Do Not Adjust Your Set... 4x4 Inch Forsythia by Kelley MacDonald

$65 & $10 S&H

Click HERE to Purchase

A different pink background, a different size.  I love exploring a subject in a series!  I have one other background I'd like to explore, as well... coming up Monday!  Two rather big happenings in the next couple of weeks:  

April 25, Thursday, from 5-9

I'm the Featured Artist at Sea Rose Cottage on Constitution Rd, Bristol, RI

Bristol Art Night 

Come, be a friendly face, and view the gorgeous decorating ideas at the Cottage!

 And for the month of May I'm one of the South Coast Artists showing at Spring Bull Gallery on Bellview Ave in Newport!

Forsythia In Pink, 6x6 Inch Oil Painting by Kelley MacDonald

$100 & $10 S&H

Click HERE to Purchase

Had a hard time painting today... all my work on my big paintings has to be done over.  I could manage this small one, though, and am very happy with it.  I was talking it over with my daughter and she said she, and others with ties to Boston, is having the same issue.  It's like a hangover of grief.  Everyone will work their way through it, but yesterday and today it seemed like I was standing in wet sand up to my knees.  So PINK was the perfect remedy.  Be well, be happy...

Exuberance, 6x6 Inch Oil Painting of Forsythia, by Kelley MacDonald

 This week in my Saturday class we discussed composing a painting with Negative Space in mind.  That's the space BETWEEN the branches, the shapes being determined by their relative distance from other shapes.  I think Forsythia is an excellent example, although chairs, trees, and such do a great job as well. Well, too, the blue jar was as fun as the flowers to paint!

I hope you enjoy these lively flowers!

Joyful, 6x6 Inch Oil Painting of Forsythia by Kelley MacDonald

SOLD

 There's something about Forsythia that lifts the heart.  Those cheery yellow bushes reaching for the sky, and the vibrant blue of a Spring day provides the perfect backdrop for these symbols of new life.  I can never fathom the urge to crop them into little rounded bushes, because what I love about them is their reckless reaching out, the irrepressible nature of their outstretched limbs.  

Which, of course, I cut and put in jars and vases around the house!

So... a new spring, a new season, and new and interesting things to come, for each of us.

First Forsythia, 6x8 Oil, Plein Air

This is a wimpy photo (the blue of the water is much richer in person and the yellow stands out in more contrast, but I've fiddled and fooled around with the image I'm practically cross-eyed. I have been stuck in a storm of technology, appliance and auto crises, and I can hardly THINK let alone paint! Yesterday, on the long stretch of Metacom Avenue through Bristol and Warren that leads me to my studio, I kept hearing what I thought was a plane flying low overhead. Then I noticed I was hearing it every time I had to stop at a red light. Rolled down the window, and realized it was MY CAR. By the time I got to the studio it was making this grinding noise all the time, not just when I was stopping. So I crawled home at 20 mph (SORRY, anyone who was behind me!) and dropped it at the mechanic. The list of things that was wrong with my brakes went on.... and on... and now I'm car-less for a day. Sorry to unburden!

When I got home it was a gorgeous day - like a wind storm on the back side of the house - calm as can be on the front porch - so I hunkered down on the front steps and painted this less-than wonderful painting of an old forsythia. Behind the forsythia is the road, about 3 feet lower than the grass, and the sea wall that keeps the river from my steps. Bear in mind that it is the FIRST plein air attempt of the year!