|
Bigfork Art and Cultural Center. Bigfork Montana. October 4-November 1   Breathtaking photograph of moonrise at Salton Sea, Ca. sent by friend and former collaborator on painted quilts, Donna Parker. I kept the photograph several years. This first show at Swannanoa Valley Fine Arts League is entitled Moonlight Becomes You. For months I have been going outdoors to try to translate a painting by moonlight and did the original first from the picture.
To my delight when I chose colors that spoke of night and this moonscape, my entry for the show resulted!
In my painting life these words have encompassed my experience. My recent trip to New Mexico bring this back in a new and fresh way. The sketches I made of Pedernal, Georgia O'Keeffe's famous mountain, the photographs of Ghost Ranch from which I will also sketch and later paint, the quick watercolor studies to remind me of the colors of the mountains....  Notice the eagle flying directly over the Pedernal summit? no matter that it was actually an airplane...in my mind it was definitely an eagle. Painting plein air for me is not about accomplishing a finished work that I can bring home (although that is lovely when it happens), but about the entire experience of being out in nature, of rendering something that appeals to me and that is beautiful or interesting, of remembering the weather and the people....
 I made a quick study of the valley and noted the herd of buffalo in the distance. That may not make a painting to put over the mantle but for me it is my painting photograph, forever a remembrance of something I saw, experienced and will forever treasure.
Myrtle Beach class with Eric Wiegardt, 2015  Myrtle Beach by Barbara Frohmader Painted from a photograph of San Miguel de Allende in Eric's class  San Miguel by Barbara Frohmader |
