Pearls and Paintings

Friday night was Gallery Night in Pensacola. Up and down stylish Palafox Place, businesses invited artists to exhibit for the night in their establishments. By four, the street was closed to cars and soon became one long pedestrian mall filled with art and music and business.

A  few years ago, rules were relaxed allowing people to stroll the street drinks in hand. I hadn't participated lately fearing that Gallery Night had become more of a beer party night. But this year, I was invited to show at a beautiful jewelry shop, and I accepted. I'm glad I did. My host was gracious and accommodating and the clientele were interested and engaging. As it turned out, the business owner is also a writer. So I had a great night, a productive night and was gifted with a good read, The Deadly Reef, that I've been enjoying all day. 

Late in the day today I headed out once again to work on my large canvas. I'm one step closer to finish.

Late Day Fort Pickens  © T Grillo Laird

Plein Air Large

The work in progress leaning against my car.

Near a fishing pier at the western tip of Santa Rosa Island and bordering the Gulf of Mexico, is a serene little "lake" of seawater enclosed by the surrounding beach. Before the Hurricane 10 years ago, it was a little shaded oasis surrounded by trees where beach goers could go to escape the heat and sun of the open beach. The trees are gone now but the long sweeping lines of the dunes gives it still a sense of calm and serenity. This is the spot I chose to try a very large plein air painting. 

I chose a 24x48 inch canvas and covered the back with brown paper to keep the sunlight out.The canvas size size was partly an experiment to see if anything good can come out of working so large the field. But it was also what the long lines of the scene seemed to call for. I didn't bother with an umbrella. I knew it would be more of a distraction covering only part of the canvas, than a help. I set up on a clear afternoon, angled my canvas to catch the smallest possible amount of wind, and waited for the late day light. Near sundown, the white sand of the Florida Gulf Coast lights up with all the colors of the late day sky and the dunes take on beautiful vivid blue and violet shadow shapes, but effect doesn't last long.

On my first day out, I was content to get the main shapes, values and approximate colors down. When the sun went down I packed up and waited for another day with similar conditions.

at the end of day one

On day two I set up at the same spot on top of a wall. For the sake of accuracy, the wall I'm on doesn't go around the whole fort but encloses some batteries facing the Gulf of Mexico. 

Here's the view I was painting.

I still need another session in the field with this canvas to gather some more information. At that point I'll decide whether to call it done or give it more time in the studio.

When I next blog about this painting, I'll  talk about the palette of colors I used and I'll share my conclusions about working this large en plein air. 

Still One of My Favorites!

This painting is of a spot in my neighborhood overlooking Pensacola Bay. I had just seen such an incredible sunset that I stood still to watch it, immersed in a shifting sea of orange and gold that filled my entire field of vision.When I painted the scene the next day I placed it within that sunset. I painted everything else with the sharp shimmer of intense light that had surrounded everything the night before. The painting was displayed briefly a few years ago. It has been in my studio since. It's still one of my favorites and is still available.

Sunset Over the Bayou - oil on birch panel - 30x40
click here for information

A Season of Renewal

Soon I'll be returning home after a year's absence. In this past year of  visiting home only infrequently, I've come to realize that I truly do like my Florida life. I'm excited to be getting back to painting and to the teaching I had put aside.

Little Sabine Bay - oil on canvas - 18x28

This painting, Little Sabine Bay, represents an earlier new start in my life that is also centered around Florida. It was the first painting I did in Pensacola, where I moved ten years ago after the loss of my life companion and painting partner. We had painted together for years often working on the same canvas. After his passing, I knew he didn't want me to stop painting, but I just couldn't pick my brushes up. Finally, a year later, I was ready. I felt like he was painting right through me as I worked. Effects appeared under my brush that I couldn't have produced for trying. Little Sabine Bay was both the first painting I did in Pensacola and the first painting I did with the  Plein Air Painters of Pensacola. I've never wanted to sell it.
Now I'm about to embark on a fresh start again with a renewed appreciation for my home and life and for this art life I've been gifted with. 

From the Back Burner - Day 3 - 30 paintings in 30 days

Everyday at sunset, people gather near the point of Santa Rosa Island in Pensacola to watch the sunset. The sailboat resting peacefully, seemed to accent  the calm beauty of the evening.

The photo reference for this painting was another from the pile that I intended to get to "one of these days". I'm still playing around with a palette of Ultramarine blue,  Alizarine, Cadmium Yellow, Yellow Ochre , a muted dark orange and an earth brown. I also threw in Viridian Green for this one.

Resting - oil on canvas - 12x12
click here to purchase

From the Back Burner

Tomorrow begins a 30 paintings in 30 days challenge. For artists reading this who would like to join in, here is the link.
http://lesliesaeta.blogspot.com/
I am typically a slow and thoughtful painter. I build my studio paintings up in layers,scraping off and adding until I get the effect I'm after. Even in my plein air works, I'll return to the site as many times as is needed to finish. Or, if the painting won't benefit from a return visit, I'll finish it to my satisfaction in the studio. The painting below is an example of that approach.

October Gold- 16x24- oil on canvas
to purchase, contact Patina Art Gallery- 215 327 7387

To paint 30 paintings in 30 days means a complete departure from my usual working method. Will I have to work smaller? Sketchier? Faster? I don't know. I do know that I'm going to use this opportunity to explore ideas I've left on the back burner. Photos I've taken that I thought might make a good painting and then forgot about, are on the easel. Paintings I've started then set aside are also candidates for the challenge. Finally, those interesting spots I've driven past so many times and thought someday...
So, starting tomorrow,  these paintings will appear daily on this blog and on my website http://www.theresagrillolairdfineart.com. For the month of January they will be available for purchase. After that, who knows.  

In Thanksgiving

Hills Over the Bayou-oil-16x20
Purchase this painting!

I can't begin to count the many things I am thankful for. My good fortune includes my family, faith, and the mere chance to have been born in a part of the world where I can look forward to so much more than just a daily struggle to survive. One of the things I am thankful for every moment of the day is the gift of art. I'm aware that it's a privilege to see in a way different from most people and I'm grateful for that gift and for the drive that impels me to find ways to express the beauty I see.  
I'm thankful too for other artists, for camaraderie and for what I learn in their company. I'm especially appreciative for those artists at the top of their game who give their time and talent to pass on their knowledge. They could so easily sit back and bask in their successes.
I'm thankful for my students who teach me more than they know, especially the children.
I'm thankful for the supporters of art from the people who showcase the work of artists, to the gallery owners, to the collectors. Thank you to those of you who have purchased my art for their collections. I'm truly honored and grateful!   

Painting the Familiar vs the Less Familiar

Island in the Bay-oil on canvas-24x36-to purchase contact Patina Art Gallery 251 928 2718

I think most artists welcome the stimulus of painting in an unfamiliar place. This recent painting is of the coastal area where I live in the Florida Panhandle. The coastal environment was new to my eyes when I moved here in 2003. I've always been a mountain and woods kind of person and initially I didn't like the wide open flatness and eye searing light of my new home. But I've come to love the quiet beauty of the beaches and dunes. When I want to paint water, there are rivers, bayous, bays and the Gulf. The familiarity I've gained with my new home, finds it's way into the paintings of it.
I also love my second home on the central California Coast that I visit once or twice a year. In all my travels, I've never found a land that appeals to me as much as the area around Big Sur. But when I paint scenes of Big Sur and Cambria and Morro Bay, it's with the unaccustomed eyes of a visitor.

 Painting the less familiar gives you the child like freedom of painting without the prejudices of knowing what it's "supposed to" look like. Still, I admire the easy familiarity people like Frank Serrano or Jeff Horn and many other coastal painters of California, have with their subject. Frank Serrano captures perfectly the veil of  atmosphere that hangs almost constantly above the rocky cliffs. I'd love  to spend more time there studying the softly colored haze to better capture it. Jeff Horn sees his homeland in the same jeweled tones that excite my eye when I see the coast, and states his vision with appealing clarity. I hope in the not too distant future to spend some serious painting time there learning the feel of the land as comfortably as I have my Florida home. In the meantime, I'll continue painting where ever my feet land!

Do You Live in A Painter's Paradise?

Let me introduce myself. I am an artist living and working in Gulf Breeze, which is a small city next to Pensacola Florida. This is my new blog where I'll write about the things that I think would interest other artists and collectors about art life.

I paint every day.One of my favorite places to paint is the Gulf Islands National Seashore.This National Park with it's white sand beaches and emerald water,is only a 5 minute drive from my front door.



                                                                                    "Dunes at Fort Pickens" 
                                                                    (24x36)
                                                                               


Pensacola is a beautiful place to live and work. A painter never has to look far to find inspiration. From Gulf to bay to bayou, I welcome the challenge of painting water that looks different from minute to minute .




For a few short weeks during the last 2 years, I've lived in Templeton, California on a small peach orchard. It's a short and scenic ride from there to  coastal towns like Morro Bay, Cambria and San Simeon. San Simeon marks the southern edge of Big Sur, my favorite  painter's paradise.  I could happily live and paint for many years anywhere on the coast from Cambria to Carmel.  

click here to purchase

"Looking West" Julia Pfeiffer State Park  
(30x40)
                                                                                   











Where is your favorite painter's paradise?