Fishing - Rice Fields

First Block in of a painting I have been wanting to execute for a long time.  Got myself together this morning, stretched a canvas and blocked this one in.  It is 16" x 20".

I will continue to post future sessions - for now, it is very wet (oil paint) and needs to set before the next session!

Kendrick

 

My kind of portrait!  This child (one of my granddaughters) was totally lost in creating art - the light was sweeping across her hair/face - total drama.  The energy, the spirit, the movement - all there!  

Enjoy!!

 

My Studio on a Good Day

I am inviting you in - into my studio!  I have tried so many times to be analytical - to try to make it all make sense. 

I know that if I spend an hour trying to catagorize the tubes of paint - It is an hour not creating - and always find the correct pigment in the last place I looked!

Cafe - Vallois (in progress)

The Jazz Club

So, when artists become confident, and want to display their offerings, anything can happen.  

Three years into my art journey I was approached, by a young woman  (I knew her, she was not an unknown ) - to display my paintings.  Now this was not a normal venue - it was not a gallery, but an upscale jazz club/restaurant, in a well known South Carolina city.

New to the game, I agreed, and drove 2.5 hrs. and 2.5 hrs. home,  to deliver 5 paintings, which would be displayed, and would be for sale. We agreed on commission cuts and this was going to be a great opportunity for me. 

I was optimistic, but was not expecting the phone call I received the morning after the opening night!  

The short version - one of the owners - in a substance or mental - meltdown,  - proceeded to chase the chef through the club/restaurant  wielding a huge knife.  That night was the premiere and closing for this restaurant/bar.  

Before my representative could retrieve my paintings (the morning after ) two had mysteriously disappeared - poof - gone!  

I should have been outraged, but found this amazingly funny - and just a run of bad Ju Ju!!  

Since this debacle - I have been brave enough to display my canvases in other restaurants (galleries also) and have had wonderful results.  

The Jazz Club snafu was a perfect storm of hilarity for me!  What a great story - and a reminder that you can smile (or belly laugh) through your pain!

 

Summer Afternoon in Sienna

The Same Summer Afternoon in Sienna

 

The same summer afternoon in Sienna - I found this image among my photographs and decided to paint it - and there is another bicycle in this view, actually, there were three - I used my editing license for this one.

Sienna - Girl on a Bicycle

Girl on Bicycle

Girl on Bicycle - Sienna

by Jean Hanna

Check out this great piece of art on Saatchi Online.

One Summer Afternoon in Sienna

Sometimes you just have to shoot lots and lots of film when you are traveling.  The day I spent in Sienna resulted in four or five rolls of film (before the digital era).  I am a people watcher and always look for unexpected views, but really had no idea what would "develop".  

So many photographs - so many cafe and market scenes - which really didn't thrill me until I began cropping the pictures after scanning them into my computer.  At that point so many wonderful scenes became evident and the resource material for  "Sienna - Girl on a Bicycle "  popped up.  What good fortune and how charming.  

Hydrangeas - Wood Street

Hydrangeas - In Progress

Hydrangea painting in progress.  I have been working very slowly on this one, and considering a minor crop.  

This is an experiment with different combinations of complementary colors and has morphed through several incarnations - the only change I will make will be to re size the painting.

Girl on Bicycle - Sienna

by Jean Hanna

Check out this great piece of art on Saatchi Online.

Southern Landscape in Progress

Southern Landscape in Progress

Middleton Gardens - Spanish Moss

I am having a very hard time letting this beauty go - Maybe I just want to live with it a little longer.  

Landscapes in the American South are not the usual sweeping vistas.  

I will always be infatuated  with these magnificent oaks - the dripping Spanish moss and the elusive light that draws you back deeper and deeper - quite the ongoing love affair.  

This tableau is 20" x 24", oil on stretched canvas (I stretched this one myself).  I wish I could say I will be excited to complete this one, but there will be a great deal of separation anxiety when it leaves my studio.

I know I will do this one again, I have painted it larger and smaller - there is always an opportunity to see different colors - experiment, and most importantly experience joy while creating!

Hotel Baudy - American Studio

Gabriel Faure's Requiem op. 48 Complete (Best Version)

Summer Still Life

Sunflowers

Summer Still Life

 This little gem is a work in progress - oil on stretched canvas - 6" x 8" - that I completed this morning.

This was a painting demonstration for my students in 2008.  The sunflowers were growing in a field next to the workshop venue.  I found the canvas in my guerrilla easel - it had been hiding for five years - and started adding elements for fun.  This is the finished product.

Sunflower Demonstration

 

 Sunflower Demonstration

During the same workshop I began this painting as a demonstration and completed it in my studio very quickly.  This oil on stretched canvas is 16" x 20" - it became a wedding gift.  I was so happy with this painting that I had it scanned and it is available in a canvas print format.

Orange and blue - stunning! 

Just Finished!

Tulips

by Jean Hanna

Check out this great piece of art on Saatchi Online.

Who is This???

 Seriously - this portrait of a movie star with whom my father was smitten - one of four.  She is in the company of Bette Davis, Hede Lamar and Judy Garland - gracing the walls of my guest room.

If anyone can pin a name on this beauty, please advise me!!

Just Finished!

Tulips

by Jean Hanna

Check out this great piece of art on Saatchi Online.

Tulips

I recently finished this painting, simply entitled Tulips.

Tulips - my flora of choice!  In the south it is almost impossible to grow these delightful offerings.  I have made it a yearly homage to purchase tulips in the spring.

The afternoon light filtering through oak trees, bouncing around my mahogany dining table proved to be inspiration for this and other still life paintings.

Please click the link below for further information.

Tulips

Tulips

by Jean Hanna

Check out this great piece of art on Saatchi Online.

Hotel Baudy - American Studio

Stepping into this studio was stepping back in time, and the energy of all who had been here and created here swirled around me.  What an honor to be standing in the space - where artists were inspired and impelled to create magnificent art.

Three of my friends have been included - Jackson is the adorable Yorkie, Zelda Fitzgerald (Z) is my rescue Siamese, and her brother Red, perched on the cabinet.

This painting is available through Saatchi Gallery, the original, and reproductions in either canvas or paper.

Hotel Baudy - American Studio

Hotel Baudy - American Studio

by Jean Hanna

Check out this great piece of art on Saatchi Online.

Paris - Blue Awnings

The Paris Flea Market inspired this painting.  This lovely Asian woman was strolling through the Marche au Puce while the mid morning sun created strong shadows and pools of light.  

I adore capturing movement through market and cafe scenes, and this is the second of a pair.  The first has found a wonderful home.  

This painting is an oil on stretched canvas, 36" x 24".  It is currently framed and hanging in my guest bedroom in good company with four charcoal portraits my father created in the forties;  Bette Davis, Judy Garland, Hedde Lamar, the fourth - still trying to identify.  Two Doris "Dayesque " chairs (reminders of those Pillow Talk movies) have found a home in this space also and I see a little Hollywood theme happening.

Hope my house guests will enjoy their new digs!

Hotel Baudy - American Studio

by Jean Hanna

Check out this great piece of art on Saatchi Online.