Broadway Belle - A Beauty Still

Go To Louise Sackett Fine Art

I finally got around to painting a little old lady I met.

She’s a lovely old Victorian house on Broadway, at the top of the hill, below the old County Admin offices in Silver City.  I have wanted to paint her since I first saw her. She is a designated historical building, one that has a for real name. But I call her ‘Broadway Belle”. She’s been on Broadway a long, long time. But she still retains some of her allure.

She has had her porch removed and rebuilt and has survived a whole lot of upgrades since she was first constructed. Right now she is for sale and needs a coat of paint. I was trying to figure out when the light would be most advantageous to her, and finally said ‘to heck with it’, and painted her yesterday morning.

This is the beginning, where I block in the darks, planning
the shapes.

Perfect light is not worth trying to plan. The light never takes a painter’s needs into account. I can paint a location all morning and never have that shaft of light happen that Richard Robinson says is God’s finger saying “PAINT THIS”. So why wait? You might as well do it when you can, and forget the desirable light. In any case this house was fairly well lit, off and on, with a cool light in the early a.m. that made for a lot of interesting angles with that complex Victorian roof line. I learned a lot painting this piece, like why I don’t paint buildings very well. I guess I get lost in the puzzle-like character of the shapes. People like Lori Putnam, Shelby Keefe and Greg LaRock make it look so easy. I wish that it were. It’s not for me. So I trudge on, painting buildings in the hope that they sooner or later will start to look more plausible. At least not look like they are on borrowed time, unless they actually are.

At this stage I am playing with the colors and determining the foreground.

 I was playing with a burnt red oxide and ultramarine violet this time. I actually thought that the ultra violet couldn’t be that far off the mixing properties of ultramarine blue. Man can pre-conceived notions be wrong. I really liked the softening qualities of the violet, how it subdues strident chroma when using it in a mix. It’s very different from the blue. And I tried their crimson. It’s a softer more controllable color than alizarin crimson, yet it has deepening attributes when combined with a Cad red light. It’s actually a lot like a carmine pigment. Actual color matching was not what I was mostly concerned with in this painting. I was actually more into getting the light and architecture right, than the color accuracy. With all the downed leaves, the only real natural color, other than the sky, was the yellowed grass and the evergreen spruce. There were no flowers, and the bushes all had that 1920s dun and beige color thing going on.

Broadway Belle
11x14 Oil on board
Available

The good thing about getting out there to paint regardless of the conditions,  is that sooner or later you will find something that is stunning. Like the alley I ran across at 9a.m., downtown. I mean to go back there and see if I can find that light again. Lots of trashcans, lots of kitties, cars, and lots of light. I need practice with cars too. If I remember correctly, it was just down the street from the Broadway painting site.

Maybe that finger of God was there after all.

Favorite quote:
"Don't be afraid to let a good painting go in the pursuit of a great painting."
Rick Howell

To learn about a plein air competition for the benefit of the Wounded Warrior Project, and to win cash prizes and a chance for a two person show,  click here and go to Downloads. 

In 2010 we experienced a major upheaval in our rather predictable lives. We decided, in 10 days, to sell our home in California (after 34 years there), buy a new one in New Mexico and set up my painting studio. WOW. We shocked our kids, our friends, and ourselves. Not to mention our bosses!


My main thought was to gain a studio and time to do what I had always dreamed about - paint full time. Hubby wanted to ride his motorcycle and not work. Man, was he wrong. I have managed to keep him ever so busy, setting up my studio, and trust me, he has worked. My dream became his as we worked to make it a reality. It has been a herculean task, one that never could have happened without my husband's support.

Big White Fire Truck, in hubby's garage

I found our dream home online - all 10 acres of it, complete with rough outbuildings. But there was a catch, - we had a firetruck in one of the outbuildings! Living in the country, as we were to learn, has its own little idiosyncrasies. The big white truck stayed with us almost a year as the local volunteer firefighters put up their new home on Truck By-Pass. As a side benefit we got to know some of our neighbors and listen to the sirens every week as they made inspections. Talk about shock the first time we heard it, right outside the bedroom window! 


The rest of the time we worked on the studio when we wanted to, when the weather permitted, (new concept for southern Californians), and when the local hardware store had what we needed. We made a lot of trips to Tucson, and we bought winter coats and boots. And we have been riding New Mexico on our BMW, learning what beauty this great state has.


We are into the second year of this new phase of our lives - the payoff for all the hard work and faith over the years. The studio is nearing completion and becomes more real each month.
Problems are becoming memories and the future dream is becoming reality.

Studio before the transformation

As the studio is now workable, (though not finished) I am painting almost every day. I love schlepping all my painting stuff out to the field and coming home to my studio to study and finish the resulting pieces. I am beginning to learn the area and have future paintouts planned. I have established a local paintout group that is open to area artists (and I mean a large area). It works with an online notification available at www.meetup.com  Simply put in your area code and look for the Grant County Plein Air Painters. Join us if you care to. We are a supportive group.

Bridge Over Big Ditch - 8x10 Oil
For Sale - email me

Studio Transformation In Progress

The studio odyssey continues. How do we put in a washroom? Where does the sink go? I love my new skylights! (Thanks, Honey) And, can we still get rid of that huge, big , whale-sized center door???

Obstinacy - A Prerequisite for Plein Air

There are those among us plein air painters that think just painting out of doors is challenge enough. I say - you wusses! Never do I start to paint, that I do not ask myself what I am going to try to learn here today. Am I going to learn about design when I go about composing this new study? Or will I give myself color limitations to  narrow my options. Will I increase those options by newly acquired color discoveries? Or will I learn new brush skills by limiting myself to just a few brushes, or horrors, only ONE? (I've tried that last one, and its just not me. There's a reason why I drive an SUV.) 


I actually try to learn something new with each plein air study. John Cosby, an acclaimed artist, in his blog addressed something that I had found very disturbing, given that my hair is now more silver than it has ever been. Most 'in the know' artists say that it takes miles and miles of canvas to learn to paint. That practice makes perfect. Knowing that miles and miles may be more than I can do this lifetime around, I found this totally disturbing. Then I ran across John's posting. He says Every Stroke Is Important.  The thrust of John's post was that intelligent painting decisions make for far greater strides in painting. To quote him; "To my horror "Practice Makes Perfect" is incorrect.  Now I know that someone wrote that down wrong.  It should have been

 "PERFECT PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT". 

That means to me, that I resolve to not paint something simply because it is before me, but to make decisions in composition, in value and color in the here and now. To know why I am painting a painting in a certain way. Its like a light went on when I read that on his blog. I know that there are painters who seem to go off on automatic pilot when they paint and get great results. Perhaps they have already painted those miles and miles of canvas. I need a shortcut. I need a conscious direction. Self imposed challenges give me that direction.

Apache Plume
Available

Knowing that I tend to dive off the deep end with darks in a painting, I tried consciously to limit the amount of darks and their intensity in this painting I executed this week. The subject of Apache Plume and mare's tail clouds seemed to dictate a lighter touch than other things I have painted in the past. I really tried to keep a lighter touch in the painting as a whole. The green in the river valley really was that acid green of new Spring growth, and the sky really was that soft but bright blue. The challenge was not in keeping the wind from blowing down the easel for the third time.....it was in keeping true to my self-imposed limitations. Nobody really cares what the physical reality was like - they care about the work itself.  And this was challenge enough for me this particular morning.  I care about the learning, about the journey. Did I succeed? Maybe after a few more efforts with this same challenge I will be better able to tell.


So at the end of a painting session, I ask myself - Did I get what I was after? Its not always yes. Though the viewer may have no idea what went on in my mind. I will try again, I will try better.


Art without passion is not art. Likewise, to go about painting a thing in the same way time after time and expect a different result is idiocy. Passion and intellect is what Ken Auster says is painting. Some days it is too much one or the other. Its that balance that keeps the edge of interest. That is why painting is a constant challenge. Its not the 'right' green, its the right concept.

Priorities - Its Always Priorities

When  I decided to set up a studio there were things that had to be done first. Everyone is different, and every artist has different needs. I always thought that one must plan, or maybe have a vision. I'm the visionary - then I plan. It had to be inviting, and one capable of sustaining prolonged periods of time spent developing my art, whatever the medium. It was only after having this mental picture that all efforts were directed to the making of the space.


My proposition is this; Your studio does not exist only in the real world - it exists primarily and more concretely in your mind before it ever takes shape in wood, tile, concrete and plumbing. Your 'studio concept' is what goes on in the time prior to the building time, in the pre-execution, in how, and what order you direct your efforts to the making of your studio and by extension your art. 


We put in the walls of my studio before we put in the floor. We secured a water source before we put in the sink. We plastered before we painted. All this seems obvious. But how does an artist plan a painting? A work of art? It is even more critical in plein air. We are assaulted by a barrage of input. All demand the same attention. We must distill, create a mental image, discard the flotsam and solidify the concept, the plan to build upon.

Creative time is precious. As you get older it becomes more precious. Those of us over 60 are ever more painfully aware that if we are to succeed, we must plan more audaciously, execute more unerringly and promote more unabashedly. Wow - did I say that?


So why do I need a studio if I paint 'en plein air'? Well to paint plein air is to learn to distill, to study and to execute. Does the musician study only to study? Of course not, he performs, to the delight (he hopes) of his audience. An artist performs by enlarging his studies into larger canvasses. By the building of my actual studio, I will have the space to build upon my plein air studies. But I will always be doing plein air, because that is the spark for the concept.


Below are 2 new pieces that I did two weeks ago when I went to the Plein Air Convention in Las Vegas. That could be a blog entry all on its own. Two days spent painting and two extremes in environment. From squalling rain and wind to extreme sunshine and wild burros.


If you are interested in either oil, please let me know. Both are 11x14 and are framed.

Rainy Day at Red Rocks

Red Rocks at Spring Valley

 "A work of art which did not begin in emotion is not art."Paul Cezanne