Self Portrait after Manet
Self Portrait with my Mother, after Édouard Manet Un bar aux Folies Bergère, oil on canvas, 2023
Spruce in Snow, oil on canvas
Weary of all who come with words, words but no language
I make my way to the snow-covered island.
The untamed has no words.
The unwritten pages spread out on every side!
I come upon the tracks of deer in the snow.
Language but no words.
Tomas Tranströmer: From March 1979
Spruce in Snow, oil on canvas, 2023
Still Life With Violet And Lemon
Still Life with Violet and Lemon is my new painting, oil on canvas. Love the dark violet hues of the flower, reflecting blues from the sky and reddish stems with dark green leaves.S ky was blue and vibrant colors trembled as I set the still life to paint…..
Time of Peonies, oil on canvas, 2021
Time of Peonies, oil on canvas, 2021
It’s been one of those mornings, when light is bright and garden is still calm, like enveloped in the mist of the night just passed and the blossoms of colorful flowers appear after the dark of the night to celebrate the day. Complete solitude is needed to enter the code of color world, walking down the garden feels like entering trough portals of eternal beauty. Picking flowers for a bouquet is a meditative task and as I’ve been picking the first peonies of the season I’ve remembered how happy I’ve been planting these pale pink peonies and how long have I waited before thy started to blossom. Their sweet scent of early summer each June gives me joy and makes me want to paint them in all their gorgeous beauty, so fragile and short lived, but year after year appearing in the corner of the garden, near a small Japanese maple.
Artichokes
Artichokes, oil on canvas, 2019
This canvas was made after a photo of mine, taken the same year. It was spring, I remember, as I visited Udine with my husband. I can still see the bright day it was as we crossed the market in the old town. Always attracted by beautifully arranged vegetables, fruits, I was taking some pics. As I saw these artichokes I got stuck by the gorgeous colors. How widely had someone put them on display on the bright electric blue vinyl cloth, just to accentuate the herbaceous greens and pinks of the first artichokes of the season!
Still life with three mandarins and a jug
Painting Summer Bouquet
Summer Bouquet, oil on canvas was painted in summer 2019.
Which I particularly love about the summers is the abundance of flowers in the garden. I usually like to have a morning stroll around the flower beds, see what is new and pick some flowers for the bouquet. Sometimes I would bring a twig from the forest or use some weeds picked among the flowers to put among the bouquet flowers.
And it is at that time that I already see the new painting I am going to paint. Although the hard work begins from that moment on, for a painting to be finished in situ questions have to be answered, one by one. Composition, colors, accents, textures…yet the best occurs when during work flow problems get solved by themselves. Itbis that type of painting when brush seems to paint on its own, yet the painting proceeds to the best possible direction. Which needs a lot of former study and hard work to be accomplished before even starting the canvad, yet is the most rewarding and happy moment for the painter.
And this canvas is among those painted seemingly by itself. Giving me the joy of creation I worked on it during last summer. The size is big enough that looking at it one gets immediately the same feeling as if the real bouquet would be in the room, wrapping our senses in the song of summer colors and shapes……..
Coffee cup and books
Coffee cup and books, painting detail from my new still life in making. Can’t wait to finish it!
Rudbeckia contemporary still life oil on canvas
Painting this contemporary still life oil on canvas was a real joy. For this small nature morte I used palette knife and brushes to capture a Rudbeckia bouquet from my garden. Yellow color of flowers and green color of the table cloth were so strong, and there was a pink vase, all together making a vivid nature morte composition. I wanted to keep this contemporary still life oil on canvas simple and clean. Playing with textures and color main aim was to represent joy of summer colors. Note the patterns of the table cloth, the trembling background and strong yellow flowers arranged with some grasses. And the blue patches, just to mirror the blue sky….. And an interesting detail, the pattern used in the green table cloth appears also in some of my Garden series watercolors. Check the previous blog post: Garden with blue colors. Thinking about the table cloth representing garden and the garden being just a table cloth with patterns of nature…..