the train that starts at Chicago and physically splits into 2 trains at Albany.

The half of the train going to Boston left first, and the NYC people had a long layover in Albany.

But although it was long, it was probably the most comfortable Amtrak journey I have ever had!

After Syracuse- an hour into the trip- I had 2 seats to myself for the entire ride!

******

Last Thursday, one day before I left for Rochester, I did a refill order of panels and a few other things from Jerrys.

Free shipping, 5-7 business days.

Perfect.

It arrived Saturday late morning.....!!!!!! What??

So, my box was sitting for a couple of days...I was mildly concerned about it, but it was fine.
Thankfully!

All of this is plein air refills.

I ordered 30 panels and I have 9 remaining.

That's kind of funny because that sunflower plein air was #39 for 2026!

****

My cats are upset with me.

I dreamed about them on my second night away.

I was gone one more night than probably I should have been, plus four full days, but I need to live and not be completely cat-trapped.

This trip was my fifth trip away this summer.

Five trips since June... that's a lot! 

It has all been good, but I need a break from multi-night trips for a little while.

I think my head needs a break too.

So, now that Labor Day is over, the summer is informally over.

I have to work Fridays now!

My mindset will switch to Fall, and I'm not really ready yet.

Summer went by so fast.

It has been a wonderful summer and a disappointing summer all at the same time.

I guess that's life sometimes.

Painting Sunflowers & Dave's Boat on Lake Keuka

Teresa has a friend who has a cottage from the 1800s on Lake Keuka, which is one of the finger lakes.
It's about an hour and a half south of Rochester, in Amish country.

On the way down we stopped at a local general store, where I found an amazing present for Daya- more on that in another post.

Teresa's friend Carol has land and a stunning garden.

She's a landscape architect and knows everything about plants, it's amazing!

Well except stapeliads, so I told her all about them and showed her pictures!

I painted the sunflowers in her garden.

Here's a fun thing: a couple of days ago I saw a plein air p[ainting of sunflowers that I really liked and I thought to myself, I'd like to paint sunflowers en plein air... and here they were!

I have not painted sunflowers on-location before and mostly I didn't know what I was doing but it came out pretty ok, I think.

I definitely need more practice!

8x10 oil

Some pictures from Carol's garden:

Then we went on Dave's motorboat for a ride on the lake.

The water was turquoise, it really was!!!

I could paint up here every day for a year and still not paint everything I see that should be painted!

Lake Ontario Plein Air

Teresa dropped me off for a bit at Hamlin State Park and I painted Lake Ontario from a cliff.
The colors in the water were really pretty.... it was a nice view to paint and I didn't get attacked by bugs, which was nice.

8x10 oil

Jimmy & Jackson & Upstate

My friend Teresa, who I have been friends with for almost 25 years, lost 2 very special cats.

It's the kind of situation that needed a gift painting.

Of course I left it to the last minute...and last-minute for oil painters means factoring in lots of drying time.

This is about a 10-hour painting, and I had to do it all at once over about 48 hours because it's a wet-in-wet painting, no dry layers. I needed to do it while the paint was still open.
Both cats showed up very strongly at the beginning of the painting, they were very happy about it, then about halfway through they disappeared.

Even though this is a rainbow bridge painting, the cats and Dru (thanks Dru!) felt no rainbow things were needed.

9x12 oil

Pebbles wanted to pose with the painting:

*******

Today I took Amtrak up to Rochester to see Teresa for the weekend.

It's a long train ride- about 7 hours- but since I brought oil paint, I didn't want to deal with the hassle of airline security.

The train trip is a lot longer but was cheaper than flying and is generally no-stress.

Teresa loved the painting.

She lives in a gorgeous area, right on Lake Ontario, and she isn't too far from the finger lakes region.

In the evening we took a short walk around one of the parks, I forgot which one it was but it's nice wetlands.  I do get into nature a lot but what I almost never get is large open space-- which I miss sometimes and I really enjoyed upstate.

Minnie

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I stayed in Teresa's basement.

I LOVE Teresa's basement!

It's my kind of space- a little weird and very comfortable.

It has 4 main large rooms plus I'm not sure how many secret rooms!

The secret rooms are awesome!

Also there is a disused claw foot bathtub with cellos in it, a pencil sharpener in the bathroom, a whole entire extra kitchen, a piano, and a very old computer that Teresa holds on to because it has a large collection of Steely Dan on it.

It is good to see my friend and have a bit of an environment change.