Musings From a Classical Painter

Hello,Spring! 2011

2011-04-13T15:30:00.002-04:00

We have been teased. We have had tastes of it.

Is it truly now on the way?

Farm Eggs 16"x16" oil on board Lin Anne Misja Fiore

I love April. Don't you? Sweet soft fresh soil,wafts of which drift through newly opened windows. Tiny buds on limbs struggling to embrace the warming air,the strengthening sunshine. These are the things that bring an artist to renewed life. I am so excited to paint this spring. All around me are swelling hills, greening with new grass, damp-wooded barns warming in new sunlight, vineyards blossoming into life. I have managed to do at least one flowering tree a year for several years now. I try to catch the delicacy of spring flowers before they are mysteriously gone. The skies,now "blued up", as my son describes it, call to me to paint the fluffs of pinkened white dotting them as the day sky turns to late afternoon.

Come along on my spring painting journey.

Soon the Fairy Roses will bloom (as in above painting).

The days are lengthening. The oil paints are saying, "Squeeze us right now"!!! Ha! New paint on my palette to match the new brightening colors around me. Ok.

Above painting notes: I love fairy roses. The bushes bloom and bloom with sprays of small roses. I love quilts and antique pots and bowls. This one,a turquoise coffee pot is one of my favorites. I love the glow of color it casts on the soft patina of an aged quilt. It was fun to capture the bumpy puffiness of the quilt fabric as it falls off the table. I like how the eggs are not quite stable. I almost changed this and then decided not to. Are they comfortable there on their home of soft cotton or are they ready to tumble as a Cezanne piece of fruit might. For me, this is the one tension in an otherwise very peaceful still life. Serenity and a bit of tension are both essential. I call it "enegized tranquility".

New Artistic Challenge

2010-11-08T10:42:00.004-05:00

As you know, this is a painting/teaching blog. Students come and read and learn, fellow artists come to get inspiration (hopefully) from my work, and patrons come to buy. We all mingle together.

I've been hired by Grumbacher to do a series of painting Workshops in the Michaels Stores. They are promoting their line of fine Grumbacher paints-in acrylic. I have worked in oils, as you know, for many years. I decided, since the mediums are so different and yet much of the same "look" of a deep, rich oil painting can be accomplished with acrylics, I needed to share it with my blog-followers. This is going to be quite the ride. Hold onto your painter's cap.

I am challenging myself to reproduce all of my earlier oils in acrylics. The result: fine paintings, done in acrylic. It will be fun to compare. When an artist works from her own work, many of the problems are already solved by her in the first work. So, the second time painting the same work goes much faster. I intend to do these acrylic repros at a very fast speed. An oil usually takes at least 9 hours to complete. I have done demos of my orignals at these workshops within the appointed two hour class time. Since I talk a lot in class, I do not use the entire two hours just to paint, so that reduces the time to even less time spent on the piece.

Why is the time element even mentioned? Well, ask any artist, this is probably the most often asked question we receive when out in the public doing demos, or at out door booths for exhibitions. You all want to know, "How long did it take you to do that?"

I have an answer I give when asked this: "Oh, this painting here? Hmm, it took me 9 hours and 28 years."

Time is irrevelent, really. Technique and the mastery of painting methods is really the answer to this question. Why can I do a whole finished painting in an hour? I have worked out all the details already. I have the years of experience behind what I am doing, cutting through the struggle to to do what all artists call "Transcending the Technique". It is a glorious thing. When a ballet dancer transcends the technique, she is truly dancing for the pure art and emotion of it. The passion one feels is unhindered. Have we all "arrived" as professional painters? NO! We are all students, always. I hope I am still learning things when I am 90. I hope to make my best piece when I am that age.

Come, get a cup of tea, sit and watch, I have three to post to get this challenge started. As soon as I figure out how to use my new video camera I will add video of the various projects.

Exciting news: I hope you will find these new works every bit as lovely as the original, because the good news is-they are all going to be for sale at a slashed price. I do them fast, you save big! You receive your own original painting, much like the oil I began from, but unique in its own way.

Summer Art Camps

2010-07-18T10:55:00.000-04:00

Ahh, Little Michelangelos Summer Art Camps are now over.

It was a good time.

Children ages 6-11 participated throughout weeks over June and July. Some of the projects we tackled:
Real paintings of St. George's Church with lessons in simple architecture, using boxes in perspective
Real paintings of images the child chose with an emphasis on color saturation in one hue
Sculpting, using air dry clay and stay soft clay, boy that was messy but fun
Drawing lessons, a real live puppy came on the scene in week 3 and the kids had a ball trying to draw him while asleep
Drawing lessons, emphasizing the difference between line drawing, mass and form.
Cartoon Lessons, how to draw a cartoon character and they made their own cartoon strip
Lots of fun crafts to rest the tension of their hard concentration
Pompom birds, decoupage, birds and butterflies theme, butterfly in origami, glittering craft store doves,painting real sailboat scenes on rocks, making tiny critters out of pebbles and googly eyes, lots of coloring pages and word searches, play doh, and marker fun, and the all-time favorite in week 3, tie dye shirts!

Come next year!
How do I sign up? please email me linannemisja@gmail.com or airnlight@yahoo.com
and I will keep you on the mailing list for next year.

Parents remarks:
"She is having so much fun!"
"He has been looking forward to this for weeks!"
"She tells me each night what she has done"
"You're a good teacher"
"She loves art and was getting so tired of not having a place to learn really good principles of art."
"Thanks for an offering like this!"

Kids remarks:
"I love this camp, are you doin' it next year??"
"I want to come to your studio, I'm tellin' my Mom"
" I like getting my hands messy!"
"This is Free Friday?? We can do whatever art project we want, really??? I want to do clay!"

Bye, kids, I will miss you, unless --oh wait, I may see you in my Art Loft for continuing lessons, let's paint!

2010-06-19T10:49:00.001-04:00

Hello!

I have taken some time off from Daily Painting.I am back! Check in here soon for the many new listings of small, affordable paintings.

Summer of 09

2009-08-03T09:40:00.000-04:00

How is your summer going? I am painting my giant Hollyhocks. They sway in the front yard of my 1860 home, warming by the morning's light as I write. They are calling to me, every day. It is a gentle call. We will be gone soon, finish the painting of us, our flowers bloom and climb up our stalks until the last ones high above your head will blink out of life and flutter to the ground. Like a siren from the sea, the garden's inhabitants sing to the painter.

Rich Color

2007-12-21T09:05:00.000-05:00

Reds and Pinks, recently offered on EBay has sold. It is in its new home.

I have made a study of the Old Master techniques. I've learned how to layer oils, so that a vibrancy and luminoisty is achieved. The glow you see in Old Master paintings comes from this technique. Each layer affects the subsequent layer, and how you apply the paint, thinly so it has translucence, or thickly-impasto is how the effects are achieved.

Some people think all oil painting surfaces are flat because they may only see images in print. If you look at my work up close, in person, you will see some very thick areas called impasto. Where there is more light there is more paint! More color and higher value.

Little lesson here.

To see some of my work in person, up close, have one sent to you today! Email me to make one yours. linannemisja@gmail.com

Remember anything here can be painted, something similar. I won't copy a painting that sold as that would take away from the uniqueness of the patron's new treasure, but I will paint one similar. Don't forget to look at all the blog posts, lots of good art. Request prices on larger pieces.

January Sneak Peek

2007-12-20T09:46:00.000-05:00

The Fiesta paintings I have been promising are almost done. Here is a sneak peek at one of them. Note the quilt emerging from the pink-toned background. Some people like to see how a painting looks in progress. I thought it would be fun to show you how I sometimes tone the ground of the canvas or board pink. This pink color comes through the painting here and there and really gives a vibrancy.

I actually had toned this board for a landscape. Pink (red, really) on the color wheel is opposite to green, making it a complimentary color. When you do a landscape and use the pinkish tones underneath, it makes the colors on top "sing". Just for the heck of it I grabbed this pink toned board to do a still life. I am teaching only one student in one of my classes and so while she paints I paint alongside her. I set this up for a classroom situation but I liked it so much it drove me to paint it.

Coming in January: a purple circle vase, a green creamer, and a yellow art deco vase, all fiesta items. This painting is a little larger than my smallish EBay listings, as it is about an 8 x 10 (depending on where I end up with the final cut of the board).

You may always click on a painting to see it larger. Early interest? Email me linannemisja@gmail.com PayPal compatible.

December Paintings

2007-12-17T03:59:00.000-05:00

Many of my listings have wound down. I am willing to sell pieces which you may have missed. Just email me and we will work out a timing so you may get your painting in time for Christmas, Chanukah.

Many new pieces are in the works.

linannemisja@gmail.com

Comments! Please note: previously the "comments" section was only available to folks with a gmail account. It is now open to all viewers. So, tell me what you think.

Holiday Paintings Going, going............

2007-12-10T12:30:00.000-05:00

Please note Bounty Two, Tristina, Fiesta Aplomb, and Golden Romes, are no longer available on Ebay. If you are interested in these paintings, please email. Click on the title of these paintings. Shipping fast and secure, packing neat and protective. Frames may be available for all paintings, please inquire.

Reds and Pinks, is no longer available. Sold. Going to its new home. Thanks, patron!

Afternoon Light is no longer available. Given as a gift. A new painting,very similar to Afternoon Light will be available soon.
Please feel free to email me with any inquiries.

linannemisja@gmail.com

Thank all of you for your continued interest.

Bounty Two

2007-12-07T19:31:00.000-05:00

This is the companion to Bounty, below. Bounty is sold. This one is available. Its size is slightly different than what I stated below. It is indeed 4" x 5" but that is not the same as Bounty, which was 3" x 5".

Luscious red apples reside along with juicy grapes on a soft green table. The colors are soothing and invigorating at the same time.

Going on EBay soon, please click here to inquire.

Close-ups of Bounty Two.

Tristina

2007-12-07T19:00:00.000-05:00

The little lady is here. She is on a canvas size 5"x 7". Since she is in only about 1/3 of the whole canvas size, she is only about 4" x 2". Her little face is about an inch across. Her face is from my own concept, her hands are borrowed from Bouguereau. How dainty are they? Perhaps she has just been in her garden and now returns home to help mother make dinner. Her face is flushed from the summer sun. Her era? I thought maybe 15th century but she could even be 19th century. Her soft ringlets of brown hair frame her sweet face, her liquid eyes have caught us glancing her way.

See her on Ebay starting soon. Click here to inquire about the elegant little Tristina.

Bounty Two

2007-12-05T12:06:00.000-05:00

Bounty Two Available!

A companion to the below Bounty is coming up. I just painted it. Bid on Ebay soon or inquire here. Buy it Now for $59.00. If you catch me as I wait for it to dry enough to scan I will sell it before it goes on EBay. Same size as Bounty which is a mere 4" x 5". A small size but reads powerfully. Two apples instead of one, luscious purple grapes, same lovely green complimentary background color.

Also just finished- a sweet little girl portrait/ figure-European, 15th century. She holds up her skirt with dainty fingers. As soon as she is dry enough to scan, I will offer it.

Bounty

2007-12-03T09:25:00.000-05:00

Bounty

detail Bounty

This is another Little Gem I thought I'd share. It is not avaialble any more as it is sold.

I painted it from a concept in my mind.

Remember, if you want a painting, like a painting you see here on the blog, just inquire linannemisja@gmail.com.

I will be happy to paint for you- making one up for you, using elements you see in paintings here or something similar. Here's a fun idea. See the detail in

Bounty

Just make an open square or a rectangle out of carboard. Like a tiny cardboard mat.

Hold it over a portion of painting on my blog. If that selected space "makes" a painting, let me know. I'll paint it for you as a commission.

Golden Romes~Christmas Colors!

2007-12-02T20:28:00.001-05:00

I had so much fun painting this one. Again, things I love, the beautiful golden apples, the gorgeous rome ones, the fifties tablecloth. This painting will be available on Monday, December 3 on Ebay. Get a start looking here. Go to "painting a day".

Detail of "Golden Romes"

Afternoon Light

2007-12-02T20:18:00.000-05:00

As you've read I studied for many years with David Leffel. I love his choice of objects to place in a still life. I find myself returning to the types of lovely things I painted with David in my student days. Especially blue and white pottery. I painted this small painting from my head. I painted so many still lifes such as this one, it comes naturally to make one up.

Come and take a look on Ebay, many more details are shown there. It is available now. What a great gift for the Holidays. Click here to buy.

Fiesta Aplomb

2007-12-02T20:09:00.000-05:00

Available on Ebay - this is first in a series of Fiesta paintings.

Fiesta is a collectible pottery. Very popular then and now. The retired colors are usually soft, some of them pastel. I am fond of the green. This painting with its soothing complimentary colors of purple and green is available here.

Note: The green is very true in the actual piece -it is scanning a little dark and not as pure and "clean" a green as it actually is.

2007-11-23T18:41:00.000-05:00

The Simple Apple

oil on gallery wrapped canvas 5 1/2" x 5 1/2"

What a lovely gift. See others available below. click here for purchase

I hope you had a great Thanksgiving. Ours was very nice, except I cooked the Turkey upside down! I have been taking seriously the task of painting a painting every day. I will have many new ones coming up on EBay in the next few days. Check there soon! I have painted Fiesta several times now, and plan another tomorrow. My 17 year old daughter brought home some gorgeous flowers from her play. She had a nice part. The flowers are rich in fall colors, peach, red, orange roses and warm yellow chrysanthemums. We plopped them into a dark purple Fiesta Circle pitcher and wow, do they holler, "Paint me" I shall oblige.

More.......

2007-10-26T18:03:00.000-04:00

Crab Apples and Salmon Pottery oil on board 5" x 7"

If you are interested in it, you may purchase it by clicking here.

I love walking through this old property. It's easy to imagine people scurrying about, carrying eggs, tilling soil, tending horses. "A working farm", I keep repeating to myself, wondering how it outlived its usefulness. I can imagine those folks working here, I just have to picture them in clothes worn by people 140 years ago. As I gaze up into the leaves of the old crabapple tree, now almost completely obscured by other trees crowding it, competing for their existence, I try to imagine what the land looked like all around this tree. Was it an open pasture then, was the tree standing there unobstructed? I like to think about someone else bending down and picking up the tiny golden apples as I do- over a century later, enjoying their beauty if not their usefulness for eating.

Beach Fruit oil on canvas 5" x 7"

sold

I painted these little round "fruit" and painted daiseys soon after I found them on the dunes as I returned from the beach in South Carolina's beautiful beach in Charleston. This painting is going off to its new home.

Little Gems

2007-10-24T16:23:00.000-04:00

I usually paint my still lifes in a "natural" size, that is life size. I don't follow the trends of painting large. I find humongous fruit to be rather imposing, actually, hanging there on the wall. I want to say to it, "What makes you think you are so important!? Get back to your natural size!" No, it is just a trend, and one I think will pass. One that does not sync with my classical training. You have heard the expression, when you want someone's attention, whisper. I have learned that far more effective than super-sizing art is to control color and light, keeping objects and people at their natural size. Another way of saying it is to limit color, and light. Focus it. One of the reasons much of my work has much chiaroscuro, the dramatic contrasts of light and dark, objects dissolving mysteriously into the background, is because of my love of catching someone's attention with a whisper. A strong draw. See Copper and Chrysanthemums below, in my first log.

When you go into the Metropolitan Museum, and you find yourself nearing the Rembrandt's, do you not find yourself absolutely drawn to them, causing you to cross a gallery room to get to them? It is because of his highly effective use of illuminating the objects and the faces in his work. As though they are illumined from within.

A project in which I have found myself involved is the painting of even smaller than life-size works. Can I still make effective still lifes in very small sizes? Can I do it in a lighter key? Some of my work can be seen now in these new and very affordable sizes on Ebay. Go to http://www.ebay.com/ and type in daily painting a day. You will see me there. The painting of this Fiesta piece I own will be coming up, soon, perhaps right after this log. Also you will see a piece there now, at this writing, I am calling Crab Apples and Salmon Pottery. (Click on title)

There is no end to the wonderful subjects found on my farm to include in one of these tiny paintings I am calling Little Gems.

Next log, I will return to Stories From the City.

57th street

2007-10-12T09:36:00.000-04:00

The Queen Peony 7" x 9" oil on board

All paintings available for sale
linannemisja@gmail.com
airnlight@yahoo.com

Living in New York was a nourishing experience. I loved the vital, lively, teeming-with-brilliant-ideas New Yorkers. I seemed to just sync with the creative vivacity. I wanted it all to osmose into my being. The people of New York are wonderful. I remained in NYC for 12 years. One of my favorite memories remains the times classes finished up, and I had to return back to my apartment with a fresh painting in tow. I used to get a seat on the bus (when possible) and would turn the painting around subtly, so the bus riders around me could see it.

I told myself, they must think I have to turn it around so paint doesn't get on me, surely they don't suspect I want them to see it. Gah, it seems so dumb to me now. I remember wanting people to see my work. Any raising of the eyebrow was a little thrill. A comment was not really expected, but looks were enough.

Well, I guess it is natural to want people's reactions to your work.

Another fond memory, returning home from class: I was usually pretty well spattered with paint, in old jeans, hair a mess. If I felt like walking across 57th, instead of hopping the bus right away, I'd sometimes stop into the shops. I just loved the reaction I'd get going into the ever exclusive ones. The sales lady would eye me up and down, and haughtily ask me if she could help me. I wanted to tell her, "I am so much more than what you see here, lady. If only you knew, I am a painter. Ha, so there."

Proud to be a painter? Well, that's good I guess. Maybe I needed to think that way. Those times were so uncertain.

I did enter one gallery on 57th Street. I was told by friends I ought to have my work there. The gallery owner barely looked at my pieces and said, "Oh, honey, you're a dime a dozen." Thanks a lot. That stung. That comment remains with me, 20 some years later. I wanted to tell him, "But, but, I am in some very good galleries". Alas, I was tongue tied. One of the gallery owners who did take me on admonished that young painter one day. I thought I knew everything about the world of art, and I was arrogant- what with the comments from artist friends always swirling around my head about art that was no good. I actually critiqued the art that was hanging on the wall on the gallery who had just signed me on. He was aghast, but, kindly reminded me that the Lacks were only some of the best painters this country had ever seen. I never heard of any Lacks. I only thought the art was bad, and I made mention of it. The diplomacy with which I was gifted............sheesh. I somehow knew I had committed a gaff. Happily that gallery owner was more mature than I.

I used to walk with such an energy all along 57th. I sighed as I imagined the amazing music filling the chamber of Carnegie Hall across the street. I wondered often what it would be like to lunch at the Russian Tea Room. It was fun to catch visitors calling it The Carnegie Hall. Pssst, we just say Carnegie Hall. I paused, wondering about how hard it must have been to do the work of the Meter Maids (as we called them then). What a job, and then I'd think about those getting tickets, better feel worse for them. Meter Maids have a good job, these guys are going to have to pay a little ticket. Every time I would pass Calvary Baptist Church, I would be reminded of the story the Pastor told one time of a woman bending down to help a "street person" right in front of the church. She was wearing a fur. I know the story was a good one, although I don't remember the details, people helping those less unfortunate, but I always felt critical of it. I had such a visual image of the woman in the fur, helping the poor person. Maybe the woman was the one who needed help. Maybe. Maybe I was just resentful of someone who could wear expensive clothes. I was an artist, living in my size 7 faded, high rise jeans.

When it was a clear, beautful day, and I chose to walk most of the way home to the East Side, I loved watching people along my route. I wanted them to stop, and let me paint them. That desire to paint the human form would not become fulfilled until many years later. Not in the full way I wanted it to.

I concentrated on still life, mostly. I did paint the model at the ASL, but my passion was the still life. I adored the energized peace in a still life. I do yet today. I love the tranquilty one can capture of humble objects sitting nonchalantly on an antique pastel quilt, softened with the patina of age.

See above, Queen Peony

back to the story of my first years in New York

2007-10-10T08:50:00.000-04:00

The Prince oil on board 12" x 16"

Paintings Available for sale

linannemisja@gmail.com

airnlight@yahoo.com

So, back to the "story"- how I became an artist. I moved to the city of NY, and I studied there at the Art Student's League. I enjoyed the instruction of Goodbread, Teply, Jacobs, and a few others. But my mentor became David A. Leffel. I still have my notes from those days. I dated everything and I discovered as I reread everything that it took about 16 months studying with David before I landed my first gallery. I continued to study with him, part time and full time for six years. A friend of mine, who is an excellent sculptress introduced me to the folks at The Nelson Rockefellar Gallery, right there in the best spot in New York an artist could wish for to land a gallery. They took me on immediately and after some months also showed my work

in their Minneapolis gallery. It is a difficult transition, student to working artist. Difficult because your skin hurts from all the pinching you do to let you know it is real. The student mindset has to make its switch to the professional mindset. Ok, it is a fun transition.

After enjoying some time as a Professional Fine Artist, I began to get involved in the art clubs New York has to offer. I was hanging a show one day at the Salmagundi Club, which houses the activities of the American Artist's Professional League, when a board member asked me if I would like to become a member of the board. I was, frankly, astonished. The AAPL is one of the oldest and most prestigious art organizations in the country. Surely, he didn't mean me. Maybe they ask all the young people to come on board. I accepted and at the first meeting, I was absolutely amazed. The board was made up of the finest artists, elderly gentlemen and women, some younger in their 50's, but mostly septuagenarians and octogenarians. And me.

I learned so much from my time on the Board of Directors. I will remain forever grateful for the experience. The fine artists on that board were the example of integrity as we juried National Exhibitions. Soon, however, my New York experience would come to a close.

Introducing Lin

2007-10-02T13:38:00.000-04:00

Let me introduce myself.

My artist's name is Linda Anne Misja.

My business is called L.A.M. Fine Art Studios. Mostly everyone just calls me Lin.

I have been a professional fine artist for many years. I have been painting in the traditional and time-honored Renaissance and Dutch Master methods since the first day I picked up a brush. They say your style is inside you. I do believe that.

I dreamed of learning how to paint like the Masters when I was just a young girl of 17. I could not believe how beautiful the paintings were of the 1500's in Italy. The Dutch Masters rocked that young girl's world. I lived in New Jersey at the time and something inside me said, "move to NYC, move to NYC...........". I wanted to learn to paint well but I was not sure it was possible to find anyone who taught in this manner, "not today," I thought, "in this 20th century?" Yet, something told me if it were possible at all to paint like a master I would find that person in NYC. After moving to the city, I eventually stumbled on the Art Student's League of New York. There, indeed did I find such a person. Amazing. I was so excited. I started intense study then-it felt so fufilling after one year fumbling around trying to find out how to paint at various schools, under various instructors. I was glued to the instruction of David A. Leffel for the next 6 years. One day, it seemed to me a day like any other, he raised his voice and said to me from across the room, "Linda, that's beautiful", in front of all the others students. David was reserved in his compliments, so his saying this to me in this manner carried a lot of weight.

I blushed and I began to wonder if I was ready to try for galleries.

Here is an example of my work. I will be adding many pieces for your interest and I will continue the story another day.

Copper and Crysanthemums oil on board 16" x 20"

I love the vibrancy of the orange and purple. Sometimes paintings just paint themselves. This was one of those. That doesn't always happen. Painters struggle, sometimes a painting takes a year of hard work, and sometimes it is finished in a session or two and the artist stands there, blinking, and wondering, "Did I just paint that?"