Art, writing, travels
I was very excited today to try out my new ‘pochade box’ for painting ‘en plein air’ (outdoors). I’m looking forward to bringing it on my travels. I love that I have to paint kind of faster and looser than I normally would. I’d love to keep loosening up the brush strokes and get more impressionistic or even abstract over time. Today’s painting was made with a limited palette of burnt umber, phthalo blue, cadmium yellow, permanent rose, and titanium white.
This is my first tiny painting. It measures only 4″ x 4″. Sometimes when I haven’t painted in a while I feel overwhelmed looking at a big empty white canvas and I feel like I just don’t have the time, energy, or talent to do anything with it. But when I saw these teeny tiny canvases at the art supply, I knew they’d help for those moments and ease me back into painting after extended breaks.
It was also fun to paint with a limited palette of only 4 colors (titanium white, cobalt blue, lemon yellow, and burnt umber)Ā and alla prima (meaning “at first attempt”). Normally I take days to weeks to finish a painting. Very satisfying to finish a painting in an hour!
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I had the great pleasure of seeing the Jean-Michel Basquiat exhibit at MFA Boston with my son on Mother’s Day. š The photos don’t do them justice, especially in terms of scale, but these were a few of my favorite works.
Excited that my painting “Living Room” was selected to be part of the latest juried show at 6 Bridges Gallery in Maynard, MA with other local artists. The show is called “Habitat” and will be up until February 6th!
Out in the Berkshires this weekend and visited the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, MA yesterday, full of classic American art. He spent many years illustrating covers of the magazine the Saturday Evening Post and made over 4000(!) paintings. I love how he captured expressions on people’s faces and told an entire story in one picture. Also the amount of detail is really incredible.
Excited to participate in my first gallery exhibit! I joined the Nashua Area Artists’ Association recently and submitted a few works for the fall show in their member gallery. Quite fun to see my art in the world and check out other artists’ works.
I’m too afraid to sketch or paint others (in case I make them look terrible) so I’m planning on only making self portraits or pictures of strangers until I get better. This doesn’t look exactly like me but the distortion looks pretty good anyway. š
It’s my niece’s 9th birthday tomorrow š so IĀ made her a petite portrait of her cat Tomato
Starting small before I try to make a full portrait
Kirti Patel 
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