More Art and Life

I've been in an artist block for a while.  Blaming being busy or not being able to concentrate, but maybe the truth is that I have not made time for doing what I love. So, sometimes you just have to push yourself to do.  No excuses, just do.  I once said I thought that if God has given you a talent that you should not waste it.  That it might even be a sin if you waste a God given talent. I need to practice what I preach.

I got out the paintings that I had been belaboring over, and I set them out against a piece of furniture across the room where I could critique them.  Getting away from your work always helps.  My studio at the moment is a drawing table in my bedroom.  I always back up and look at my work as I paint.  Another funny thing that I do is squint at my subject matter and at the painting in progress.  I used to be near sighted, and never used glasses when I painted.  This I thought was an advantage.

After studying my paintings, I'll pick up the painting and be able to adjust a little something here and there and fix the painting. I do this with all my pieces.  The final touches that make a painting.  This also keeps me from over doing.  Knowing when to stop is an art.  A painting can go from nice to over done in an instant. This type of disaster still happens to me.

I paint from photographs.  I like using them as a guide not a bible.  Photographs are not true to life. If you copy a photo.  Your paintings will be off., surreal or photo realistic.  I use photos as a jumping off place.  I like my art to have atmosphere and feelings.

I begin with blocking out the darkest areas with a thin layer of color.  I'll then progress to medium shades and lastly to the thicker light highlights.  Off course this is the way that you are supposed to work with oils, and naturally I have had to learn the hard way.  I do not draw out my painting.  I only use brush work.  I approach it almost as if I am sculpting it.  The layers of paint forming a tapestry of colors a delight to my  eye and senses.

One time years ago a friend of mine looked at one of my paintings and said that the back ground on the still life that I was working on seem to have movement to it.  The atmosphere around us is not still.  Why should the atmosphere in a painting appear flat? A flash of light, a passing cloud, a breeze all cause motion.  Painting Plien Air, is difficult because you are constantly chasing after a fleeting moment only to have another flash before your eyes.  When I paint from my photos, I am able to take these flashing moments and compile them into an impression of the time.

I have studied nature and the world around me for great lengths of time.  Sitting in the passenger seat of a vehicle, I have glazed upon clouds and mountains, fields and rivers, gaining a perception of the way things are, and how nature works.  I must learn to see what is really there.  If you really look you will see the orange glint off of the trees as the sun sets, the sparkle of flowing water and haze lying close to the shore line or shrouding the mountain top.  I remember being with my grandparents and hearing my mother's father say as we looked at sunset over snow, "The Heavens declare the glory of the Lord, and the firmament showeth His handiwork." I suppose that somehow I am trying to pay tribute to the beauty of our world and to the heavens.  I love nature.  When I could still walk I took great joy in walking up into the woods and hills, beaches and shores.  I loved the woods of Vermont and Virginia.  I have been privileged to have live in two of the most beautiful states. Also have been blessed to be able to have traveled across our country.

All about Lasting friendship

Most people are blessed, it has been said, if they can count their true friends on the fingers of one hand.  Lasting friendship is a true blessing.  I have friends that have lasted my life time.  As a child I was often confined to my bed with operations for Polio.  One friend in particular that I remember visiting was Polly.  She was born in Cuba, her father was a Scot who worked for a British Bank in the Islands.  Her grandmother and mine were friends.  When she visited Virginia she would occasionally visit me.  She moved back to the States in High School and we became good friends.  Today I consider her one of my best friends.

Another friend I grew up with was Boo we played together as little girls.  She was a year ahead of me in school so we grew apart.  After all who wants to hang around someone younger.  However we are still friends and will always love each other.  She sponsored me for  Pi Beta Phi in college.  She also put down someone for teasing me about the noise my crutches made when I walked.  True friends take up for each other. We still love each other even if we rarely see one another. 

Another enduring friendship occurred in College.  I met a girl in line for lunch at the cafeteria.  We started talking and I found out that she had gone to the same girl's school that I had gone to.  It was a very small school of about 65 girls.  So how did I miss her.  It turned out Ellen transferred the year I started.  She had come back to college after working a while in NYC.  We became good friends. She lives in Vermont now, I live in Virginia.  We visit often.  Even though we live far apart we love one another as sisters.

Another long term friend is Corliss.  We moved next door to each other 34 years ago.  We both had babies at home at the time.  My son Lewis was under a year.  We became fast friends.  The nice thing about true friends is that you do not have to be perfect.  Corliss has definite opinions and tires to help me by telling me what to do.  Long ago I learned to dish it back out to her.  We laugh and carry on and have a wonderful time together.

Polly, Corliss, and I always try to spend New Years Eve together.  You would think that we were a bunch of teens the way we carry on.  Mother, had been living with me and we had always been great friends.  She would join in on the fun.

When we were young and married our husbands were friends too.

I have been lucky enough to be able to make other friends too.  Some that I have not known as long, but are proving to be real friends.  I have known Ursula in passing for many years, but recently we have become much closer.  We both live in the little community of Kilmarnock, VA.  She is German, or rather Bavarian.  Her husband is a fine gentleman, who has almost totally lost his hearing.  His health is not real good, and she worries about him.  He is also somewhat forgetful.  We can sympathize with each other.  We are both artistic and creative by nature.  Her father was a sculptor and my father was a painter and ran a Gallery.  We are able to laugh together.

I see a repetitive theme here. Laughter, and being able to be yourself and have fun is so important in friendship.  Being there for one another is important too.  Everyone needs a support system.  I am so lucky to be surrounded by so many good friends. 

My newest friend is Christine another next door neighbor to become a wonderful friend.  She is older than I, but full of fun.  We do a lot together.    Jennifer, she is my daughter in law, Melissa's best friend.  I now know why.  She is great fun, and really cares for others.  Both my daughter in laws are my friends too.  I am so lucky that they are my friends.  I always wanted a daughter and now I have two.

There's a Time for all Things....

When I was in college I realized that life does not always go the way you'd like it to go.  Many of my friends went to college to get their Mrs..  Being handicapped, I realized that that might not happen for me.  I dated some, but not a lot.  So I began to make plans for my future.

I was an Art History Major and my parents had a Gallery which specialized in American Art.   My plan was to go to graduate school and get a M.A. in American Art, so I could write and help my Father in his Gallery.  I wanted to go to the University of Pennsylvania, where my paternal Grandfather had gone.

I distinctly remember telling  a group of my friends, that I did not want to get married until I was at least 24 years old.  To me at that time it seemed like a long time from being a senior in College.  Just as soon as you say you don't want something, things begin to conspire against you.

I was vice president of the senior class and had to take a turn at selling tickets to the senior class dance.  I reluctantly got up in time to set up a table and put up a sign to sell tickets to the dance.  I did not want to do this at all.  I had brought a drawing I was working on, and sat at the table sketching.  A young man walked up a asked if he could sit down.  Basically I said, "Of course, it's a free world."

He asked me how long I had been going to Old Dominion, "four years," I replied.  "How long have you been here?"

"This is my first year," he said.

"Oh are you a freshman?"

  "No, I am a teacher"

Open mouth insert foot.  Nothing like making an idiot out of yourself.

That evening we had our first date.  we went to talent show at school and to a frat party.  To get to the party we had to cross a large puddle, so he pick me up and carried me across. I think I fell in love that first night when he kissed me good night.

So much for all those fancy plans I had made. The next day I took my GRE exam .  I could not concentrate.  I was head over heels in love. We were married later that year and a year later we had had our first child, Christopher.   I worked part time during art restoration for my father at his gallery.  I was busy being a wife and a mother. I dabbled some in art, but nothing serious.

We moved at one point to Vermont.  The two boys, Chris and Scott were getting older and I started entertaining myself with my art, painting still life, in oils. One of the first paintings that I remember doing was of brown eggs and wooden salt and peppers.  I gave this to my parents who kept it.  A local gallery in Vermont said they would pay me $50.00 a painting.  I was busy with family and didn't have time, or maybe I was just too scared that I could not do more.  Looking back we see things more clearly than at the time when things were happening.

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Inspiration to Paint

Years ago, I got an invitation from a good friend to drive across country with her.  My friend Corliss had moved back home to California to be with her aging parents.  She was recently divorced and needed a change of scenery.  So she had moved back to her home for several years.  Now she wanted to finish up her work on her Doctorate and was moving back to Virginia.  Would I fly out and come back across country with her? Of course I would!

I loved California.  It was the Southwest that really arrested my attention.  I had never seen anything like the desert, the Grand Canyon, the wonderful red rocks,and the big skies.  Everything about the southwest fascinated me.  The majesty of our country, the variety of the landscape was awe inspiring.  I took photos and I sketched.  I painted paintings in my head.  I could not wait to put brush to canvas or panels.  As a landscape painter, I had found a new and vivid landscape to paint.  I was in Love.

We went through southern California first and made the Grand Canyon our destination.  It is impossible to put into words what one feels looking into the depths of the earth at the river far below with clouds casting lavender shadows onto the yellow and red rocks, ever changing, totally enchanting.   This is a holy place. The beauty could move one to tears.  I've never traveled to Europe, but thank God for letting me see parts of my country. Now I yearn to go back and to stay a while and paint.

I have been moved to paint before, the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, the verdant countryside of Vermont.  A field of sunflowers lifting their heads toward the sun.  A sun rise over one of our eastern rivers, the sun casting it's rosy hue across the lazy waters.  Gathering clouds gliding shadows across rolling hills.  There is so much in nature that wants capturing so much that is ethereal, a willow wisp a glint of light a moment of time that can not be recaptured, maybe by an artist brush?

This is why I strive to paint to be able to impart a feeling, a moment in time forever captured like a rare bird.

Struggling with Art

Recently I have been caring for my elderly Mother. This is a 24hour a day job. Mother was the one who encouraged my art. Dad was my task maker expecting me to always grow in my work. Now I can not get mom to be creative. This all has gone with her short term memory. Fortunately she is still very social. Because I care for her, I have no time to relax and to ponder my art.

Creating art demands a clear head and the necessity of loosing oneself in the process of producing that piece of work. Try as I may I have lost that concentration that is needed.



My art was a way for me to escape and to get me over the hump of my divorce. I found refuge in color and design. It was calming soothing and very satisfying. A way to totally loose myself. Why is it now that I desperately need to find a safe calming spot; I can not.



Quiet is needed. Time alone is needed. Space is nice to have. I have none of these now. Would I change things? I think not. Time with those you love is limited. No matter how confused or needy. I have my Mother and I will cherish every moment. I will again find the time and space and quiet to create.

Growing in my Art

While I was in College I studied under Charles Sibley. Charles was a good friend of my father's and Dad carried some of his paintings in our Gallery. I remember that one day years before, my brother came into the gallery and saw a painting that Charles had done of people. He said quiet loudly,"Who'd want to buy that, the people look dead buried and dug up." Charles was standing there for the full effect.  In spite of this remark,he and my brother later became good friends.

Charles taught me to be free with my art. I took water color from him. I learned to let the paints flow and that there happy circumstances that happen in art. You take advantage of these rather than trying too hard to control the paint. I have not done water colors for years but when I start my oils I am able to use my brush work casually almost abstractly in the early stages. The tough part is knowing when to quit. It is so easy to over do a painting.

Well after college, Charles spent a weekend in the country with just my brother and myself. I believe that I used water colors that weekend. I sketched some with water color crayons applied water and let it run. My colors were bright and fresh.

I drew the flowers from the garden. This led me to doing several free water colors of fresh flowers. I'd plant my gardens with paintings in mind. Dad told me to studying the flower paintings by the impressionist artist, Henri Fantin-Latour. He was known for his wonderful flowers. I copied his work in order to better learn how he did his flowers. Another thing that aided both my brother and myself in our painting skills was the fact that we both did restoration of oil paintings with my Dad in his Gallery. In order to in paint, where a painting has been damaged you have to be able to match your strokes to that of the artist. You learn a lot about painting doing this.

My advise to anyone wanting to paint is to start. The first steps must be taken in any endeavor. You have to start or you'll never do anything. Once you start it is amazing what can be done.

putting art in my life

After playing with art. I tried oils. In College, Old Dominion University, I took courses in water color, and printmaking, for some reason I did not take oil painting. Another course that I took was basic design. We disdainfully called it early morning cut and paste. Little did I know that this was one of the most valuable courses that I ever took. It seemed too much like play. It was only many years later that when working on my paintings that I realized how helpful it actually was.

I was able to take on balance, color, design, and depth perception without much difficulty. I also have to give credit to hanging around my Dad's Art Gallery. Dad had let a studio in the Gallery out to a portrait painter, Ted Tevis. Mr. Tevis took me under his wing and gave me instructions in perspective. He went to great pains to show me the vanishing point using strings to extend lines well off the paper where I was drawing. I was about fourteen and thought that he had gone to extreme; however, it was a lesson well taught. I learned about aerial and atmospheric perspective in Art History classes by observing older paintings and having my Art History Professor, Parker Lesley, point this out in Renaissance Art.

One weekend with my family I particularly remember. Dad brought in easels and oil paints and the whole family painted together. We used photos from National Geographic Magazine to paint by, and I painted a Greek Fishing boat on a beach. Dad took time to instruct and we all enjoyed the process and being together.

I also remember a time even earlier when I was recuperating from one of my operations, as an aftermath of polio. Mother gave me paper a pencils and had me draw a china cat that my grandfather had given me, She showed me how to look a something that I wanted to draw on paper. After trying very hard and much erasing, I turned out a nice drawing of this cat licking his paw. I still have that drawing somewhere. It was hard won and I was about nine years old. I was proud enough to put it in my scrap book. One other thing that I tried as a young child was painting by numbers. I failed miserly, because I could not just fill in the spots I had to do one better. The vase of flowers ended up to be no a paint by numbers, but a Leigh original.

love, life and my art

Ever since I can remember art has been a piece of my life. There have been times that it has been all consuming and other times when I've not been able to produce any work. I have always thought of art, and the craft of putting things on paper or canvas. I remember having small children and looking at leaves and mountains and mentally figuring out how to go about painting these things that I loved.

I majored in Art History with a minor in Studio Art and English. My father Donald Sykes Lewis Sr. ran an Art Gallery, Auslew Gallery, in Norfolk, Virginia.  I was eight when he opened the gallery. Both my parents painted.  I was around art my whole life.

When I was four years old I contracted polio.  My mother used art to entertain both my younger brother and myself with crayons pencils and paper. She even used the old card boards out of my Dad's shirts, that came back from the laundry. We'd have drawing contest and no one lost . She's always found some way to encourage us. Awarding everyone a prize of a treat. This was a way of keeping me busy and happy when the other children were running around. Not to be done in I too did my share of running around playing hide and seek and climbing trees, even with crutches and a brace on my leg.

Because we were both brought up creating art works we never gave up our art work. My younger brother Donald Sykes Lewis Jr. actually started painting after College before I did. He encouraged me to pick up the brush and canvas. But it wasn't until my youngest son Lewis was in school that I decided to go back to painting.