Summer Night

Monhegan Moonrise, oil on linen, 36 x 24, 2009

Illustration Friday is running a them that gets my heart pumping: midsummer night! How I long to be visiting the far northern reaches of Scandinavia one midsummer's day eve! Till then, Maine is about as north as I can get. This is the moon rising over the tip of Monhegan Island.

Shadow Paintng

Arrangement for Ukulele, oil on canvas, 16 x 16 inches, 2011

This week's prompt over at Illustration Friday is shadows. A good deal of this painting is about the shadows cast by the objects. So I hope it fits the bill. This piece was part of my one person show last month at Artists' House Gallery in Philadelphia. I believe the paint was still wet when I dropped it off. I hope I canpry it out of the frame because of course I now see several things I'd like to fix!

BICYCLE

Portland Delivery, oil & pencil on linen, 9 x 12, 2009

Bicycle is the theme today at Illustration Friday. I have only once painted a bicycle, and here it is! It's very uncharacteristic in style as well as in execution. I was so worried about depicting the bicycle accurately that I traced it carefully in pencil onto the primed canvas before "coloring it in", not at all my usual slap-happy style!

I had been showing at a gallery in Portland Maine (Susan Maasch Fine Art) and was dropping off some work one late afternoon when I saw this bicycle delivery guy sailing slowly past on his red bike. There was something about the light and the balanced motion of the scene that caught at my heart. I happened to have my camera in hand and click: almost unbelieveably I managed to catch the moment. I don't usually work from photos, depict action, work from tracing or even do any drawing at all before painting, but I did this time and was somewhat pleased with the result. Something to revisit in future perhaps.

I felt later, looking at the scene that it had a faint whiff of Christen Købke about it, which must have unconsciously caused the initial attraction. I have had a postcard of this painting on my studio wall for years.

Last Autumn, Bottled

Green and Yellow, oil on gessoed ragboard, 8 x 10 inches, 2011

Bottled is this week's prompt at Illustration Friday. I love this little brown bottle which once held a nutritional supplement we were giving my son with autism when he was younger,  and I use it over and over again in my work. I think it signifies a simpler time, when we were full of hope and energy. Still have lots of hope, but less energy! ;-)  The coreopsis blossom and nasturtium leaves were from my late autumn garden. They lasted a long time in my chilly studio. The apple on the left only went into the compost bin a month or two ago...very long-lasting! This recently completed piece is on the invitation card for my upcoming show:

Nancy Bea Miller: recent work
May 4-29, 2011
Artists' House Galley
57 North 2nd Street
Philadelphia, PA

Receptions:

First Friday:
May 6, 5 - 8:30pm
Sunday,
May 8, 1 - 4pm

http://www.artistshouse.com/exhibits/next.html

Duet

Joined, oil on linen, 12 x 9 inches, 2011

DUET is this week's prompt at Illustration Friday. This is a painting I completed about a month ago and I think it fits the bill. I am in the Philly area and we sure do love our soft pretzels here! I am originally from NYC and we loved our pretzels there too, but the NYC pretzels are an entirely different configuration. In any shape, soft pretzels are best bought from a street vendor on a cold day,  eaten warm with a zigzag of mustard. If you get a blob of mustard on your cheek and someone kisses it off...all the better!

Surrender

Oliver on the Floor, oil on canvas, 20 x 42 inches, 1992-3

Surrender is the theme this week at Illustration Friday! Battling to meet several important deadlines and to endure a bunch of winter storms I had surrendered the idea of participating. But this morning, imminent deadlines met, storms having done their worst, I took a deep breath and decided I wanted to play after all. Better late than never!

The model for this painting was a young man I was friendly with at art school. He was immensely talented, but unfocused. I knew he needed money and so I was happy to pay him to pose now and then. He had long thick blonde hair and a Jesus beard, till one day he showed up completely shaven! We were in the middle of a painting too. Resigned, I put that one away and started this one, which seemed to better suit both our moods. Unfortunately, the shaving seemed to be indicative of some "casting off" process, and after only a couple of sessions he disappeared. Later I heard he'd headed to California.

The painting never got finished, but there is something about it I like, despite its rough, unfinished, state.

Chicken

Free Range, oil on canvas, 8 x 10 inches, 2009

This week the theme over at Illustration Friday is Chicken. At the risk of being a literalist, this painting from about a year ago sprang to mind. I painted this at the 2009 Plein Air at Beaver Farm event. It's a beautiful biodynamic working farm but it's a real farm too, nothing boutique about it. Nature red in tooth and claw and all that.  I was surprised when several people who first saw it said "Awww, sweet!" and "Isn't that cute?" While painting I had been thinking about these chickens, happily roaming the range and killing bugs and even small animals (apparently they love to eat field mice, baby snakes and voles!) as fast as their greedy beaks would allow, and how they would eventually be food themselves. Just cycle of life thoughts, nothing tragic, but certainly far removed from sweet or cute. I was thrilled when the person who bought it actually shivered and said "Ooh, this one is a bit creepy! Makes you think, doesn't it?" YES! Makes me think it certainly found the right home, this painting. ;-)

Déjà Vu

Pears and a Pot, 11 x 14, oil on linen, 2008

Not really sure what to put in for Illustration Friday this week. The theme is Déjà Vu, the feeling that you have already experienced a moment which is currently happening. Who hasn't felt this, but it seems a tough concept to handle visually.  This comes close, I think, to expressing that feeling that creeps up on you... a concealed memory projected onto the present moment. A little unnerving!

Resolutions

Hazel and Katie, oil on canvas 28 x 44, 2007

RESOLUTIONS is this week's theme over at Illustration Friday. I don't believe in New Year's resolutions per se, but taking stock and taking appropriate action is a good idea at any time. Let's hope it is more than just once a year! ;-) My developing resolution of late is to dig deeper.

This painting from a few years back seems apt for the Resolutions theme. It was recently featured on the fantastically interesting blog Women Painting Women. I was thrilled, surprised and grateful that it caught the eye of the WPW folks.

Resolutions or no resolutions, Happy New Year everyone!

Savour

Lobster with Brioche, oil on canvas, 2009, 20 x 24 inches

This was painted last year for the "Consider the Lobster" exhibit at gWatson Gallery in Stonington, ME. In case you're interested here's the link! For a funny story about how I rented the lobster from a props supplier and then could not bear to return it, click here.

 

Burning

The rose is burning
in its watery vessel-
searing my eyes

Tangerine Rose, 7 x 5 inches, oil on linen mounted to panel
This piece will be on display in this upcoming exhibit:
Small Works 2010
Artists' House Gallery
December 3 to December 24, 2010
Two receptions:
First Friday:
December 3,
5 - 8:30pm
Sunday,
December 5,
1 - 4pm

Artists' House
57 North Second Street
Philadelphia, PA 19106
(215) 923-8440
artistshouse@aol.com

Afterwards, Red Velvet

Winged Cupcake
A friend took me out for lunch last week. This is a rare event because I don't actually like to go out to lunch...it disrupts my working day and I have little enough time as it is. I'll go out for breakfast or dinner, but lunch, almost never. Still, a number of factors lined themselves up and off we went to lunch. Great place, the food was absolutely delicious and Roz suggested we have dessert too. I looked at all the gorgeous baked goods lined up like sugary little soldiers in the lighted case and knew a fierce hunger...to paint, not eat. So I had a cup of tea while Roz ate a sweet, and afterwards I carried my dessert home in a little box to paint. Which I did. Yum.

Winged Cupcake, oil on canvas on panel, 4 x 6 inches

RACING CLOUDS

UNDECIDED SKY
is the title of this recent painting. I am the founding director of Plein Air for Camphill, a non-traditional plein air event that benefits a program for teens and young adults with special needs in the Phoenixville, PA area. There is one big day of art-making in August when the bulk of the fifty-odd invited artists come to one location and paint/draw/sculpt/carve/video (and visit and feast.) However, organizing artists is not really like herding cats, it is like herding FERAL cats! So I usually arrange a "pre-make-up" day for people who know in advance they can't make the big day and also a make-up day after the event. This painting was done at the pre-make-up day in June. It was squally weather, with streaming sun and gusty showers, clouds threatening or benevolent constantly racing across the sky! We went ahead and held the event despite the iffy weather.

I was too busy organizing to paint while people arrived and did their thing and had a communal lunch. After lunch the skies really went dark and all the other artists left. I stayed to talk to the school administrator, when suddenly the skies cleared. I'd already set up my painting gear and so I broke off the conversation abruptly and raced to my easel. I painted like mad for less than an hour. When rain started bouncing off the oil paint I knew my "window" had closed and I packed up and left. At the time I felt the piece was unfinished, and that maybe I'd do some touch-up back in the studio. But when I looked at it, a day or two later, it felt complete. I did nothing more than varnish it a few months later and put it in a frame. I was thrilled when it sold at the event reception, and to some well-known collectors too!
Sometimes it's good to be undecided.

Undecided Sky, 11 x 17 inches, oil on gessoed wood, 2010

Trail Light

Light in the Forest
There's a beautiful little piece of woods near us, called Rolling Hill Park. Lots of meandering trails. This one leads past an old, roofless ruin. I was lucky enough to be there yesterday just when the light was filling the old stone structure so that it absolutely glowed! Fits in by chance with today's Illustration Friday theme of Trail.

Light in the Forest (Ruin in Rolling Hill Park), oil on linen on wood, 7 x 5 inches, June 2010

Three Eyes

Potato with Three Eyes, oil on linen on wood, 5 x 7 inches, 2010

Just realized the theme over at Illustration Friday this week is subterranean, and by a stretch of the imagination this vegetable which grew underground fits the bill.

Glazed

Glazed, oil on linen on wood, 8 x 6 inches, 2010
This was one session: it's difficult to achieve that glazed look without actually glazing! ;-)

P.S. Just donated this piece to Dear Fleisher, a fund-raiser for a local subsidized city art center.

Brave

BRAVE is the theme this week at Illustration Friday. I think this portrait demo I did for a class I'm teaching fits the bill. In several ways:

1) It is brave of me to show an unfinished piece. In fact, a barely started piece. I was demonstrating how to start a portrait and then was kept busy individually assisting my students for the rest of the session.
2) Teachers have to be brave to do demos in general. There is nothing like standing there in front of a class for a little performance pressure! You need to talk, explain what you are doing and answer questions, while at the same time produce something the students will find worth emulating: yikes!
3) This model, whom I have hire frequently, strikes me as a brave soul. Also an artist, she is piecing together a living with modeling and art sales and other part-time jobs: living on the edge.

We artists have to be brave, and also a little strange, to do what we do.

Lily stepped back to get her canvas - so - into perspective. It was an odd road to be walking, this of painting. Out and out one went, further and further, until at last one seemed to be on a narrow plank, perfectly alone, over the sea.

~Virginia Woolf, from To the Lighthouse

Xmas Pioneer and Lone Survivor

Pioneer is the theme over at Illustration Friday this week. Here is a holiday blast from the past: I made this two-color woodcut for Christmas 1991, the year I graduated from art school and got married. I cut the panels, then Paul and I set up a little production line in the livingroom of our tiny apartment(and because we used oil-based ink, the place stunk for several days!) Inspired by the yearly holiday prints of one of my teachers, Homer Johnson, I think we intended to pioneer our own tradition of hand-made prints every year for Christmas...just shows the kind of spare time young people without kids, a house or a full-time job have! However, the next year we bought our first house, and then the Christmas after that I was on bedrest pregnant with twins...and this turns out to have been a one-time only "tradition". Fun though! :->

~All the blessings of the season to you and yours~

Undone

Undone is this week's theme over at Illustration Friday. Yes, I am a little late...I definitely feel a day late and a dollar short pretty much continually these days as we careen towards Christmas...or as I think of it, Stressmas! ;-) Cake definitely helps if you can get some.

Last Slice, oil on canvas, Nancy Bea Miller

Welcome

Welcome
is this week's theme over at Illustration Friday. This fairly recent painting seems to fit the bill.

I started painting this in a white-hot fit of inspiration, then suddenly...stopped. Six months later it is still unfinished, and I can't seem to muster up the aesthetic energy needed to bring it to conclusion. Yet, I feel it kind of has something good going, and I am not quite ready to abandon it. Maybe some help is needed? Any constructive criticism would be very welcome!

In the Doorway, oil on canvas, 24 x 30 inches, 2009, Nancy Bea Miller