Small Wonders II

 “Small Wonders II”    8” x 10”     Pastel    SOLD    © Sharon Lewis  

            It’s that beautiful time of year where the promise of new life is everywhere – whether it be the nests I see perched in the branches around my house, the tiny buds emerging from the new greenery, or a friend expecting her first child. All this reminds me not to lose sight of the positive, beautiful things around me. 

            Wishing you a Happy Spring/Passover/Easter!

 

Do These Feathers Make Me Look Fat II?

“Do These Feathers Make Me Look Fat II?”   6” x 6”     Pastel    $50    © Sharon Lewis

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            This is the second version of a painting I did several years ago. Right outside the window of my home office/studio is a tall bush that’s serves as a staging platform for birds visiting the feeder attached to my window. It’s easy to spot the male goldfinches this time of year, for they’re arrayed in their bright yellow plumage. These are small, usually very slender birds who on very cold days, puff up their feathers so much that they look like many of us after too much holiday eating.

            Happy Weekend!

Happy Spring/Passover/Easter!

“Small Wonders II”        Pastel           8” x 10”           SOLD          © Sharon Lewis

            There’s something so exciting about the promise of new life…whether it’s in the form of a friend expecting her next child or the various nests I’ve noticed being built around my house. It reminds me not to lose sight of the positive, beautiful things all around me.

            Wishing you a Happy Spring/Passover/Easter!

February Promises

“February Promises”        Pastel          9” x 12”         $100         © Sharon Lewis
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            This painting goes out to my family and friends who have been enduring seemingly unceasing snow and well-below freezing temperatures. Imagine a sunny, warm day with a beautiful sky and remember that there are only 5 more weeks to go until spring!

            Happy Weekend and hope you have a wonderful Valentine’s Day!

Good Spirits

“Good Spirits”     Pastel    12” x 9”    $100   © Sharon Lewis
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             It’s approaching the end of a long week…maybe you’ve had one of those too.

It’s been mostly gray, cold, and blustery here but I know we haven’t had it nearly as bad as those of my family and friends in the Midwest and Northeast. Today, we have sunshine and I could almost believe spring will be here before we know it…won’t it? Maybe?

            Today’s painting is based on photos shot from the car on the road to a distillery in Scotland. I believe a sunny sky and the thought of good whiskey should warm us up nicely.

            Happy Weekend!

It’s the Last Day of 2014!

“Quietly Beautiful”      Pastel    2.5” x 3.5”    $20      © Sharon Lewis
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            Female cardinals are often described as being a dull brown color. I think they are in fact often, quietly or subtly beautiful. I think some of the art I admire most is subtly beautiful as well. Don’t get me wrong; I love striking color in some art. However, if I think of the artists I have long admired such as Winslow Homer, Vermeer, Bierstadt, Mary Cassatt, I think of subtly beautiful work.

I think that they have so ingeniously woven their skill into the fabric of their art that they draw you in, fascinated by the image before you, and only later do you appreciate the great skill that produced that magnificent piece.

            I hope some day to produce art like that….maybe in 2015?

I hope that wherever you are, that you celebrate the end of the old year and the beginning of the new one with the warmth of family and friends and perhaps some quiet beauty.

A Nest of a Different Color

“A Nest of a Different Color”      8” x 10”        Pastel        $75        © Sharon Lewis
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           Sometimes I just get a little crazy and have to try some different, unconventional colors for something. Maybe it’s because I’m not that fond of brownish-grey, which is what the nest’s true colors seemed to be. I may have had some encouragement from a friend of mine, Karen Margulis, a talented artist and teacher, whose photo this is.  Whatever the reason, I like the warm orange of the eggs against the purples in the nest and really enjoy the idea that as an artist I can change reality, even if only in a limited manner.

Fjord Paparazzi

“Glacial Gifts”         12” x 12”          Pastel        $175        © Sharon Lewis
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            We all stood around the ferry railing eagerly snapping photos  nonstop of our gorgeous surroundings. I felt like a member of the fjord paparazzi – maybe I was even a little more obnoxious than the rest since I had not one but two cameras. I had my trusty Canon Rebel that I take everywhere as well as a newer Canon PowerShot that has a telescopic lens. We were on a fjord tour of Naeroyfjord and Sognefjord in Norway. Every time the ferry rounded a corner there were  more views of beautiful blue or green water and colorful cliff sides; I could see future paintings everywhere.

A Sense of Wonderment

“Small Wonders”    8” x 10”    Pastel   $75       © Sharon Lewis
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           I have a friend in Florida who has been posting great photos on FB of young Sandhill cranes called colts and another friend here in Georgia who’s posted photos of a fledgling robin she discovered in a bush next to her house. Of course my first reaction is  “Awww, they’re so cute” and then I’m back to finishing what I need to do. However, when I looked at the painting I had decided to post today I started to remember how I looked at bird’s eggs when I was a child.

            I remember when I was little, finding a robin’s egg like the ones in today’s painting and holding it in my hand with this tremendous sense of wonder. I thought the egg was so beautiful but I couldn’t figure out how a bird could be inside of it. When I look at robins’ eggs even today I’m reminded of that sense of wonderment.

            As I struggled to capture the rough texture of the bird’s nest, the smooth surface of the eggs, and that beautiful turquoise color, I was reminded of that wonder. I’m also grateful to have observant, generous friends who are willing to share these small wonders with me.

Simple Beauty

“Simple Beauty”     5” x 7”     Pastel     $50     © Sharon Lewis
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            There are times, maybe not often, that I really like a simple, peaceful sky. With all of the recent storms, combined with the stress of the semester ending, a calm, peaceful sky looks very appealing and somehow restful right now.

            This painting is based on a photo that really looks nothing like this scene. The painting came out of a challenge in class to do a quick study (15 min. I believe is all that we had) of a simple, graded sky with no clouds. Since I love doing clouds, this was a bit of a challenge for me. What I realized after completing most of the painting is that the land had to be far more interesting than in the photo so I added spring colors and I cheated a bit and put a few streaky clouds low in the sky.

            Hope your skies are peaceful. Happy Weekend!

April: The Cruel, Crazy, but Beautiful Month

“Spring Beauty”     6” x 6”     Pastel   $40.00    © Sharon Lewis
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            T.S. Elliot had it right when he said that April is the cruelest month. If you work as a professor and the university’s academic year ends in early May, April is the month when both faculty and students are going crazy with work and little sleep. It’s a time of year when your life as you used to know it seems a distant memory. It’s also a time when I make sure that I pay attention to the small but beautiful things in life. 

            As I drive to my office early in the morning I notice the stunning sunrise and how the light hits the beautiful blooming trees just perfectly.  Or as I leave my office 12 hours later, I might notice the gorgeous colors in the sky as the light slowly fades. As I’m grading mountains of papers, I take breaks to listen to the happy chirping and singing of birds outside my window. Or because I’m so fortunate to have such wonderful students, I read carefully, the beautifully written and very moving note of gratitude I received from a student of mine that will be recognized tonight for outstanding leadership. Yes, it might be a cruel and crazy month but it’s also beautiful if only I pay attention.

            Today’s painting is from photos I took early one spring morning in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

A Time of Light and New Beginnings

“New Life”     2.5” x 3.5”    Pastel   $25      © Sharon Lewis
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            Mother Nature sure seems to love messing with us lately. Just when we settle into the idea that spring is really here to stay, since the beautiful blooming trees and flowers seem to attest to this, it get’s cold again.

            Oh well, no matter what the weather, Easter finally occurs this weekend (and it’s the middle of Passover). It’s interesting to me that the two holidays seem to center on hope, remembrance, and renewal of faith, and both occur in early spring. Upon conducting some online research, I found out that “Easter” comes from the name for a pagan goddess, Eostre (Old English) or Ostara (Old High German), who derived her name from a Proto-Indo-European goddess of the dawn.  Somehow, this association with light, new beginnings, renewal and spring, makes this a particularly joyful holiday for me. Although I’m not religious I think holiday rituals are wonderful when they allow us to transcend the ordinary patterns of our lives. They can help us reflect on what we hold sacred, what we believe, and maybe all of those things and people in our lives for which we are grateful.

            Today’s painting is based on photos taken near the Mount Washington area in New Hampshire. We were hiking through the woods and along a stream when I found unexpected beauty poking up from amongst the weeds along a path; new life in the form of these beautiful daisies.          

           Happy Easter, Chag Sameach, Happy Spring and Happy Weekend to all!

Into the Distance

"Into the Distance"       8” x 10”    Pastel      $75    © Sharon Lewis
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            It was a beautiful, sunny and breezy, spring day in Palm Coast, Florida, a city on the east coast, south of Jacksonville. We had gone for a long walk on the beach and seen some really funny looking birds that looked like they had bad mullet hair cuts (are there good mullets?). I looked them up in my bird book and discovered they were not gulls as I originally thought but sandwich terns. There were also some really cute smaller birds with skinny legs that I think are snowy plovers. That day I was also lucky to catch a beautiful setting sun behind me reflecting on the clouds in front of me. This painting shows the reflected light on the clouds and the flight of two terns with bad hair cuts heading into the distance.

            Happy Weekend!

Changing Reality: Along the Water’s Edge

“Along the Water’s Edge“        5” x 7”     Pastel       $50       © Sharon Lewis
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            Today’s painting is a slightly different version of a scene I have painted before, on a very different surface.  The painting is based on a photo I took from a moving car…. not usually the best photo to use as a reference. However sometimes, it forces you to use more of your creative skills because you have no choice. In this case, I was working from a pretty boring, blurry photo of an almost all green scene. So, I added orange, pink, and blues to the painting to spice it up a bit.

            When you take photos under these circumstances, you also don’t have time to compose it attractively either, so once again, I needed to think creatively how I might re-design this scene to be a little more interesting.  The first time I painted this scene I did a close-up of the trees. In this one I decided to add a path leading you to the trees and water. I want the viewer to maybe imagine having a picnic along the water’s edge in the shade of one of these trees. 

              

            Enjoy and Happy Weekend!

What Happens When You Head North From Maine?

“Tidal River”     8” x 10”     Pastel     $75     ©Sharon Lewis
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            Well, you might believe that you fall into the ocean if you grew up with those oddly inaccurate maps that show everything ending at the border of the United States. However, northeast of the state of Maine is the Canadian province of New Brunswick. It has two official languages, English and French and the Bay of Fundy in the south, which is cool because it has some of the highest tides in the world (52 feet).
            Today’s painting is based on photos of marshes I took when we visited here one summer. I painted this last week when I felt a real need for color and warmth. I hope wherever you are, that spring has come at last.
Happy Weekend!

The Vernal Equinox: The First Day of Spring!!!

“Spring Gifts”    9” x 12”     Pastel     $100     © Sharon Lewis
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            Ahhhhh, the first day of spring! Given the recent snowfalls around the country, it may be hard to believe but today is the vernal equinox, the official first day of spring. I looked up the meaning of this term and found a bit more information than I think I needed to know.  I won’t bore you with everything I found but I did find that my years of Latin in high school did not go to waste. I thought the term derived from Latin and found that I was right. “Vernal” comes from the Latin derivative  “ver” meaning spring and equinox derives from “aequus” meaning equal and “nox” meaning night. So the term suggests as I had always thought, that this is one of the times of the year when there are equal hours of daylight and night. Apparently, this is not precisely true but for me it’s close enough.
            I am just happy to see the increased hours of daylight and all of the flowers that are blooming as well as the flowering trees and bushes. I have daffodils and hyacinths blooming in my yard but no tulips this year. I planted tons of them several years ago but I gave up after battling the squirrels who dug them up as soon as I planted them and the deer that apparently find them tasty (Is there any plant that they don’t eat? I keep hoping that I’ll come out one day to find that the deer have conveniently removed all the weeds from my lawn and flower beds but apparently they don’t like my weeds anymore than I do.) So, instead, I try to find tulips at the grocery store and paint them from time to time. My painting of them is a poor substitute for the real thing but these require no weeding and so far I’ve been able to keep the deer and squirrels away.
            Happy Spring!