Author mayhewjnm

Eye studies

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At the suggestion of my teacher, Kari Rajkumar, http://www.karirajkumar.com, I painted these eye studies. I used free use images from http://www.unsplash.com

They are both oil paintings, 4 x 6 ins. The green eye is lit from below, the blue eye from the front. It was a thoroughly enjoyable exercise!

I have always found eyes fascinating. How can living tissue form a transparent optical material? The process of perceiving color and value and transforming that into a readable, meaningful image has seemed wonderful to me. How can cells fmake an adjustable focus lens? These were some of the reasons that led me to pursue a training and qualification in Optometry. (The others were the Ah-ha moment when I first put on glasses to correct my short-sightedness at age nine, and the benefit I received from contact lenses as a teenager).

Now I am appreciating eyes from a different viewpoint!

Time of Reflection

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12 x 16, oil

This is a family member, from a photo I took several years ago. She is an elegant, well-dressed person and I feel I captured that look. However, the colors didn’t seem right until I glazed her facial shadows with what seemed like outrageous yellows and oranges and suddenly it came to life!

Master Copy II

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Copy of a painting by a Master, oil, 12 x 12 ins

This is another painting completed in a series of lessons with Kari Rajkumar. The original is a self-portrait by John Singleton Copley, a famous and well-established Colonial artist, who moved to London in 1774. I’m afraid I made him look slightly chubbier in the cheeks than he painted himself, but the process was absorbing and instructive.

Primary Earth Boy

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Boy, Oil, 12 x 16

This is the third time I have painted this portrait. I tried one in Acrylic layers, one in oil and now this second try in oil. I’m glad I persisted as I like this one best! I have been working on more accurate color checking and subtleties of changes in value and temperature.

Acrylic, 12 x 16, June 2020. Painted in very thin layers of acrylic paint with matte medium.
Oil, 12 x 16, October 2020. Maybe I didn’t quite finish it (as I notice now that the EARTH on his shirt is not completed). Probably that’s because I was not pleased with it.

Mask II

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You Can’t See Me, Oil, 11 x 14 ins

I wanted to portray the amusing idea that children have of not being visible if nothing is visible to them!

This painting was based on a photo of my granddaughter in one of her special dresses, although in the photo she was wearing large green glasses frames. I bought this children’s ‘llama’ sleep mask especially for this project and modeled it on myself, taking selfies in a similar light to the photo. It was fun.

Once I’d finished the painting I gave her the sleep mask.

Arts Illiana ‘Masks’ Exhibition

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I was happy to have two paintings accepted for the current ‘Masks’ Exhibition at the Arts Illiana Gallery, Terre Haute, March 5-May 21, 2021. The first one I painted is a self-portrait, although I am so masked that it could not truly be called a portrait!

We flew to Albany, NY twice in Dec 2020, first to visit a sick relative and then to attend her funeral. I wanted to have a rest on the flight, so I put on my eye mask, and then thought this was peculiar–my face was now totally covered! With some experimentation I was able to take some selfies with my phone and painted from these after we returned home.

Flying 2020, 8 x 10 ins, Oil on canvas panel

Apple Candles

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8 x 10 ins, oil on canvas panel

Every year at Thanksgiving (November) I use cored Red Delicious apples to hold candles for the table decoration. It seems in line with the pioneer spirit and using what is easily to hand.

A few days after Thanksgiving last year I still had these on the table and was sitting contemplating the world when I noticed a beautiful morning light on them that really brought them alive, even without flame in the candles! I quickly took several photos and painted this from one of the photos with my Geneva oil paints.

Leaving the Nest

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Leaving the Nest, 8 x 10, oil on canvas panel

As I was raking up the leaves in the fall, I found this small and beautiful nest on the grass. All sorts of fibers are wound into it; pieces of grass, trash and even animal, and possibly human, hair. It is such a marvel of skillful engineering that I wanted to celebrate it in a painting.

I placed it with a maple leaf (from our lawn) and an oak leaf (that probably blew across the street from the neighbor’s yard) and gave it a title that is in line with our stage of life-they’re nearly all gone!

Painted with Geneva Oil Paints.

Ducks

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What’s Up, Duck? 8 x 10, oil on canvas panel

When we lived in Bath, England for 8 months in 2006-7, we used to walk past a music supply shop called ‘Duck, Son & Pinker’. Since ‘Duckie’ is sometimes used in England as a term of endearment, my husband thought this was an appropriate title for me, our 4 year old son and baby daughter!

From that time, the name stuck in our (half-British) family too. This male duck (from a photo I took in Holland, MI last year) seems to be talking to his mate with some concern, echoing both a marital communication and the famous line from Bugs Bunny.