John LaFarge

Wild Roses and Irises, 1887. Gouache and watercolor on white wove paper, 14.5 x 10". The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC.

Seascape, 1883. Watercolor on paper, 6 x 4".

Mountain Gorge Near Dambulla, Ceylon. Watercolor on paper, 16 x 13". Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA.

Wild Roses in an Antique Chinese Bowl, 1880. Watercolor on paper 10 x 9" Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA.

John La Farge (1835-1910). US painter and ecclesiastical designer. He is credited with the revival of stained glass in America and also created woodcuts, watercolors, and murals. Lafarge visited Europe 1856 and Far East in 1886. In the 1870s he turned from landscape painting (inspired by the French painters, Corot) to religious and still-life painting. Decorating the newly built Trinity church in Boston, MA, he worked alongside the sculptor Saint-Gaudens. (Brockhampton).

Notes to Myself... Richard Diebenkorn

Self-portrait - no date. Sketchbook sheet, private collection.

Urbana No. 6, 1953. Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, TX

Cityscape I, 1963. MOMA - San Francisco.

Girl with Flowered Background, 1962

Urban No. 4, 1953.

Coat I, III, IV, V, 1990. Etchings, private collection.

Notes to myself on beginning a painting...

1. Attempt what is not certain. Certainty may or may not come later. It may then be a valuable delusion.

2. The pretty, initial position which falls short of completeness is not to b valued - except as a stimulus for further moves.

3. Do search. But in order to find other than what is searched for.

4. Use and respond to the initial fresh qualities but consider them absolutely expendable.

5. Don't 'discover' a subject - of any kind.

6. Somehow don't be bored - but if you must, use it in action. Use its destructive potential.

7. Mistakes can't be erased but they move you from your present position.

8. Keep thinking about Polyanna.

9. Tolerate chaos.

10. Be careful only in a perverse way.

From the Art of Richard Diebenkorn by Jane Livingston. Published by Whitney Museum of American Art, NY.

Jamie Wyeth

Automaton, 1979

Mischief Night, 1986

Giuliana and the Sunflowers, 1987

Pumpkinhead - Self-Portrait, 1972.

James Wyeth (1946- ) Born in Pennsylvania and is the son of the famous painter, Andrew Wyeth and grandson of another famous painter, N.C. Wyeth. He is known as part of the 'Brandywine Tradition' which is a group of painters who worked in the countryside of Delaware and Pennsylvania. He has been influenced by the methods and styles of his family as well as the Flemish and Dutch masters. He was also influenced by Winslow Homer and Thomas Eakins. During the 1970s he did many portraits of famous people including Jimmy Carter, Nureyev and Andy Warhol.

These images were taken from a beautiful book, Wondrous Strange, The Wyeth Tradition, published by Bulfinch.

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Evening Star V, 1917. Watercolor, 9 x 12 in.

'...The evening star would be high in the sunset sky when it was still broad daylight. That evening star fascinated me. It was in some way very exciting to me. My sister had a gun, and as w walked she would throw bottles into the air and shoot as many as she could before they hit the ground. I had nothing but to walk into nowhere and the wide sunset space with the star. ' - Georgia O'Keeffe.

Quote taken from the book: Georgia O'Keeffe, (1976) published by Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, Inc.

Ode to Thiebaud Landscapes

Hill Street (Day City) 1981. Oil on canvas, 48 x 36 in. Collection of Robert Lehrman, Washington D.C.

Green River Lands, 1998. Oil on canvas, 72 x 48 in. Private collection

Channel Farms, 1996. Oil on wood, 10 x 14 in. Collection of Linda and Jon Gruber.

Window Views 1993. Oil on canvas, 72 x 64 in. Private collection.

Ripley Ridge, 1977. Oil on canvas, 48 x 36 in. Collection of Paul LeBaron Thiebaud.

Farm Channel 1996. Oil on canvas, 10 x 14 in, private collection.

Here is an ode to Wayne Thiebaud's colorful and somewhat abstracted landscapes. The city scapes are captivating the way the hills look so steep and distorted. They are all California scenes. The rivers and farms remind me of a fleeting visual memory: flying over Amsterdam's outskirts, looking down to see tulip fields and waterways.

Fief

Above photo: Carcassonne, France - a fortified city, the walls actually date from the 6th century. This is just a rough 'ballpark' example of some of the architecture and land that may have constituted several Baron's fiefs.

Fief- the land owned by a medieval Baron (or feudal lord) during 11th & 12th centuries. (Gardner)

Snow at Louveciennes

by Alfred Sisley 1878

'Sisley's thick brushstrokes convey the weight and silence of snow in the countryside, its fleeting and changeable shades of white. Sisley's was a reserved, even solitary nature, and these qualities appear in his subdued compositions, peopled by isolated figures.' (Alexandra Bonfante-Warren)

Sisley (1839-1899) was a French Impressionist painter and was known for a light hand in his shades and brush strokes. He studied in Paris and was friends with Renoir and Monet.

"The animation of the canvas is one of the hardest problems in painting... thee artist's impression is the life-giving factor, and only this impression can free that of the spectator." - Alfred Sisley letter

Hunters in the Snow by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1565. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

What a wonderful story teller Bruegel was. He often painted slices of peasant life, as in this picture, where the tired hunters return home with their dogs while the women (to the far left) are keeping the home fires burning. "...the town and its church huddle in their mantle of snow, and beyond this typically Flemish winter scene lies a bit of alpine landscape." (Gardner)