Daily Painting posters available

Today I posted the last of the pastels of my #30in30 daily painting challenge for January. Doing a painting every day -- even if I don't do a 6x6" and post on my blog (I am always painting,drawing, and working) -- is such good creative exercise. I can feel myself getting more confident as I venture to new areas and expand my comfort zone.

I also went through the collection of pieces, blog posts, and Facebook entries and am humbled by the support I receive about my work. For those who comment and "like" and share their feelings about the paintings, I sincerely thank you.

January/February poster 11x17"
30in30 (c)2016 Kim Morin Weineck
available for $15 + shipping
email kimweineck@gmail.com
to purchase

The poster is one of the best things about the #30in30 challenge. Seeing the pieces all together like this is such a feeling of accomplishment. Winter is one of my most difficult seasons. For January and much of February I learned that the colors of winter are gorgeous. The light is different and the colors are beautiful!

What I think gets to me the most about wintertime is the light. Time management is tricky generally, but in winter, time management problems seem to double for me. Sun setting at 4pm means I am ready for bed by 8pm. Geez! I don't honestly go to bed at 8pm, but I am not the productive self that I can be other times of the year.

Here is the poster from my September #30in30, the first one that I did. Gosh, it was fun.

September poster 11x17"
30in30 (c)2015 Kim Morin Weineck
available for $15 + shipping
email kimweineck@gmail.com to purchase

If any artist out there is interested in taking on a Daily Painting challenge, please consider doing so. The benefits are many and your capacity to create is bigger and better than you may credit yourself for ;)

Thanks for reading! ~kmw

Day #29 :: SNOWY STREAM :: January Daily Painting challenge (in February)

SNOWY STREAM
by Kim Morin Weineck
original pastel, 6x6"

$125 + $8 shipping

After a short hiatus, here's another painting from the January daily painting challenge. I know it's February. We get done what we can. Winter packs a wallop, and with it come issues of cold and snow, power outages, commitments, and other motivational difficulties. Funny, too, because our surroundings are quite inspiring. Seems the problem lies in time management and, perhaps more appropriately, light management. When it's dark at 4:30pm, I swear I'm ready for bed at 8pm with the kiddos. 

This painting was a challenge from the start. It's on a bright red surface which I thought would be a good way to warm up a cool subject. While that was the case, after a while the surface wouldn't take any more pastel and so I had to be quite deliberate about my warm and cool color notes. 

Perhaps it's more abstract than my usual work. The color harmonies make me so very happy. 

Again, this is a subject in my neck of the woods. We're so happy to have landed where we did, two years ago from February 1st. 

Thanks for reading! ~kmw

Day #23 :: FARM SUNSET :: January Daily Painting Challenge

FARM SUNSET
by Kim Morin Weineck
original pastel, 6x6"

$125 +$8 shipping

This painting brings me back up to date with the daily paintings. It's a relief. Funny how, while sick and resting, I'm thinking of painting and getting caught up. It was really bothering me! 

Today's final painting was the last from this series of three made today all of the same road. (For those local to me, it's Myrtle Street from the corner of Main to Hanover Street by Holmes Field.) 

Farm Sunset is the western side of the street and so the sunset was a glorious vibrant fireball while across the street for the previous two pieces you could see the moon in a warm blue sky. 

I struggled with the sky in this. As a rule I don't paint sunsets because they always look fake to me when depicted in paintings. I doubt whether the color was that vibrant, that intense, etc. My judgy artist self thinks sunsets are better left to photographers. That is how I felt until I've seen so many beautiful paintings of sunsets by those participating in this challenge! And so I thought I'd try. 

The rock wall was such fun to paint. I love the framing it gives to the composition, too.

Here they all are -- from the same ride home, same moonrise and sunset.

Thanks for reading! ~kmw

Day #17 :: RIVERBANK :: January Daily Painting Challenge

RIVERBANK
by Kim Morin Weineck
original pastel, 6x6"

$125 + $8 shipping

The sixteen prior daily paintings are all lined up hanging on a bulletin board in front of my desk and it's quite something else to see an expanse of work so obviously inspired by winter -- with the exceptions of only two florals on days four and five and one rogue Swanboat painting.

Today's piece is no exception to the #embracewinter hashtag I've been using on Instagram for the past few winters. Winter and I have a difficult relationship. It's of course beautiful. White snow makes everything look clean and crisp and blue. The light is purer in winter, without the humid haze of high summer.

Funny that--we have high summer and deep winter.

Winter does me in, though. I get cranky and a bit sad. Often it seems like so much is harder. And there's little light. We wake in the dark. The girls are off the bus and it seems that darkness comes upon us so quickly.

Good therapy for embracing winter is to approach it with mindfulness, and I think painting is a perfect example of mindfulness. I have been taking time to examine the winter landscape and the light, although seemingly fleeting, and have been admiring its glory. The paintings from this month really embrace that.

Thanks for reading! ~kmw

Day #16 :: ICE :: January Daily Painting Challenge

ICE
by Kim Morin Weineck
original pastel, 6x6"

$125 + $8 shipping

The notes and iPhone photo for this painting look nothing like this image. In fact, I'm going to show you my thought process for this piece! I had fun and think you may like to see the progression from start to finish painting. 

This painting on your screen doesn't do the painting justice, either. The sky here is odd and fluorescent where in person, the effect is more dynamic and smooth. The bottom photo gives the best representation of the painting.

As I said in a previous post, my mind is like a viewfinder, scoping out new paintings everywhere I look.  Sometimes when I see big shapes and angles, I take a cruddy photo with the intent of working it out better in a painting. Sadly, this intent is often not followed up on, and I have a ZILLION poor photos laden with the potential to be something better.

Until today!

My photo with big shapes and GRAND plans! 

Sure, this photo (which I cropped perfectly to be a fantastic square composition) is fine. If I were to paint it as is, the result could be a lovely calm piece. When I originally sketched out my shapes at the onset, I had in mind I would do a color scheme similar to the one shown, but give it a bit more oomph. You can see my original color mapping below. 

(left-top) The draft close to the photo and
(right-top) finished piece with imagined color
The finished piece under my two drafts

Something gnawed at my creative mind and told me that the grays and blues were too staid. Even my intellectual mind agreed! I drew the image again and laid in color on top of color and played with color relationships and balance. It took a few layers and corrections to get where I thought the piece was best before I started on today's painting. 

Tim just visited me in the studio and asked if the painting were from a place we frequently walk on a Cape Cod beach. I smirked knowing that this piece is actually from the newly constructed neighborhood being built near our home. 

He then mentioned that the piece looked and felt cold. Isn't that neat? The painting is oozing pinks, yellows, deep maroon, orange -- all warm colors, and he is agreeing with my thought the the painting looks cold. What power we artists wield! 

How great is it when your spouse totally backs you up and they don't even know that they are doing it? Tim so affirmed the lesson of tonight's studio time: 

 
*You don't have to paint exactly what you see. The viewer is only going to know what you make them see. Make it matter. 

*Play with color relationships. Convey what you want, but stretch yourself. Say more with color than what is there, and study color relationships. Work them out before getting into the painting. The effort will pay off in the end result. 

A big painting and seeing lesson tonight. I feel so teach-y!

Thanks for reading! -kmw

Day #7 :: WINTER HOPE :: January Daily Painting Challenge

WINTER HOPE
by Kim Morin Weineck
original pastel, 6x6"

$125 + $8 shipping

Today was a difficult January day -- as many days in January can be. Apart from the temperatures, which were rather mild for this time of year, today was about change. Changes that have happened and changes yet to come. 

I went to a wake tonight for a dear former boss. He and his family offered me such opportunity when I was in my twenties. Somehow I knew to work hard for them and see where the opportunities would take me and I went all sorts of places! Nantucket was particularly wonderful. So many years ago now. 

In the end, I could and should credit them with directing me to art school because they owned galleries. I spent my days working for them selling other people's artwork, figuring out what people wanted to buy, and studying what I sold. 

Funny how paths make sense in hindsight. 

Today we also got news of a family member's diagnosis. When you're hoping more than you can hope that it's not cancer and then it is....And I have no other words. Only prayers and making art. 

When I'm not sure what to do or when I feel lost or apprehensive, making art helps. 

Today's piece was a challenge again. Simple in construct, this solitary tree with some depth in the flat plane against a treeline and an oddly colored sky isn't as complicated as say a marsh with a dramatic sky and boat and and and... Simple in art is never simple. Instead simple is often a nightmare. How can it be done in a simple fashion and still feel professional/deliberate/confident/finished/etc? It takes some doing and experimentation to get there. 

My notes and reference weren't these colors, but when I painted them as they were there was no hope in the grays and dull browns. Those tones are for another day. Instead, what fun for me to empurple (a great word and joke for my art students) and redden and warm up the color notes! 

The piece is now more hopeful in its feeling. I kept at it with layer upon layer and finally arrived at a place I love for my painting and my head. 

Thanks for reading! ~kmw

Day #3 :: WINTER FIELD :: January Daily Painting Challenge

WINTER FIELD
by Kim Morin Weineck
original pastel, 6x6"

$125 + $5 shipping

It's chilly and here is another snowy painting. This piece was such fun to do! I started with another notan sketch and then the color laying over it was easy as pie!

Not much to say tonight because Downton Abbey starts up again tonight. And Alaska the Last Frontier. Funny how I watch so little television and then blam, both are on tonight. We'll have nothing else to watch for the remainder of the week (a good thing when a painting challenge is underway!)

OH! And I ordered some art supplies today. Can't wait to talk about those that will be coming in shortly!! :)

Thanks for reading! ~kmw

Day 21 :: SNOWY TRAIL :: #30in30 Painting a Day Challenge

SNOWY TRAIL
by Kim Morin Weineck
original pastel, 6x6"

This post will start as a complaining tirade about the painting that sits on my shelf for my eyes only until I either burn it, tear it up, or start a new version of itself. After 21 days of painting, my expectations soared and I decided to stretch a bit. Again painting laughed at me before beating me up.

This snow scene was on top of my "I'd like to paint this someday" photo pile, so I painted it with a quick intensity and confidence because landscapes are my comfort zone. Snow isn't my favorite thing in January, February, and March but even in those months is a great subject to paint and show the effects of light.

In my classes, ten minutes doesn't pass without me lecturing that artists say a lot with few marks. The confidence in great works shows in the strong strokes of the artist's knowing hand. This piece helped me get back some confidence. Strokes of blue and white carve through the trail. Single vertical and horizontal blips are trees and shrubs and light, and that is what I love!

Thanks for reading! -kmw

Small works :: Conifer

The more I paint, the more I learn about composition and successful paintings. This simple construct is something I'd never have thought to try up until just recently. Lately, though, I'm terribly attracted to clean, simple paintings and I'm seeing them in galleries and museums and my art books.

©2012 Kim Morin Weineck
CONIFER
original pastel, 6x6"

The colors in the painting differentiate between the whites and purples a bit more. If this doesn't sell, it's one I'd be delighted to have in my own home.

Email kimweineck@gmail.com for more info on this painting.
Thanks for reading!~kmw

Small Works :: Cedar Sentinels

What a time of year...I just love it!

The house is decked for Christmas. We have been cooking and baking and enjoying, and it's not even December yet. As is our tradition, the tree was cut down the weekend after Thanksgiving and here I sit enjoying the comfy house warmly illuminated for these darkest days on the calendar. 

In the studio lately I've been working on small works for various upcoming shows. Over the next few days I'm going to showcase these paintings here. Such fun to do these small pieces. So thoroughly enjoyable!

©2012 Kim Morin Weineck
CEDAR SENTINELS
original pastel, 6x6"
framed to 10x10
available