This week my friend, colleague and former student, April Post, helped create this web presence for my art. She took digital photos (read about the process in Carol Marine's Daily Painting, 2014, pp. 159-164), and edited and uploaded them to my new FASO site. I didn't realize how many oil paintings hung on my walls or how far back they dated. The sailboats (Sailboats, Coast of Crete) were painted with palette knife in 1963 when I was in junior high. The pair hung in my father's accounting office for years before decorating the Teaching Fellows suite at Elon University, Elon, NC. When I retired last August, I brought them home to a wall in the library on Fountain Place. While April's assistance would have been given freely, I had just finished Dreaming of her precious girls, Ashleigh and Brooke, and I asked for a trade of services.
The process of "taking down" and photographing prompted me to reminisce about the pathway from my early interest in art as a teenager to my recent study with artist, mentor and friend, Laine Francis. Unlike many, I have not studied art formally. I developed a passion for oil painting in Mrs. Riddle's studio alongside my sister and have enjoyed painting fairly intuitively from printed references over the years. My classes with Laine, however, have been lessons in technique, color theory and design. She brings to her classes knowledge gained through study with Nancy Franke, Alice Williams, Helen Farson and C. W. Mundy, to name a few. I am proud of my earlier paintings but now, through Laine's instruction so kindly shared, I am beginning to understand value, hue and composition. When I am painting alone in my studio, I find myself repeating phrases such as, "Put in your darks." "Lay it and leave it." " and "Soften those edges." Like Laine and Helen, I plan to be a lifelong artist learner. I am getting started!!
