our Whitlow paintings....

For many years we spent my February birthday in Carmel. In addition to having our favorite breakfast at Friar Tuck's we visited many art galleries. We fell in love with this still life by Michael Whitlow and paid $520. for it. (which was a lot of money to us in those days!!)


Born in Honolulu, Hawaii in 1946, Michael Whitlow now resides in both the Northern California countryside and the Mexican Riviera. Initially headed for a career in business administration, Whitlow was first drawn to art when upon graduating from San Jose State University he spent nearly a year touring Europe and some of its greatest museums. The vast wealth of art that he discovered was a revelation to him, being particularly drawn to the realism of the old masters.

Upon his return to America, the aspiration to paint came suddenly to Whitlow. Concerning his education and development as an artist, Whitlow declares, “I was totally self-taught and a realist from the beginning. In 1971, Whitlow launched his career as an artist. After 35 years as a professional gallery artist exhibiting in Hawaii, Australia and California, Whitlow has evolved into an award winning artist with numerous Best In Still Life and Best In Show honors.
Michael Whitlow has exhibited extensively in Hawaii and Australia as well as in California.

Whitlow paints on prepared board. Thick under-painting combined with transparent glazing and scrumbling provide the realistic depth of field and the naturalistic portrayal of surface textures.

Click Here: Check out "Michael Whitlow"
http://michaelwhitlow.com/bio.html

Later we bought another original of Michael Whitlow....oranges

pBase still life...

I did this for PBase but never entered it!!!!

I should have put some sugar cubes somewhere in this composition!! :-)

I like it though!!!!

the hats...

the cousins in 2008
(click on pictures to make larger...)
Michelle, Robbie, Michael, Victoria, Greg and Christina

plus Martin and Marie

crazy hats

plus Julie
it was Easter Sunday...note Julie's bunny ears!!!!

with Auntie Mary
(click to watch movie)
Danny took these pictures and video

a tisket a tasket...

Johnny, Bobby and Annette 1958I keep saying this...I have the best kids in the world!!!
They were fun...cute...well behaved and a joy to raise.
I remember once before Johnny was born I had to have something removed surgically, locally, from my face and I had to take Bobby and Annette with me. No baby sitter. Well the minor surgery went very well with Bobby and Annette playing quietly. The doctor said when I left..'I have NEVER seen such well behaved kids!!!!!"
I LOVE YOU ALL!!!!!  you are the greatest  xo

mighty hunter...

taken in 1971 at Auntie Elva's place in Carmel

do si do...

The kids learned to square dance in 1971, here in the family room, down on the shuffle board court and at the F Bumbs. Caller Jim Brown. (click on pictures to enlarge them)

? Anne Marie, Cassie

Anne Marie, Cassie, Brian, Johny Bumb, Susan, Bobby

Bobby Bumb, Elizabeth

Keith Gott, Margaret Bumb, Susan

Margaret, Keith, Anne Marie, Elizabeth, Johnny

Annette

?, Carrie and Mary

John receiving diploma

Fred and Dan you missed this one!!!
All the kids were such good sports!
We had such a great time dancing for 16 years and hoped you would enjoy it too. Now for your health, maybe when you are 60 you can start...it beats walking, running or riding a bike!!!!

todays garden...

our favorite iris...Mary Frances

and a geranium!!!!

and the roses are just starting to bloom too....

here is a quick artist drawing a rose
Click Here: Check out "Drawing - still-life - for Anna, by Lucy90 (A still-life drawing)"

a great teacher...

My teacher at the Metropolitan Adult Education for many years was Judy Howland. I started on September 17, 1975 and must have gone on until January 12 of the next year, for that particular class. She taught us all techniques: beginning portrait painting; sketching; axis; perspective; clouds; balance and space; line & rhythm; basic drawing; 3 dimension; elipses; peaks and spires; light and dark contrast and later oil painting. She made her manual herself, written by hand and with her own drawings. These are a few of her drawings in the handbook we used.

She made the class fun and kept us interested.
After a while she started us on oils....
she had us make this chart for mixing oils...


She gave us homework and graded us.
She says about the suitcase below:
"This is lovely. Beautiful technique. Proportions excellent.
Thank you Dell. JH"
She always said thank you on every drawing .

That was actually my white suitcase that got hauled every place I trained....San Francisco county hospital and Comptom, southern California.

On the lesson below she says:

"You do great work Dell. You have a very keen mind. Thank you Dell. JH"

Drawing has always lurked in the background of my mind. Even in those nursing school days...in 1947 when I worked in Surgery .....a friend who worked there in surgery knew I could draw. She told me one of the eye doctors wanted a large board to hang on the wall of the surgical room, of the layout of his scrub table....all those delicate instruments.

I did it and they loved it. My friend was so enthused she wrote to a friend of hers who was the President of an Medical Art College for her opinion about whether I should go into medical art. The woman advised me against it because it would take me another 4 years of art school plus already having spent 3 years learning to be a nurse. I needed to get out and earn money!!!!
This is what I would be doing...

Click Here: Check out "Kirk Moldoff"

and click on animation

Good choice I made, I think....look at all the fun I've had with genealogy and my computer and photographer and making movies!!!!!

OH NO....

thank you Susan...

Our God daughter, Susan is so faithful about giving gifts at Christmastime.....always unusual and much appreciated. On 2 separate years she gave us bug repellents for our cabin!!! One a pumper and the other bags of liquid, which we still buy and use here at home. Also many things I have not listed here...like flower arrangements and food.

I love this blue and white tea set in my kitchen


a Christmas wreath...beautiful....

She never forgets to send me copies of the ST More talent show

and the Christmas plays

Family movies and Halloween parades....

and any other event.....

my herb wreath...still alive and well!!!!

the latest gift...... a lovely Holy water font

and a mass said in our honor.....

Thanks so much Susan!! xo

sigh...

Girl with Pearl Earring
Johannes Vermeer
Year: circa 1665
Type; oil on canvas
Dimensions: 17.5 in x 15.4 in
Displayed: Mauritshuis, The Hague

Johannes or Jan Vermeer (baptized in Delft on October 31, 1632, and buried in the same city under the name Jan on December 16, 1675) was a Dutch Baroque painter who specialized in exquisite, domestic interior scenes of ordinary life. Vermeer was a moderately successful provincial genre painter in his lifetime. He seems never to have been particularly wealthy, perhaps because he produced relatively few paintings, leaving his wife and children in debt at his death


Despite the fact that he was baptized in a Protestant church, Vermeer married a Catholic girl named Catherina Bolenes in the village Schipluiden. For the groom it was a good match. His mother-in-law, Maria Thins, was significantly wealthier than he, and it was probably she who insisted Vermeer convert to Catholicism before the marriage on April 5, 1653.

His wife gave birth to 14 children, ten of which survived: three sons and seven daughters. The names of ten children are known from wills written by relatives: Maria, Elisabeth, Cornelia, Aleydis, Beatrix, Johannes, Gertruyd, Franciscus, Catharina, and Ignatius.

The often-discussed sparkling pearly highlights in Vermeer's paintings have been linked to his possible use of a camera obscura, the primitive lens of which would produce halation and, even more noticeably, exaggerated perspective.

sigh.......

putting away Easter stuff...

We are still finding eggs in the yard!!!

until next year...

adventure in oil painting....

I took most of my art classes at SJ Adult Education classes. Judy was the one who taught me basic art, but when it came to oil painting we all painted the same picture, first a tree and then a barn. (I think Susan has the barn, but don't know where the trees went..didn't like them much anyway as they did not express what I wanted to paint.)

The first 2 oils below were my first, painted at an Art Store
on Alum Rock Avenue. We were able to paint what we felt...

(Elizabeth wants the seascape)

After the lessons with Judy this was a tree I painted on my own.
(Annette has this painting)

and this very small one

I tried a few still life, but felt I did better with pencil
on this kind of subject.

Then came the faces..which I painted from photographs...
maybe from National Geographic.

I gave Danny this Chinaman but it was burned up in his
Eichler home fire...

For some reason I call this one "Indian Poet" and I never finished it.
Some thing else must have caught my eye!!!!!

I enjoyed all my classes so much and would still be painting, had it not been for my sister and genealogy and the interesting classes I took, the side trips to cemeteries and libraries and Latter Day Saints archives!!! That got me started on the journey of doing both mine and George's family history!!! But that is another story.....