The Path to the Pink House

Finally  (maybe?)  this painting is complete. I am taking it off of the easel at any rate and giving it a rest, as I feel like I have been looking at it for so long  that I can’t see it properly any more.

Monet's Garden painting by Jennifer Young

“Path to the Pink House”
Oil on Canvas, 18×24″
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This is one of the many wildly colorful garden paths leading up to “The Pink House” (Monet’s).  I softened the house and left out some of the finer detail because I wanted it to sit back more in the painting. The scene is set in the diffused light that was so typical of the humid atmosphere we experienced during our visit to Giverny.





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Monet’s Garden Painting W.I.P.

While it may appear that my poor blog is suffering from benign neglect, I actually have been working on it, albeit on the back end. Recently my blog has been attacked and completely overrun by comment spammers. Hopefully the issue hasn’t  been too evident to readers, but it completely overtook my blog (and my email) for a while . After a few attempts at a “quick fix,” I decided I really had to take the time to do a Wordpress upgrade.

It’s something I should have done a long time ago, but have been loathe to do because it involved a good deal of time that I dearly need in order to attempt any kind of painting these days.  Unfortunately, upgrading has caused me to lose my sitemap and all of my prior post tags, so I am very bummed that I have yet to spend more time trying to figure out what happened to them. Hopefully I can recover them, but otherwise I guess I am looking at manually creating new tags for each post that has been added to my site since the dawn of man. Arrrgh!

Well, thanks for letting me get that off my chest!  I actually do have a painting under way, of Monet’s Garden. Still quite a bit of work yet to do on this 18×24″ canvas, but at least I’ve mapped out the main elements:

Monet's Garden painting work in progress by Jennifer Young

When I have free time in the evenings (which lately isn’t that often) I have been watching a fascinating series of educational videos on the Impressionists produced by the University of Texas at Austin. It’s basically a lecture format, which at first, kind of made me feel like I was back in art history class. But after a while it did draw me in, and it is probably the most through and in-depth investigation on this incredible group of artists that I have seen on DVD. It is so inspiring to go back in time and visit with these incredibly innovative masters (Manet, Monet, Pisarro, Renoir, Degas, Morisot, etc.)

So this was the spark that made me want to revisit my photos of Monet’s garden. It has been a while since I painted this subject matter. What an amazing place ! Hopefully I can finish this painting soon. However, if the weather cooperates and I can find a chance to paint outside, I may do like the Impressionists and forgo the studio to grab the opportunity. We will see….





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Pienza Hillside (WIP complete)

Well this painting has actually been completed for a little while now, but thanks to Hurricane Irene, we had been without power for over a week up until yesterday. Here is the final version of the Italian landscape work-in-progress I shared in my prior post:

Tuscany landscape oil painting by Jennifer Young

“Pienza Hillside”
Oil on Linen, 24×30″
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I will keep this post brief today so that I can do a bit of clean up. From the looks of it you would think the eye of the hurricane passed right through the middle of my studio!





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This week on the easel: Val d’Orcia W.I.P.

Just a quick post to share what is in progress on the easel this week:

My studio time (which includes painting, but also varnishing and framing, website updates, emails, blogging, photography, sales/marketing, office work, etc.) is now limited to a few hours every other weekday. Painting takes precidence, but every now and then I really must play catch-up with “everything else”. So it was with Monday, and I only had time to do the layout in sepia:

Tuscany landscape painting in progress by Jennifer Young

Upon my return to the easel, I tackeled the block-in (first pass) which is still mainly shadows and midtones:

tuscany landscape painting in progress by jennifer young

Time ran out before I was able to get to the hilltop buildings, but I was happy to have covered the rest of this 24×30″ canvas in about 3 1/2 hours. Because I can’t always get back to an “open” painting, I at least want to return to a canvas that is brought to the same level of completion in all areas.

This is a view I have painted before (a number of years ago) and I am returning to it now to see if I can use a looser approach. There is quite a bit of information in this scene, and my aim is to relay a feeling of the variety in the landscape of Tuscany, but in a more unified, simplified manner, without articulating everything in minute detail.





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The Dog Days of Summer

The “dog days” of summer, at least in my garden, are here. Every August to date, I  peter out in my gardening prowess. Basically I tell my plants, “If you can survive ’til fall, more power to you. I’m done!” 

This summer, I’m afraid the “dog days” actually started much earlier….as in, early June! With a baby-turned-toddler, my poor plants have been in “survival of the fittest” mode for a while now. Where I used to be shuffling plants around all summer, pruning, weeding, and planting anew, I am now happy if I can water my pots between the baby’s naps and my now very limited time in the studio.

Somehow, though, it all works out. At least, Baby E thinks so. She loves the garden, such as it is. She wanders around, and when she’s not attempting to eat the sticks and mulch, she points to “dis” and “dat” and turns to me expectantly for an explanation of all flora and fauna.

Here she is sitting amongst the flowers in front of my studio earlier this month:

jenniferyoung.com blog

From her perspective, there are no “dog days”, there are just days. No judgement, just wonder and enjoyment…and a total disinterest in discriminating the flowers from the weeds. All are equally delicious in her eyes (or, should I say, mouth?) Discrimination serves a worthy purpose for sure, but I can’t help but think that I should be so lucky as to see my garden, and for that matter, my paintings (and for THAT matter, my life!) from Baby E’s perspective every so often. I have a lot to learn from her.  





Jennifer Young; Vibrant Landscapes
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