Painting Away

Been painting for the first time in a long while.  I’m experimenting with as looser style than I used to do. Still inspired by Gabrielle Munter. Emily sent me a delicious calendar this year and each month is a treat. I just love her use of color. I have a book Emily gave me a couple of Christmases ago, which shows some of the black and white photographs she worked from and the places she   saw around her in the Murnau area. (Since there was no color photography at that time, at least for the casual photographer, you can see how she actually saw things in her paintings. All of the subjects were right around the little house in Murnau where she and Kandinsky lived together. It’s just before the Alps begin, with a lot of little lakes and the mountains in the near distance.

The picture above is of a vacant house down in Holmes County. I happened to drive past it as the sun was rather low in the sky. The back of the house is missing, and the light in the windows is the sun, not indoor lights. I have been meaning to do this painting for a very long time and decided to just plunge in and think like Munter. I may do another one of the same subject, because this was fun to do.

The painting below is base on a picture that Ellie took of the wild cat, Francine. I haven’t met her, but she is the subject of many hilarious photos from the Petrou homestead in Erding. This one was so colorful and I couldn’t resist. I don’t think I have quite captured the zaniness of Francine, who is very photogenic in a wacky way. Both she and Izzy, the alpha cat of the family, are extremely nutty felines and I have Izzy’s photos on my refrigerator door, replacing grandchildren’s pictures. My beautiful granddaughters are much too glamorous for the likes of a refrigerator door.  Anyway, I love the photo of Francine contemplating the ennui of a late winter afternoon, close by a glass of wine and l’heure bleu.