LorettaFeeney.com

Archive Page 2

Night Harbor from Memory

Published by admin July 4th, 2009 in Art, Blog and art teacher. 0 Comments

Sometimes you notice a couple random colors against each other somewhere and a new painting can come to you.

These could be two colors on a blouse. Two colors on my palette or on a scrap of someones old discarded paper. A deep green against a deeper blue and it takes me instantly back to Gloucester Harbor nights .

I don’t always want to be painting the big attempt; the big effort. Sometimes it is just as worthy to explore a smidgen of an idea, a glimpse of a new direction takes you before you know it, and you are excited about a new series.

The smallest fresh combination of colors can lift you to a fresh direction if you are open to it.

Share and Enjoy:

Nantucket Sound

Published by admin June 27th, 2009 in Blog and fine art. 0 Comments

This is a painting of Esty Street down near Hyannis Harbor. It is a Barnstable Land Trust property. A small preserved parcel between the Nantucket Sound and old bungalow cottages. This painting is of a small example of Cape Cod’s small wet lands that are often filled in by developers. The air is rife with birds and salt marsh life.

This is a project that is near to my heart. I grew up on the Cape to the sounds of hammers and bulldozers clearing lots in the most wonderful Chatham woods. But it does not matter which towns you love on the Cape, the realities of over development are abundant. Anytime the opportunity arises to save open space we must seize it. Please support the Barnstable Land Trust.

Please check out the BLT exhibition opening July 8, 2009 at the Cotuit Center for the Arts. I will be there. For more information about the art benefit please click here

Share and Enjoy:

Which way do you want to go?

Published by admin June 22nd, 2009 in Blog and art teacher. 1 Comment

My students are doing very good work. I can line up 12-20 studies by them done in class, and they are all different and they all have supreme potential.

Do you know when you are painting well?

Do you know when you are in trouble?

Do you know when it’s time to take it up a notch with your work?

A few weeks ago I had an idea for a class where I would have all the students work the same size; 18×24.” So… after we laid them all in we could put each students painting in my 24k gold leaf frame. Then I could show them that it is not enough to paint well, you must package it well for the galleries too. Meaning no dark thick signatures , no cheap frames, no cardboard canvas.

We started a Tuscany painting that day and everyone got “it.” Everyone had a strong start and proudly I put each and every students painting into the frame from my studio. A professional, beautiful frame. And we took the time to discuss the importance of each frame choice. Especially since some of my students recently getting new, great gallery representation and the others soon will. I pointed out how a gold leaf frame will elevate ones work and how an inferior frame will bring you down. Which way do you want to go?

Needless to say as a teacher and educator it was a fine day for me. Sometimes teaching can be so rewarding. I feel it was an important class for my students too, because they saw the future, they saw their own potential as artists. The had the chance to see their good efforts elevated with the fine framing.

Sometimes when you are spending money, you are actually making an investment.

Next advanced oil painting class starts June 29, 2009 at the Cape Cod Art Association

Share and Enjoy:

Are you in a hurry?

Published by admin June 19th, 2009 in Blog, art teacher and fine art. 0 Comments

I don’t have to guess if my students are in a hurry. They tell me one way or another, every week.

Every week of every class I have ever taught a student at some level has expressed their urgent needs. Yes they are all in a rush, to what I wonder?

To paint well? The best they can?

To finish every start as quickly as possible?

To sell their paintings? Yes especially this one.

Hey the truth is we all want our art to sell. But if you are rushing the process it’s going to end up in your own collection.

I preach about taking your time with each stage, building slowly. Problem solving.

We are talking about the finish here. Finishing up our work strong. The right way.

And the right way for me is to live with my work. Put it on the wall. Bring it in the kitchen while I cook. Put it in a new frame or two and see how it looks. Turn your canvas upside down and check for false notes. You must look for trouble here. Be your own best critic. Be tougher on your art than anyone else.

Because your client is going to hang your piece in their home or business and live with it, for many years. I want to keep getting the feedback that my work looks great in different times of the day. That my work shows well with the lights off too.

I don’t want to just sell my work. I want to have it collected.

So I study these strong paintings in my studio, living with them for the last few days before delivery… or not.

Taking my time here.

Share and Enjoy:

Fenway Game Day

Published by admin May 17th, 2009 in Bleacher bar, Boston, Fenway Park, FenwayArt, Orleans gallery and Trees Place. 0 Comments

Sold

These images are of a new painting in progress, inspired from last Saturdays game. I drew it in and let it set up- to dry, for a few days before working back into it.

I like to try and treat the painting loosely adding a lot of color right away to get the feel of the “Fenway Game Day Vibe.” Later on I will be painting in the signs of new Bleacher Bar, and The House of Blues under their big red heart which seems appropriately hanging over Lansdowne Street.

I laid this whole painting in on Ustream.tv yesterday morning by the way.

This painting is now complete and available at the Rowley Gallery.

Share and Enjoy:

Fenway

Published by admin May 10th, 2009 in Fenway Park, FenwayArt, art teacher and fine art. 1 Comment

I have gotten used to looking like an idiot while taking my photos a long time ago. So when I go to Fenway and stand in the street framing my reference shots for my paintings, if I am stopping traffic, well…then I am stopping traffic.

I do this alone. Whoever I go with I just say, catch you in a little bit; meet you inside. While I go off and try and frame up the best compositions of the most festive of Boston neighborhoods.

Fenway was beautiful yesterday with the threat of rain that never came. Everyone outside Fenway Park looks so familiar to me. Like it’s the same crowd at every game I have ever gone to. The same crowd that I paint in all my Fenway paintings. These are my peeps and I am here among ” The Nation.”

I listen as Dad after Dad bring there little ones over to the condiments where I am pausing and say “look, this is the mustard, this is the best part.” The air is thick with the smells of hot dogs, sausage and peppers and people are drinking in the streets which I still cannot get used to. I really like what they have done outside here. It was just a few years ago, we were dodging cars on Yawkey Way. Now it’s all festive galore with red everywhere. With as many t-shirts professing their love of the Red Sox as their distaste for the pinstripes.

I move away from the mustard and look for some smokers to stand by and smell the forbidden aroma. Cigarettes, sausage and the announcer’s voice starts from within the hallowed walls, that sound calling me into the game, where the views just improve.

Share and Enjoy:

Small Windows of Opportunity

Published by admin May 7th, 2009 in art teacher and fine art. 1 Comment

It feels like Edinburgh here in Massachusetts. It’s been raining and raining. This is what people mean when they say the Cape has no spring. Because we have weather like this and then it just turns hot for three months.

Yesterday my studio was warm with a fire in the wood-stove, and a new painting on the easel. And I was content to stay in and paint but then something amazing happened. The sun came out, and I really wanted to stay right there and paint. Actually it was out for three hours.

But I could not relax and work because I feared this would be my one chance to get some shots of a superb subject in the sunlight.

I made myself stop working inside and get in the jeep with three camera and go out and get the reference of right now, one of the prettiest weeks of this season. And this was a good move because I had a beautiful Japanese Garden to capture. I began this series last week, in oils and it is going to go on all year Painting reflections and spring, heavy with design but subtle with the color harmonies. That’s the plan.

The new painting is still on the easel and the fog has rolled back in.

Share and Enjoy:

Fenway Art

Published by admin April 26th, 2009 in Art, Boston, Fenway Park, FenwayArt and fine art. 1 Comment

2009 0il 12″x 20″ Center Field Fenway Park, by Loretta Feeney

On the warmest day of the year, as I write at my kitchen table, the Red Sox have won nine games in a row.

My life is revolving around their schedule. I don’t have to watch them on television, but I love to listen to them. Our third baseman has the made the transition to first in more ways than one. Cleaning up the batting order and leading this edgy team onward and upward. And it’s only April.

This oil is on Exhibit at the Cape Cod Art Association, West Barnstable, Ma. and then will be available at Trees Place, Orleans Ma. along with other new Fenways.

Share and Enjoy:

Blogging Through Time

Published by admin April 18th, 2009 in printmaking. 1 Comment

Have you ever watched an old movie on TV, a western maybe where a dog barks in the movie? The sound of the TV dog barking wakes up your dog who starts looking around confused. And you think wow, she’s looking for this dog that’s been dead for fifty years but the voice sounds strong and the bark sounds clear and you think about how fleeting our lives are.

I think about time a lot, and how short the window is for youth, good health, love, and the open window for being a creative artist.

This week it’s been especially in my minds forefront as I watched an old video of a trip across Ireland made with some old friends in 1993. It was a painting trip from Dublin to Donegal. I was watching the film researching a long lost conversation about a cheeky farmer, but that is another story. In my living room I came across another segment shot in a tiny peet warmed pub in Donegal where my friend let me have-at the camera and film the goings on that night, as they shot darts with the locals.

I filmed the interior musicians, pub men and then slowly spanned into a nice composition where the painting was just right and I held the lens there, editing out , zooming into my final chosen frame. So I was on the edge of my seat at home, the other day, realizing how well I had set myself up for this weeks work, sixteen years ago, watching the work of the younger me saying here it is Loretta. The perfect pub shot on a nice festive night far out on the western coast of Ireland. Here it is, your motif from your past, a gift from another time to paint now. I know what I was thinking back then, I was thinking just be the gatherer. Just gather all the reference for work now and later. The filtering and the decision making process comes later.

My film starts along the bar with the young Irish men watching me, waving for the camera, saying “Good Morning Vietnam”, I scan right past them, past the shy barmaid to the composition of quiet older men sipping the Guinness at the bars end. To the warm light and the soft glow of muted figures of old men long gone now I am sure. To silhouettes along the back mirror and the Guinness foreground long drunk. Hearing the sisters trying to get past each other in darts behind me and the session music’s perfect sound track from the pub corner and I thank God I do what I do for a living.

“Donegal Pub” 2009 Oil Monotype 15×19″

Share and Enjoy:

Cape Cod Canal

Published by admin April 1st, 2009 in Art, art teacher, fine art and murals. 0 Comments

The Cape Cod Canal and it’s bridges are sneaking into my paintings. This is an area that I love to go and to capture with the paint. It is the gateway to Cape Cod, your introduction. This is the area that defines the region whether you are coming to the Cape or leaving it.

When coming to the Cape on a hot summer day, this is the spot where the temperature drops to a tolerable level with the sea breezes blowing, and you can feel your vacation begin.

This canal is busy with commerce, where the fishing is rich and the deep current a danger. So while working on my Cape Cod mural I was puzzling myself with my avoidance to lay in these sections of my walls. I put it off for weeks till I woke one morning realizing I had drawn it in wrong initially. My subconscious strikes again. A mistake easily rectified…demonstrated below.

The re-draw correction.

Share and Enjoy: