Summer Art: Boys, Cars, and Experimental Ceramics

"Little Boy in Summer" oil paint by Katherine Lehr,  2016

I had hoped to complete a few paintings this summer, mainly focusing on a large canvas painting of each of my twin boys and then going from there. As some travel and the aforementioned boys (now both 15 months old and getting into and on top of everything) took up plenty of my summer break, I ended up only completing one painting of M. I've outlined the second painting of Q, but given that it's also a relatively large canvas and the new school year has started I don't foresee that being completed any time soon. 

About the painting:  This is oils on a 20x28 canvas. We went to a birthday party for M and Q's friend who was turning one. In the yard Milo discovered this little plastic car and played with it for almost the entire party. He was obsessed! I snapped a photo of him with the car and looking at it later gave me a nostalgic feeling for my childhood summers. So I decided to use the photo as a reference for this painting. I'm not well practiced in portraiture, especially children, so this was a challenge for me, but hopefully I'll improve as I do more.

And then, the ceramics......

                             a close-up of the ear

I also took a ceramics class over the summer. This is definitely not my medium of choice as I tend to struggle with getting the outcomes I envision when working with clay. However, I did have a fun time doing a Raku firing with this creepy looking, vaguely Salvador Daliesque head that I created. I haven't done this type of firing before and was pleasantly surprised by the unique, metallic glaze effects. I used Pale Aqua and White Crackle Raku glazes. You can see a photo taken after the Raku firing process was finished and we began to uncover the pieces (my piece is the bottom center) at the end of this post. 

Additionally, I made a few functional pieces. I liked how this triangular dish with fern texture on the bottom (not Raku fired) turned out.

bottom of dish

 

top of dish

Bull Moose Painting

"Moose in Lake" oil paint, 2014

A few weeks ago we saw a female moose and her calf while hiking on the Isabelle Glacier Trail near the Brainard Lake Recreation Area. While I've lived in Colorado for about seven years, this is only the second time I've seen a moose in this state (seems like they were everywhere in Maine). Our "moose encounter" inspired my most recent oil painting. However, since I love the antlers on bull moose, I decided to paint a male rather than the female moose and calf we saw while hiking (see photo below). I had some fun playing around with the colors and slightly abstracting the markings and shadows on the moose's body.  The dark lines of the shadows around the bright colors on the body vaguely remind me of stained glass windows, which wasn't my initial intention, but I like how it turned out. 

Painting During the Flood

We've had a lot of flooding in Colorado, but luckily my studio stayed dry and I had the opportunity to work on a painting while we waited for the rain stop. I love the iconic "Tree of Life" image-I even do a "Tree of Life" sunset painting project with my students based on Gustav's Kilmt's painting of the same name. So, I decided to create my own "Tree of Life" themed painting while the rain was pounding on the windows and creating rivers across the roads.

"Tree of Life-Deluge" acrylic, 2013

Photography

I realized that I hadn't posted any photography in a while. I guess with digital photography it doesn't feel like I am creating something with my hands the way it used to when I would develop images in the dark room. However, there is still something to be said for creating a unique image, digitally or otherwise. Here are some landscapes, botanicals and portraits from this summer. Click on any photograph to scroll through photos one at a time.

"Bamboo Eye" 2013

"John Dunn Bridge" 2013

"From the Rio Grande" 2013 

"Petals" 2013

"Rocky Mountain Shadows" 2013

"Storm on the Rio Grande Gorge" 2013

"Animal Sanctuary Tiger" 2013

"Leaf Drops" 2013

"Cactus Stars" 2013

Bighorn Sheep Painting

Fun fact: bighorn sheep have oval-shaped pupils.

When I was looking at various reference images of big horn sheep (I've seen them up close, but it has usually been while driving up to ski, so I don't have any of my own close-up photos), I thought that the eyes had been photoshopped. Apparently, they really do have pupils that look more like a jelly bean than a circle. Actual bighorn sheep are better camouflaged in the Rocky Mountain landscape, but I wanted this guy to pop out, so I enhanced the contrast by making the sheep more colorful than any bighorns you might see up in the mountains.

"Colorado Bighorn" acrylic, 2013

Boulder Flatirons Painting

I realized the other day that even though I've lived in Boulder for over six years I had yet to do a painting of the Flatirons. Many would call the Flatirons an icon of Boulder. I think technically the Flatirons fall under the category of "foothills." They are jagged rock formations that look like they shot up out of the ground. We have enjoyed a lot of hiking and climbing on and around the Flatirons, so I have positive associations with them, which I wanted to show in my painting. I chose to do a simple but colorful representation of the Flatirons, giving them a warmer color than they actually have when seen from such a distance (although, I noticed when climbing the Third Flatiron that the rock was actually very red in some sections).

"The Flatirons" acrylic, 2012

Wedding Seating Board

We decided to use a seating board rather than individual place cards for the seating at our wedding reception. You can pay someone to create a large printed version of one of these, but I decided to make my own. Because our wedding was in the mountains (Estes Park, CO) I wanted to keep a mountain theme. I ended up using a cork board rather than a canvas since it was cheap and came pre-framed. You can still see a little of the texture from the cork surface, but overall I like how it turned out.

Landscapes/Cityscapes!

These are a few of my landscape and cityscape paintings and photographs. The first three paintings are plein air paintings that I've done the past two summers in New Mexico.

"Old Adobe House, Santa Fe, NM"  2010,  oil on canvas board

"Rio Grande Outside Taos, NM (Pilar)" 2011, oil on canvas board

"Red Hill, New Mexico Sky Reflections" 2011, oil on canvas board

"Prayer Flags in Aspens" 2009,  oil on canvas

"Houses Reflected in Venice" 2009, digital photograph

"View From the Rialto Bridge at Night, Venice" 2009, digital photograph

"Bridge Reflections in Burano, Venice" 2009, digital photograph