Monday’s Harvest

“Harvest Time”   8” x 10”   Pastel   $75    ©Sharon Lewis
Click Here to Purchase 

           Today, after managing to work on multiple paintings I fortunately was able to “harvest” one. I know harvest typically refers to the gathering of ripe or mature grain, but sometimes it seems to apply equally to my paintings. Some definitely benefit from aging…or maybe it’s me that ‘s aging? I find that sometimes I need to give myself time away from a painting so that when I come back I can see what it most needs in order to be finished.

            Given this past weekend of glorious color, this one seemed perfect for today. It won’t be long until the gorgeous trees in my neighborhood as well as in the countryside completely lose their leaves; some have done so already. Every fall I hope for the impossible…that the colors will stay vivid for months.  But they don’t and so every time I see colors like the ones that inspired this painting, I feel so lucky.

A beautiful day….

“Quiet Morning”    9” x 12”   Pastel    $100   © Sharon Lewis
Click Here to Purchase 

            It’s the end of a week of mostly gorgeous weather in my favorite season of fall. Today’s painting is based on a photo taken by Stan Sperlak (used with his permission) of the marsh near his home on the southern coast of New Jersey. Stan is a gifted photographer as well as an exceptional artist.

            I painted this in September as preparation for a plein air workshop I took with Stan in the Cape May area of New Jersey. As much as I think marshes are interesting as well as beautiful ecosystems, I always find them challenging to paint. There typically comes a point where you have to decide how much detail to put in. You want to put in enough that the viewer can understand what he/she is looking at but not so much that it distracts from the overall feel of the piece. I tried for a happy medium in this painting. I was also trying to get the feel of a peaceful morning before all the noise, demands, and busyness of the day starts.

            Wishing you a peaceful, relaxing weekend.

It was a perfect day for sailing…

“A Perfect Day”   2.5” x 3.5”   Pastel   $20  © Sharon Lewis
Click Here to Purchase 

It’s a sunny, windy day here… a perfect day for sailing.  It’s great to be out on a sailboat with the wind blowing just hard enough to make you feel like you’re almost flying over the water but not so much that you’re worried about flipping over.

Today’s painting is from a photo I took one summer of sailboats in the Boston Harbor.  When I painted this I was reminded of a day that two of my brothers and I took a sunfish (a small sailboat) out on the intracoastal waterway near our home in southern Florida. It was a windy day and none of us were experienced sailors. In addition, the sunfish was really only big enough for one person and we were trying to fit all three of us on it at the same time. Even though we were 3 fairly skinny kids, this was just not working. The problem was as soon as we’d get all three of us on board, one of us would fall off. As soon as we got that sibling back on, another one of us would fall off. And so it went, with all three of us laughing so hard that it made it even harder to climb back on and so much easier to slide right back off. At some point we glanced over at the shoreline and unfortunately saw a police officer standing there who motioned us sternly to come back to shore. Apparently we weren’t supposed to be swimming or sailing there. Well, we immediately thought the worst…we were going to arrested… we were going to jail… or worse… they were going to tell our Dad!  However, after a few minutes of watching us continually fall off the sunfish and our total lack of progress towards shore, the officer starting laughing so hard he was bent over and holding his stomach. He eventually waved us off, like, “You guys are hopeless!” Or maybe, “It’s going to take you all 3 hours to make it back in and I don’t want to wait that long!” I like to think now that maybe he let us off because he remembered being young once and decided to be kind. Whatever he was thinking, I remember that it was a perfect day for sailing…or whatever it was that we were doing with that sunfish.

November Afternoon in the Park

“Afternoon in the Park”   8” x 10”   Pastel   $75   © Sharon Lewis
Click Here to Purchase

 

It ‘s a beautiful fall afternoon here, in the 60’s with at least a little sun. Many of the leaves on my trees have finally changed and some of the branches are already bare. I’m not sure that I’m quite ready to see all of this glorious color go away so quickly. Like every fall, I find myself wishing that all of these bright colors would stay to cheer us up through the short days and long, cold nights of winter. If I had my way, all of the colorful leaves would stay on the trees until spring only to be replaced by other, equally wonderful colors.

Today’s painting is of a fall afternoon along a trail I’ve hiked often in a nearby park. I think almost every color in the rainbow can be found in these trees and bushes.

A Bucolic Lake District Scene…and one crazy sheep.

“There’s Always One”   5” x 7”   Pastel   $50   © Sharon Lewis
Click Here to Purchase 

This past summer I was lucky enough to be able to travel to Scotland and the Lake District in England. It was beautiful in both places and everywhere we went we saw sheep…by streams, on mountains, in the woods, and by the road. You had to watch them carefully as they would sometimes just decide that they felt like walking into the middle of the road right in front of your car and then just stopping. They seemed to be totally unfazed by oncoming cars. I haven’t decided if they were really stupid or really smart, and just knew the tourists and the UK citizens so well that they knew we weren’t going to run them over. I also don’t know if it was my imagination but the more sheep I saw, the more they seemed to have different personalities as well. Most seemed really sweet but every once and awhile you saw one that looked just a little bit crazier than all of the rest.

Today’s painting is of a flock of these sheep in the Lake District. You can see that most of them appear pretty sweet, placid, and innocent, just munching away on grass. Then there’s this one guy (can you find him?), who’s just staring at you as if to say, “One step closer and you’re a goner!” There’s always one in every crowd!

The Beauty of a Wildlife Refuge

“Marsh Afternoon”   9” x 12”   Pastel   $ 100  © Sharon Lewis
Click Here to Purchase 

 
              About 3 years ago I vacationed in New England, trying to escape the heat of a Georgia summer. We started on the coast of Maine, then headed to the mountains of New Hampshire and Vermont, and finally onto Massachusetts. At the very end of our trip, we stopped at the Parker River National Wildlife Refuge, located on the northeast coast of Massachusetts near Plum Island.

The Parker River Refuge has over 300 species of birds, some resident and others migratory, many of which are easy to observe everywhere you look. It’s also home to vicious, biting green head flies and I can speak from experience, that if you’re not quick enough with the application of insect repellant, they hurt a lot when they bite. In spite of this, it’s really worth the trip if you’re ever in the area. Anyone who enjoys the outdoors would love this place because it has virtually every kind of environment except for mountains. It’s a beautiful place to explore beaches, dunes, marsh, woods, and bog.

Today’s painting is based on one of my photos of the salt marsh at the Parker River Refuge. It was a warm, sunny afternoon with a cooling breeze and only slight wisps of clouds in the sky.

 

After a rainy night in Georgia

After the Storm    4” x 6”    Pastel    $35   © Sharon Lewis
Click Here to Purchase 

The sun has finally come out after a rainy night in Georgia. I couldn’t help but think this morning when it was still raining, of the refrain in the song I associate with Ray Charles, “Rainy Night in Georgia”….

“A rainy night in Georgia,

A rainy night in Georgia,
It seems like it's rainin' all over the world
I feel like it's rainin' all over the world “

What a great bluesy song! If you read all of the lyrics you’ll notice that the songwriter, Tony Joe White, paints a series of pictures with his words, much as artists do with paint.  And if you listen to Ray Charles singing this song as I am now, he adds his own lyrics making the picture he paints his very own (listen here).

Today’s painting is loosely based on one of my photos and seems to express how I feel about today’s weather. The wind is blowing the dark storm clouds far away leaving us with glimpses of a brilliant sun-lit sky. A good way to think about leaving the work-week behind us with a great weekend ahead. Happy Weekend!