Here, Ken begins a study for his next painting. We love the angled grid and the whole vibe of this. It reminds us of nothing so much as a Prairie School window by Frank Lloyd Wright.
More greenery as Greeta paints statuary and a glass birdbath from her garden against lush foliage and gentle wisteria.
Then, she moved on to another painting. This is a small view of Alan relaxing on a pier. We already love the water, the background and the model's pose. In fact, we had a great time looking through Greeta's sketchbook. She puts it to good use while relaxing on vacations.
Here's another sketch from that book. We love the way the painting continues into the spiral binding.
This sweet bit of Americana is her neighbor's house, as seen from her vacation cottage.
These boys drifted by and Greeta had to paint them. Don't you feel relaxed and serene just looking at this?
Notice the composition on Greeta's swans. The delicate verticals of the swans contrast beautifully against the horizontal waves of the water.
Rosemary has moved away from still lives and is back painting birds. This cute little Baltimore Oriole is perched in a garden of sunflowers against a background of greenery.
Here you'll notice Rosemary's still life, complete with beautifully modeled fruits. The highlights make the fruits just glisten, don't they?
Besides greenery and water, birds are getting to be a thing with us. Madeleine is making great progress on her painting. She's saving the bird for last while she does a lovely job on the fabrics of the umbrella and towel.
It's interesting to see paintings in progress, isn't it? Here, Madeleine's added finishing touches to her ceramic shrine. Of all the elements in the painting, nothing received as much approbation as the radiator. We all agreed it's perfect.... it's a midwest winter thing, we guess.
Madeleine's been busy this week. Here is a fascinating composition. The verticals draw us deep into the space, while the sensuous fabric curtains make us want to linger and touch them.
Bill is also finishing up his painting from last week. This is a very drastic change, so we'll show both last week's and this week's version. It engendered a great deal of conversation, not to mention looks through Bill's sketchbooks. Here's the finished version, followed by the gestural beginnings from last week.
...and the sketches have the same energy as the painting above, but without the color. Below, Bill combines our two themes of nature and architecture as he begins a scene from Turkey of a carved stone edifice nestled in foliage. A great beginning!
More stone and foliage from Bill, below. Here, he's painting a small intimate scene, using watercolor pencils on hot pressed paper.
Steve's textural tour de force is nearly finished too. We love the movement of the water and tail, the rough, lava-like texture of the rock and the distant, rocky headlands against the clear sky. We watched and cheered as he rescued the painting from possible disaster—can you even see the blotch on his shoulder from the poorly sized paper? Definitely a painting worth saving!
Have you noticed how many of us maintain sketchbooks? And have you noticed how the sketchers are some of our best painters, too? Here, Sara fine tunes her self-portrait sketch...
... before launching into a sketch using paint instead of graphite. The pencil sketch has served to familiarize her with the subject so well that this monotone painting only took about 15 minutes. No underdrawing or gridding, yet the likeness is remarkable.
Like many of us this week, Elaine has finished up one painting and begun another. She's added some texture and touches like telephone lines to her vintage painting of the Z Frank sign, formerly on Western Avenue; now gone.
In what looks to be the beginning of a series, Elaine is starting another sign. This sign is also gone, but while it lasted, it caused her no end of amusement. It's the "Let's Pet Puppies" sign from Ashland Avenue. If you've seen it, you'll remember it!
Susan captures a scene from one of Chicago's beaches. In another "sign of the times," we see four people on the beach.... and three of the four have their eyes glued to their cell phones, missing the incredible scenery. Amazing, isn't it?
Summers are short, but glorious here in Chicago. Enjoy your summer!
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