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It is time to plan your visit to White Birch Fine Art Studio, one of many venues participating in NH Open Doors, a statewide touring and shopping event that will be held on November 7 & 8, 10am - 5pm both days. NH Open Doors is a fun way to experience the best New Hampshire has to offer and support your local artists.

I've been painting up a storm this year, catching up on lost time from the move last year. Come see what is new! Here is a sneak peak of one of the paintings.

To plan your itinerary of favorite locations, visit http://www.nhopendoors.com/.

Be sure to include the East Colony Fine Art "pop-up" gallery located at the Salzburg Square Shopping Center at 292 State Route 101 in Amherst, NH.

See you there!
Elaine

#whitebirchfineart, #nhopendoors, #elainefarmer, #oilpaintings

Maxfield Parrish, one of my favorite artists of all time. In case you are not familiar with this artist, he was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1870 , a noted engraver and painter. In 1898, Parrish moved to Plainfield, New Hampshire, near Cornish, where he built his home and studio, which he named “The Oaks” after the distinguishing trees on the land. He lived there until his death in 1966. Currently the Currier Museum is featuring Parrish's vintage lithographic prints, ads, posters, magazines, books, greeting cards and calendars that highlight Parrish’s works, which I had the pleasure of seeing this past weekend with my husband.

Many of Parrish's works are saturated in vibrant cyan color. It was his influence of his use of this color, that got me started using it myself. My version is phthalocyanine blue. Being a print maker in his early years, Parrish painted using printers colors which we refer to as CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow and black). He felt that if he used these colors in his illustrations and paintings, he could get a more accurate reproduction from the original.

Years ago, I began looking for a simplified color palette when I discovered Maxfield Parrish's work and started using the cyan, magenta, yellow and white (no black) and found great success, in using just these three colors. Parrish's works also involved many, layers of pure color and varnish layers alternatively, which creates the translucent effect you see in his works. I don't always have the luxury of using this method on a regular basis but have in the past, and may just consider it again in the future.

The top painting, "Amor Caritas" was painted by me and was created with just these three colors (and white). Amazing huh? The bottom painting is "Daybreak" by Maxfield Parrish, became the most popular painting of the century.

Catch the exhibit at the Currier Museum until January 10, 2016.

#MaxfieldParrish, #Daybreak, #AmorCaritas, #Elaine Farmer, #CurrierMuseum, #HarmoniousColorSchemes

I spent this last weekend painting en plein air in the White Mountains. I was part of an artists retreat that occurs twice a year at the Bartlett Inn, in Bartlett, NH. My good friend Ginny Barrett also popped in, who is creating a documentary on plein air artists. Painting outdoors in all kinds of weather, can be the biggest challenge an artist can face. This weekend, the artists of the NHPleinair group painted in the warm sunshine of a beautiful Autumn day, but later in the weekend, turned to wind gusts, rain, sleet and dare I say the word, snow! Talk about experiencing multiple seasons all in one weekend. And of course the bugs were out on the warm days.

These are some of the obstacles we artists face when painting outdoors. Our hope is that through the documentary, we will share with you, the viewer, an insight to our challenges. Artists that paint plein air, will agree with me though, that it is still the most invigorating part of being an artist. I'll let you know when the documentary is ready for viewing.

#BartlettInn, #NHPleinair, #ElaineFarmer, #FineArtAmerica

So I decided that I would just show you the three steps together... more effective that way. As a point of interest, I used a Tetrad of 4 colors in this painting; Yellow-Orange (Cad. Yellow Med.), Yellow-Green (Cinnabar), Red-Violet (Magenta) and Blue-Violet (Indanthrone Blue). White is always a given. Using this scheme of colors is all that is needed to produce the beautiful colors in this marsh at Plum Island.
#www.elainefarmer.com, #marsh, #Plum Island

I know it has been a while since I blogged but I've been recently told, I need to share more with you, so here's I've been up to today. It is a second painting from my Plum Island excursion on Tuesday.
#oil painting, #Plum Island, #Massachusetts
Elaine

Getting lots of new paintings ready for an up-coming art show at the Sunapee Landing Trading Company in Sunapee, NH on August 6-9th. Stop by and say hello if you are in the area!
http://www.sunapee-landing.com/

Sold this lovely oil painting today to a collector in California! Enjoy!