Sketch in watercolor:
I’ve been cleaning my studio a bit these days and look what have I found! A sketch of mine, from 2017. I still remember how tender looked the snowdrops, just picked, in an eggshell porcelain vase from Japan. I made a small watercolor after this sketch and yes, I ‘ve painted a snowdrops bouquet in oil, too! Can’t wait to spot the first snowdrop of this spring in the garden !!!!
Cup and saucer by the window finished today!
I am happy with my new still life. Oval format of the painting is the one I love to work with.
Yet this time it has been extremely difficult for me, as in January I’ve lost my dear friend. The one we’ve been friends since we’ve been girls, the one we’ve had billion coffees together to talk life, careers, families, kids, gardening……But on the other hand working on has been the best remedy for my broken heart.
I’ve picked the objects for this still life intuitively, placed them by the window in my studio. One cup with saucer, remaining there in the room, by the window, overlooking landscape, hills and sky. It is sunny outside, the cup and saucer shine in the sun light of January as I keep asking Where is the boundary between outside and inside, sorrow and sun, now and then, here and the future………..
Still life with cabbage, garlic, quince and flowers was finished in fall, 2019.
Setting this still life was easy, sort of impulsive. I’ve been following the strong colors of some fruit, vegetables in the kitchen. It has obviously started with the purple violet cabbage, just gorgeous color calling me to paint it. By the way, anthocyanins are the pigments giving the red cabbage its strong color. Then garlic, crisp white but with slight violet shades. Ripe yellow quince. Flowers from the garden. And the blue glass for the smaller bouquet! Sunlight in fall is special, soft and warm, giving special nuances to objects. And in an ununderstandable way telling the year has just turned around, the winter coming to end the eternal cycle for this year. I guess this was just the mood I’ve been in painting this still life. And I am quiet happy with how has it turned out, catching all those strong colors, but in a way calming them down, playing with background of the painting.
Anthocyanins (also anthocyans; from Greek: ἄνθος (anthos) “flower” and κυάνεος/κυανοῦς kyaneos/kyanous “dark blue”) are water-soluble vacuolar pigments that, depending on their pH, may appear red, purple, blue or black. Food plants rich in anthocyanins include the blueberry, raspberry, black rice, and black soybean, among many others that are red, blue, purple, or black. Some of the colors of autumn leaves are derived from anthocyanins.[1][2] from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthocyanin
Anthocyanins belong to a parent class of molecules called flavonoids synthesized via the phenylpropanoid pathway. They occur in all tissues of higher plants, including leaves, stems, roots, flowers, and fruits. Anthocyanins are derived from anthocyanidins by adding sugars.[3] They are odorless and moderately astringent. from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthocyanin
Three lemons still life just finished!!
Art studio painting in progress
Absolutely heartbroken, losing my dear close friend, I saw the world around me dissolving in small patches hidden behind the tears. With all the will power I could squeeze out of me, I’ve started to rearrange these patches back into pictures, giving colors to life and hope to a new dawn.
Still life, work in progress, oil on canvas
Snowdrops are among the first flowers of spring in our country. No matter how cold the winter might be, they would find their way to show up, always. Each spring snowdrops paint whole white carpets under trees .What a view!
But there is much more diversity in these uniformly white galaxy as one could assume at a first glimpse.These white flowers may change shape,their pattern is far from uniform,mutations provide new shapes. But the sad truth is all these variants are mostly not stable in nature. So it actually is a hard work to cultivate a Galanthus nivalis cultivar of even a slight difference. And the good news? Once stable form will propagate with bulbs-by means of Fibonacci sequence which means:0,1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34,55,89 etc!
Anyhow, the first snowdrops bouquet each year brings the promise of warmer times to come. Tiny flowers themselves make just a small bouquet that doesn’t last much time, so flower shops usually don’t keep them. It was quite a surprise as I got a small white galanthus bouquet, nicely wrapped in red paper! I painted this still life immediately, presenting white flowers in red paper in crystal glass vase. Definitely a Galanthomania of my own!!!!
Last week I ‘ve happened to get a wonderful vintage art book. I’ve passed by a bookshelf, in public space, with a note attached on it. It read: Take with you as many as you want 🙂 Bring some you don’t need any more:)
The bookshelf was rather full. It seems people are energetically following Ms. Condo and books obviously aren’t very sparkly possession for many. Anyhow, I’ve looked closely as one never knows what can be hidden in such a library full of thrown away books. It turned out I really absolutely had to save one book, the one sitting alone among many How to do manuals, Cookbooks, Crime novels and Love stories. It hasn’t appeared as something like a new book, with the cardboard envelope even a bit torn down. But then inside this envelope, there were six lovely notebook like booklets. As I’ve read the title I’ve decided it goes with mes. For as said before: ”what is one man’s crap is another man’s treasure” .
The book is actually first part of four books series by Schmiedeberg Blume. The first tome is titled Grundlagen der Technik und Komposition and it is basically a textbook for painters. Printed in Berlin in 1927!
I am extremely happy I’ve rescued this book, reading it now and enjoying it’s vintage illustrations. Noticing some things haven’t changed that much in the last 100 years.
Have a look at some illustrations, aren’t they just marvelous?
Tamara
Ps: This weekend picking some books from my library to put on that bookshelf, hope to make someone happy 🙂
A small pine tree trimmed as bonsai has captured my attention. There is all the beauty of a real grown up tree caught in a bonsai tree, put on a display to admire. And one can admire the nature of the tree species itself. Yet also the virtue of the one growing the bonsai. Painting this still life I’ve used vivid color palette.I wanted to catch the wonderful natural colors of a pine tree (Pinus sylvestris). And I’ve tried to make it really simple, just not to take any attention away from the simple meditative beauty of a small bonsai tree..
“There are no borders in bonsai. The dove of peace flies to palace as to humble house, to young as to old, to rich and poor. So does the spirit of bonsai.”
― John Yoshio Naka
This double portrait was painted after a vintage photography from the family album. Two kids I’ve never known. From distant times almost no one remembers by now. But their appearance has settled in my subconsciousness. Merging with my childhood memories and distant pictures from times passed away many years ago. And it was this reminiscence of the distant childhood, so different yet so similar to the childhood today, that I was working on. Many things may change but childhood memories stay. They stay with the most beautiful light of the garden in spring, in the most beautiful colors, telling us the story of all the childhoods yet to come, remembering all the kids we once were, playing in the garden…..
In the garden Tamara Jare portrait painting, oil on canvas, 70 x 100 cm (27,5 x 39,4 inches)
For me, however, that beloved, glowing little word happiness has become associated with everything I have felt since childhood upon hearing the sound of the word itself. Hermann Hesse
I think it’s a great tragedy of childhood that you only really appreciate it once it’s done: it’s very hard to feel appreciative of the gifts you have until you’re gone. Greta Gerwig
I always remember my childhood house with happy memories. There was a beautiful garden, and outside my bedroom window was a jasmine vine which would open in the evenings, giving off a divine scent. Carolina Herrera
“Childhood is the one story that stands by itself in every soul.”
― Ivan Doig, The Whistling Season
“I remember my childhood names for grasses and secret flowers. I remember where a toad may live and what time the birds awaken in the summer — and what trees and seasons smelled like — how people looked and walked and smelled even. The memory of odors is very rich.”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden
From my studio is my first painting freshly finished in 2020. And I am happy with it. Mostly so as here I’ve painted all what I hope to be with me well on into New year. Window with a view. Colors. Art. Painting. Literature. Nature. And a cup of coffee.
Window with a view at the painting happens to be the actual window in my art studio. I am happy and grateful I have a place to work. View from this window has appeared in several paintings of mine, especially so as it is really a part of my world perception. How many times have I, from the childhood on, looked trough this window. With my gaze resting on near by hills, forest, gardens, sky. Thinking about my work. So this is the window I’ve painted here, together with the view, the nature and the blue sky I love so much. Yet I take window as a symbol , too. What would an artist be without a view, view in a symbolic, broader sense? Without broad sight no art is possible.
Colors have been part of mine since I do remember. My early memories are panopticum of colors. I’ve grown up in an art studio and there have always been colors in physical sense around me. And there has been a lot of conversation about colors all the time. I find color even in nuances of black or white, but couldn’t live without all the colors a sunny day brings. Or a rainy day. Absolutely does not mater as long as there are colors. For my perception of the world is trough the chromatic values of the visible spectre.
Art. Art as the highest and purest form of communication. Painting being the art I live for. Represented with the palette on this still life. .
Literature makes me happy since I’ve learn to read and write. Among the books on the pile is I Ching I’ve got from my parents, for my 20th birthday. One of the books that have shaped me and my life.
Nature helps me survive. Creating art or even life itself can get exhausting but a walk in the forest instantly gives me energy. Or an hour spent in the garden. Or painting flowers. And as it gets so interwoven I’ve painted the colors on the palette to resemble the nature. Equally the color of the drapery on the table is meant to bring greenery of the nature inside the studio. And to ask us: where all these colors came from, where the view leads us, what is reality and what is the painting?
A lot of sentences for a modest art blog like mine. Time for a cup of coffee served in vintage porcelain over the pile of books in the studio. What the 2020 will bring ? A broad view on art from my studio would just do it!
Tamara
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