August Feature: Izzy's Burger Spa

I’ve driven by this burger joint several times in South Lake Tahoe and finally last summer, I got around to painting it. It really helps to have a painting partner who likes to do similar subject matter. We both agreed that the lighting was best on this one in the morning, and an added bonus was an empty parking lot early in the day. Good plan, because I had to return a second day to complete it and had no problem setting up in the same spot again. The things that attracted me to the scene: a geometric stair step composition against soft pine boughs and how the red in the building looked great against the green pines. Then the fun stuff: The shadow of the fence, the signage, umbrellas and flag and a few people (finally at noon). I like that there was a peek-a-boo mountain so you know “we aren’t in Kansas any more”, we are in a mountain town!

What made this painting tough was it wasn’t exactly peaceful- there was loud road construction right in front of me. That actually is another reason I was drawn to paint it: they are updating South Lake Tahoe and I wanted to preserve this place in the event that it too is renovated. This painting is looking for a good home. But until then, I’m happy to see it in my studio and remember the good old days when people went out to eat!

This is as far as I got on the first day I painted this. I came back the next day to finish it up. All the signage lettering I did in my studio, where I have better hand control

My painting partner, Randall Stauss’s block in of the road construction that noisily accompanied us while we worked!

July In Keremma, France

What a difference a year makes! I had the fortune of being included on a painting trip in Brittany, France last summer. I knew at the time it was a trip of a lifetime, but now especially, with travel restrictions, am I ever glad I grabbed that opportunity (thank you Richard Lindenburg!) We stayed in a wonderful large family home in a seaside village called Keremma. Several generations ago a woman named Emma bought up a large chunk of land by the sea and stipulated that only descendants could own large parcels of land there. A village of beautiful summer homes- French style- was developed over centuries and all of the owners are related somewhere along their lineage- I think everyone just is a cousin now. We had the fortune to be invited guests and stay in a large home that came with a chef! We were out most days painting, and home for a delicious dinner.

Trip of a Lifetime- Painting in Bretagne, France with (back row: Ellen Howard, Jan Norsetter, me, Paul and Tia Kratter, Richard Lindenburg, Krystal Brown, Steve and Peggy Immel (front) Cynthia Rosen, Vered Pasternek, Lori McNee

The young chef offered us to come paint on his uncle’s estate where he was living for the week (above). Oh my goodness it was breathtaking! The home was so huge I was overwhelmed by it (couldn’t even fit it into my photograph!). But instead, I spied the gardener’s shed nearby and it looked much more inviting. So, while my friends did paintings of the mansion, I stood alone and painted this shed and it was probably one of the most charming pieces I did that trip. Some of my strongest work is when I parcel a scene way down and focus in on what might be a better story.

A Once in a Lifetime Trip to France

With so many of my paintings, for me it’s hard to distinguish its quality if I had a wonderful time painting it. If it was an amazing experience, I look at the painting and it all comes back. I understand why so many people buy art that is personal to them. It may not be about how well it’s painted but how it makes one feel. That’s this painting. It was painted Day 2 of my 17-day trip to France with a dozen painters. I signed up late and the caveat was I’d need to have a roommate. This became the best part of the whole trip. I had always wanted to meet a facebook friend who lived in Wisconsin and it seemed it would never happen otherwise… I just had a feeling she would be the perfect travel companion- boy was I right! Jan Norsetter and I met face-to-face for the first time, just 24 hours before this was painted. She was the perfect roommate, a very confident driver, and an easy painting partner. We met two days before the whole group got together in Keremma, Bretagne to acclimate and paint together.

So, about this painting: we stood high above a beach looking down, still jet-lagged a bit. I didn’t have my full range of oil paints yet- I was going to get them in a couple days. I only had little sample packet Utrecht paints the size of those pizza parlor red chili peppers. With VERY limited colors on my palette (red, blue, yellow ocher, viridian and white), I felt like I was driving a car blind-folded. So for that handicap, I felt like it went ok.

This painting now hangs in Jan’s home. I chose it to give to her because it was our first side-by-side painting of the trip. And I’m the proud owner of a Norsetter that was the last one we painted side-by-side that trip. I made nearly 2 dozen paintings in France, but the biggest treasure I brought home was a lifetime friend.

The Making of The Washoe House

Washoe House

I painted this piece last September with my friend Randall Stauss . We had painted the morning in Petaluma and were heading to a figure drawing class in Sebastopol and there it was! We both lit up when we saw this gorgeous red building in late afternoon light. We hopped out and stayed off to the edge of a busy road and in a couple hours moved on.

Washoe House was built in 1859 and became a stagecoach stop. After Abraham Lincoln’s assassination in 1865, Major James Armstrong’s “Emmett Rifes” rode up Stony Point Road intent to revenge the Democrats in Santa Rosa. They turned back after stopping at this tavern. The incident was known as The Battle of Washoe House.

Now, as I look at this painting, I think how wonderful it was to drive anywhere last year. We never gave it a second thought! I hope we get that freedom back again this summer! Stay safe til then!

WASHOE HOUSE painted September 2019

The Making of Carved Coast

Look at that view!!! This is in the Big Sur coastal range, just south of Carmel,CA and it was quite challenging to paint! It took 2 visits spanning a year. I decided the epic view would be worth an epic attempt so I pulled out my biggest canvas for painting outside, 14x18”.

My painting started on March of 2018. I had the most horrible start! Things got very dark on me. When I look at the block-in, it looks like I’m struggling with drawing and with the tricky values of dark rock in bright sun and shadow vs stark white sand.

Photo of the scene at Garapata State Beach

The initial block in- what a mess!! The struggle is real!

This is what I looked at all year and thought about what it needed- notice that it’s higher tide here- there’s water against the foreground rocks. When I returned the following year it was low tide and I changed my painting to include more rocks.

And of course, my favorite paintings are the ones I do with some of my favorite people. Kathy & Al joined me on both trips.

This painting was juried into the Calfornia Art Club’s “From Sea to Sierra” show in January and February. Where is it now? It is in the possession of my friend Annie who picked it up for me in Folsom and due to current travel restrictions, I’m waiting to retrieve it when we get the All Clear to go about our lives again. Stay safe my friends! Oh- if the painting interests you, please let me know! It’s available!

The Making of Sunset on the Lower Haight

This was a studio painting I did in January of 2019. I don’t often work from photos but I decided to try to paint this scene as a gift. Below you will see the block-in. It is very dark, which is my trademark-start! Super ugly! Once I had my shapes blocked in, I went right to the cars. I wasn’t sure I was up to the task and knew they would make or break the painting. I remembered advice a friend gave to me: if you paint a group of anything, all you really have to do is get a couple right and the mind fills in the rest; no need to render every bend in the metal- what fun is that? I had to decide what was the essential part of a car that says it’s a car- It’s the shape of the window agains the curve of the metal roof. It’s the dark underbelly, hubcaps and lights. I looked at the imperfect overlap due to road and driver imperfections. I worked into the night on this one- but the cars took just one try! Whew! When I woke up the next morning, I couldn’t wait to see the painting- that’s how I knew this one had that “something”.

This one was juried into the Greater Bay Area Open at the New Museum of Los Gatos and also won Honorable Mention at the Santa Clara Triton Art Museum 2D Works annual statewide juried show (that was a mouthful!). Not sure when I’ll actually gift it. It’s currently in my kitchen where I feel like I have a view of SF just outside! Is it a re-gift if it’s been viewed a lot on other walls?

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February’s Koi Playground

I’ve always wanted to try painting water lillies and wherever I see them, I take photos. The tricky part is getting a good reflection and a good composition of the spiraling pattern of leaves. Often I’ve had a nearby building refllected and the hard edges in the water reflection just aren’t attractive.

So this painting is painted from a photo of lily pads I took in Kauai at the Kiahuna Plantation. I loved the bright color against a dark setting and the flicker of koi. I knew I wanted to start with a dark background and I had a painting that didn’t go so well, so it was a perfect one to experiment with and it helped to have something to cover up. The original painting was a self portrait painted from a window reflection at night so it was really strange looking! So somewhere at the bottom of the koi pond is a very unsuccessful selfie!

Ringing in the New Year

January 2020: Happy New Year!

Reference photo for painting: Sugar Pine State Park, Lake Tahoe

The new year is always full of new beginnings and here’s one I’d love to try to maintain this year: a monthly background story on the 12 paintings that I have put into my annual calendar. If you are a recipient of one, maybe you are interested in learning more about it as you stare at it for a month!

January’s painting was painted a year ago in Tahoe. I had just started the “January challenge” to paint daily- which I’m doing again this year. This is a great way to get fluid again, and shake off the cobwebs brought on by the holidays.

We had so much snow last year in Tahoe, I had to be on a 2nd story to see anything- you couldn’t work at ground level with 10-12 foot walls of snow. So I went to a nearby state park (Sugar Pine) where they plow the parking lot and saw this scene. It was quite cold and I only gave myself about an hour and told myself “just get it done and get out of here”. I’m almost a little grumpy about it, and then, all the sudden, I’m in the zone and the rest of the world melts away. What cold?

As you can see from the photo, the lake is barely visible- but I knew it was there and I knew it would be a stronger painting to emphasize it. I placed tree trunks at thirds- nothing in the middle- and used the wide, narrowing path to move the eye into the painting. I could see very quickly that the tree shadows were constantly moving, so I had to decide what was light, and what was dark and stick with that plan.

This piece is very “Plein air”- it is a reaction to what I was seeing, in paint, and not polished up at all in the studio. When I look at the painting now, I can tell I was looking at the scene, if that makes sense. It’s me saying “I am seeing this for you”. It’s a bit more loose and brushy than some of my work is, but I was happy with the result.

This painting found a home in Montana- a sorority sister/ fellow art major enthusiastically purchased it and it makes me happy to know it’s in a good home!

The Story of the 2 Bears

A couple years ago I went out painting in the snow with my friend Michele. As a Tahoe resident, she knows great spots to paint and we pulled off a road that goes to Alpine Meadows ski resort.

Michele did a gorgeous mountain painting and my painting was a closer scene of a field of snow, exposed rocks and brush. I was happy with the palette, the sense of light and place.

8x10” Plein Air study

I wondered if it might translate well as a large painting. So I painted the scene on a 24x30 stretched canvas and it just kind of died- it lacked a good focal point and any story. It was just a background scene. I learned a lesson though that if you are going to blow up a small painting, there’s got to be some complexities.

So it just sat on the floor on my studio, percolating for two years. A couple weeks ago I decided to work into it. My husband has long wanted a bear painting- I mean this has been a real “thing” between us- accompanied with laughter of course- that I paint everything EXCEPT the one thing he has requested. So with Christmas AND his birthday approaching, it was time to try painting him a bear. Or two. He joked that he wanted a mean bear, being taken over by our protective dog, but this scene was too peaceful for that. I’m not even sure that cubs are born in winter but maybe it’s an early spring snow? Since he wanted some drama, I added a little vignette in the top right corner: a figure (my husband?) is walking a dog (ours?) who is just getting a whiff of the bear. Will there be an altercation? Or are these pairs going to pass through snowy meadow without knowing? I’ll let you finish the story.

Studio set up- the 8x10 Plein air image above the 24x30 scene 2 years before I added the bears. I have a photo reference up on my computer screen.

Influences: Jack Beal and Sondra Freckleton, 1978

It came back like a flash when I ran across this drawing. The lumbering giant of a man, Jack Beal , his back to me, on the phone. He’s looking at the Hudson River seven floors below- you don’t know that but I know precisely. I was the wide-eyed apprentice in a semester-long arts program in New York in 1978. His wife Sondra Freckleton was every bit his equal working in intricate water colors of complex still lives. Typically his apprentices got to work on his large canvases, blocking figures for him to complete, but his paintings were too far along and I didn’t get to paint on his work. (At that time, he was preparing 8 large paintings for Virtues and Vices).

What a time it was! He took his role as teacher seriously, and taught me to analyze master work. He showed me how to break down one master piece in six studies: One study for line and one for shifts in movement, one study on shape and volume, another for color, then value, then texture. We worked on masters from Caravaggio and Rubens to Hiroshige to Matisse. It was a lot of work! But I could see through practice I was grasping it. And throughout history, artists used these same principles to move the eye through a painting. I particularly remember a lesson on how the twisting bodies of two figures in a Hiroshige print masterfully moved the eye around the painting. It was a revelation: flat shapes, yet through overlapping lines, and where the eyes of a figure look,my own eye moved through the print.

I had always wished I had a picture of me and this New York power couple together- but actually no. To sit in their studio and draw them is much more intimate a memory.

Sondra Freckleton, by Nancy Duesing 1978

Jack Beal, by Nancy Duesing, winter 1978

Coming Full Circle on the Capitola Wharf

In 2016, I entered my first Capitola Plein Air event and was painting on the wharf near a fisherman.  We struck up a conversation and he told me about an elderly man who came to the wharf every single day. He walked to the middle of the wharf, touched a plaque dedicated to his wife, bent over to kiss it, then returned to his car. Sure enough, along he came with his cane, wearing athletic shorts.  I had goosebumps as I watched his sweet daily ritual, and was so touched by this story, I snapped this quick photo.

The next year when I returned to Capitola, I saw the man again. This time he was having great difficulty making his way, and someone was assisting him. But I could see his determination, and he succeeded. As he returned to pass me,  I made eye contact with him and said hello. I noticed he was sweating, breathing hard, and relying on his escort quite a bit. He nodded his head at me and continued.

So this year, I went to the wharf hoping to see him again. When he never appeared, I walked down to about where I recalled him stopping. There are many plaques, but these two told just about the right story, with dates that made sense. If I’m guessing right, Jack honored his wife Ruthie every day for 10 years, and must have passed shortly after I saw him. I was so touched to witness Jack’s faithfulness; it was something that stuck with me.

But my story isn’t over. This year, I decide to paint the Capitola Wharf in my third Capitola Plein Air event. I stood on the beach on the south side. As I did, I thought about what I might name the painting to honor Jack and Ruthie. But such a title might only mean something to me. When I added figures to the wharf, my brush made a “happy accident” of making two heads near “the spot”. I imagined it was two figures, one wrapping his arms around the other from the back. A fitting way to acknowledge these loving spirits.

As I finished the painting, I saw a young man in a dress suit on the beach, and I looked past him.  There on the north side of the wharf was a wedding setting up. I quickly tore down, moved, and set up to paint the event from under the wharf. When the wedding party discovered me, I became a small part of the event. The whole wedding party came to see the quickly painted piece. Maybe in some way I brought the link of that love into the next love story.

How I Spent My Plein Air Season: 2018

I attend three plein air competitions a year: this year I got into the Carmel Art Festival in May, and the Frank Bette Art Center's Plein Air Paint Out in August (Alameda California).  Alameda is rich with subject matter; with moderate temps and light that sparkles near the SF bay. This scene really hit me; I really liked the shapes and color, and apparently the judge liked it too... Best of Show! What a thrill! On to Capitola in November! Another favorite spot!

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A week later I was on the shores of Lake Tahoe giving my first painting workshop to a wonderful group of students, with my friend and mentor, Randall Stauss. For three days we had a great time teaching eager students.

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Every year I look for a unique opportunity to learn; this year I flew to Atlanta for a 5-day Plein Air Painters of America masters class. I spent 2-days in a small group with Matt Smith and another 2 days with Jill Carver- two great painters AND wonderful instructors! We also had a day of lectures by all 8 instructors.  Great learning!

Blast from the Past

I had a "deja-vu" experience recently  when I was out painting with my friend Kathy at Vasona Lake in Los Gatos, CA.  I realized I had painted a similar scene as a student in the 70s.  I still have the painting and it reminds me of what I was going through back then: I was distressed about my upcoming senior show, knowing I had a lot of work ahead. I had just "seen the world" in a semester-long  art program in New York, and felt I was regressing to be back in Indiana for a year to finish up college. And having to live in a sorority house again?  I escaped to this farm to paint every chance I could.  And there it was: this painting (Jones Pond, below) painted itself that fall day as I sat - yes, sat to paint-  "yoga-style" on the ground for 3 or 4 hours. (even at age 21, it was an effort to then stand up!)

1978: Nancy the Student: Jones Pond, Greencastle, IN

This painting was a break-through for me then. At 20x24, I’ve never since finished that large of a painting alla prima (all at once) en plein air (not in studio). It came together so easily and it got me hooked on painting Plein Air; although we just called it painting outside. Now of course I see the issues with it- clumsy trees on the right, value and temperature of distant trees are too green, need to lighten and blue it. But i will always remember the feeling of having created something that wasn’t there before, and over the years as this piece hung in my Dad’s study, and eventually my home, it brings back that last gasp of fall. This piece  honors that scene.

Fast forward almost 4 decades, and I'm painting a similar scene 2000 miles away. I really think looking at Jones Pond all these years helped to inform me in the recent painting. I’m now more conscious of painting masses as a value,  suggesting a tree trunk in broken lines not snaky lines, painting the air between me and a distant hill that goes blue.

The recent painting isn’t as restful but calls on me to keep painting because I’m on to something. But I’ll take it standing up!

Encore!

I started blocking in this painting for the Capitola Plein Air and couldn’t quite get it done. Who can resist purple awnings, right? So I went back after the event and nearly finished it. When the homeowner came out and saw me working, she was so ecstatic to see the painting included so many elements she loved about her house, that she playfully spanked  me as she listed them ...”the Aloha sign!” (Spank!) “the orange door” (Spank!) the birds of paradise! (Spank!) I don’t expect to ever get spanked again for what turned out to be a double sale! She wanted a second painting to give to her Scottish in-laws who had stayed there all summer and dubbed it, “ our wee little hoose.”

So I stayed on and painted the afternoon sun on the house. Very interesting to try 2 lighting conditions. I can’t think of a single impressionist painter who ever did that! But just give me a monet and I'll think of someone!

“The Aloha House” 12x16” 

“Our Wee Little Hoose” 

This is why I had to stop painting that first day; the clouds moved in and I lost the light. 

My new friends were thrilled to find a painter outside of their home. 

Setting up Plein and Simple

Call it learning the hard way, but It takes a few mistakes to learn there's  a smarter way to set up and paint outside.  

For example, I've had my easel dump at least 5 times- wind+umbrella= sail!

I've tripped on my tripod,. Or bystanders have.

I've faced the sun and my pupils dialate so much that I can't see color..

So today, when  I took time to find a good scene to paint, I also considered the best place to stand. I decided I would need an umbrella for an hour or so before the sun would be behind a tree. I faced my easel into the shade of that tree rather than into the bright scene I was painting, so my pupils wouldn't dialate, rendering me color-blind .  I would rather turn my head to look.

Since I needed to attach my umbrella to my tripod for an hour or so, I spread the legs as far as they would go and then lifted the tripod  neck to attach my pochade- a Strada.  I attached my umbrella to a tripod leg. If a gust of wind lifts the umbrella, there is less chance of a disaster if the legs are set wide. Of course you should tether the umbrella too.

For added stability, I always hang my backpack on my tripod hook to give it extra weight.  

With the tripod  legs extending wide, it's easy to trip on them. Believe me!! .  I lean some objects on or around the legs  so that passerbys -and I can see to avoid them. My umbrella case, brush  carrier and wet panel carrier work well to prop near the legs.

The inadvertent advantage I just discovered today of having my back to people is that my painting was facing those walking by.  A woman watched my progres- unbeknownst to me- and ended up buying the painting... she had grown up going to that beach and now also felt connected to the painting, having watched it develop.

By taking time to set up, you may gain more time to paint by outwitting what Mather Nature throws your way!

Backed into the shade, I just need to turn to look. Using a Strada easel with EasyL umbrella. I use one side tray for paint, the other to rest dirty brushes and  when I'm done, the two trays clam shell together and I can toss in backpack and pop  in freezer when I get home.

The finished painting...voila!.. and sold!