Monday, January 21, 2008

Day 20 at Peters Valley


Frozen Wetlands, Thunder Mountain, Peters Valley/Delaware Water Gap National Park © Jennie Traill Schaeffer

I had promised you two posts ago that I would show you some of the small sketches I've been working on.

Well, you'll just have to wait. I keep forgetting and am busy with refining Mixer Maesta. I know, I said it was done, but I organized a studio tour for the artists in residence on Friday night to see each others work.

In so doing, all of the artists unanimously agreed that the halos were problematic, not reading as halos but more like dishes. Being confronted with the painting every day, I didn't see it that way and was so glad for their feedback. Basically, everything in the painting is realistic, but the halos were painted in a flat, abstract shape. Towards the Renaissance, as paintings increased in depth and realism, so too did the halos.

I've decided to scratch out the halos, shift their perspective and make only a hint at a halo by using an edge and a thin transparent layer of gold paint.

I can't show you the piece yet, it's still not finished. Hopefully by the end of the week. In the meantime I painted another version of my wedding cake for my new web site to launch in February.
12/4/04, Oil on Panel, 11.5 x 16", © Jennie Traill Schaeffer

In the meantime, the photo of today shows a frozen over wetland on Thunder Mountain, a part of Peters Valley where the wood, photo, fiber, photography and fine metals studios are. I drove up there on Sunday to show my parents around. It's breathtaking!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Love the new wedding cake --it really shows it off well. Also the photo of the wetlands is spectacular :)

Unknown said...

Thank you for your compliment! I finally understand how to paint the nuances of white. The photo of the wetlands was taken because my mom wanted a photo of it, and my dad was in a hurry to get back to PA to watch the football games. So it's a shot for my mom.