Brande Arno Art

5 x 5 inches, Oil on Gessoboard  Sold, Thank you I'm brushing up on my plein air skills to get ready for the annual Seneca Lake Plein Air Festival.  The artists arrive at headquarters, which is The Smith Center for the Arts, on Wednesday, September 30.  We paint outdoors on Thursday and Friday.  On Saturday evening is a gala show and sale.   I'm a charter artist and I love this event.  A link for complete details is  Smith Arts In the western part of NY, the weather has been heavenly.  The sun is casting wonderful shadows and the sky is a beautiful shade of blue with clouds that tempt me to just paint them.  In spite of the perfect painting environment, I still had trouble finding a subject to paint.  Mostly due to dangerous parking on the side of busy roads. Below is were I finally decided to paint: Not the best picture, but you get the idea.  Next is how I started: And like always, I didn't snap photos...

8 x 8 inches, Oil on Gessoboard A few weeks ago, while driving from point A to point B,  I was blessed by a stunning view of a field of simple wildflowers.  Perhaps it was the contrast of the rich dark woods behind the field, or maybe it was the aged texture of the fence posts, or maybe the vast amount of Queen Anne's Lace reminded me of early snow.   I pulled over and took a few pictures. Today, I composed this painting from the pictures.  The composition is simple, but the rich contrast, the aged fence posts and the snow blanket of Queen Anne's Lace all live peacefully in this painting.  

8 x 8 inches, Oil on Gessoboard- Sold There is something good and wholesome to work a field and harvest hay and wheat.  Humans get sustenance from the bread made with wheat.  Farmers feed the hay to horses and other barn animals.  I remember working the field on a wagon behind the baling machine. Pulling up the fresh bales and dragging them behind me, so the adult could lift and stack them in rows.  Good hard work that gave me an appetite.  I was a skinny kid, so having an appetite for supper was a rare occurrence. I painted this field with the bales nestled in, still part of the field.  I drove by the field recently and the bales are gone.  Stubble of hay remain with the job to protect and feed the soil during our winter season.  And in March, while it is still cold enough to keep me inside, the farmer of this field will be turning the stubble back into the ground. The soil will be laid bare and warmed to make ready for the spring so...

8 x 8 inches, Oil on Gessoboard -NFS There is a lot of imagination in this piece as the most of it is memory painting.  I let the painting take me in a direction I usually don't go with colors.  I enjoyed every minute of painting today and I highly recommend the practice of memory/imagination painting to my artist buddies.

"Bloomfield View in August" 6 x 6 inches, Oil on Gessoboard Etsy Shop   See the in process pictures  HERE I really enjoyed this painting.  Everything went smoothly and that just is not normal for me.  I wish I could say this is a plein air painting, but it's from one of my pictures.

"Memory Patch" 6 x 6 inches, Oil on Board I've been noticing tall weedy grasses peering from the dramatic and dark backdrops cast by shade trees.  The combination makes for a great painting and I've told myself several times as I drive by, you can paint that from memory.  So today, I did.

"Eight Legs" 6 x 6 inches, Oil on Panel $65. Sold - Thank you These two are wondering if they can trust their ears.  They think so, but you know the saying:  Only believe half of what you see and none of what you hear.  So why did I name the painting Eight Legs?  I think they got nice legs and while I'm passing out compliments, I like the reflections on their wool also.

Kashong Road 10 x 14 inches, Oil on Panel This is a repaint of an older painting.  I originally painted this piece during the 2012 Billsboro Winery Plein Air Festival.  I picked up the painting at the end of this year's festival knowing I was going to do something.   That was two weeks ago and today was the day.  Below is what I started with.  I don't need to say more other than I like my repaint much better.  Is it still a Plein Air painting?  NO!  And I'm ok with that.

"Rule of Three" 6 x 6 inches, Oil on Panel with Palette Knife S old, Thank you. The inspiration for this painting is from a fairly new sheep farm that is about 2 miles from where I live.  I asked the owners if I could take photos and found  they also  have goats and chickens, all of which got their pictures taken by me. These are lucky animals as their owners keep them and the barn very, very clean and the field they graze has fresh tender green grass.  

"The Samplers" 9 x 12 inches, Oil on Panel SOLD - Thank you This is day two of the Billsboro Plein Air Festival and day two of me painting cows.  I found the most beautiful herd of beef cows with their calves.  While painting them, I observed several momma cows nursing their adorable babies. Being set up to paint outdoors today I was able to watch many calves nurse.  When  baby wants to nurse, momma cow stays put.  Baby nurses from one side and then walks around momma to nurse from the other side.  This allows me time to draw the pose.   I  did a pencil sketch of this pose and referred to it while creating this piece.  There was a creek that ran through the field and the mommas and babies would meander in and out of the water.  This painting features a momma sampling tall grass and her baby gobbling...maybe teething on the low growing greens.. . 

"Adirondacks lll", 4 x 4 inches, Oil on Panel Click here to bid My inspiration for this piece is the background...bet you thought I was going to go on about the rocks.  Well, I do like to paint rocks, but the Adirondack greens are what I wanted to capture in this piece.  The restfulness of the scene...so quiet....lake water.  I wanna go back to Tupper Lake!

Harrisville View, 6 x 6 inch cradled gessoboard Sold - Thank you Lucky me, I have relatives in Tupper Lake NY of the breathtaking Adirondacks.  Lucky me, my cousin opened his home and camp to host a bunch of us crazy family members for a reunion!  A wonderful time and I took pictures...not so much family but scenes to paint. This painting is the first in a series that I plan to paint from the beautiful Adirondacks.

Westfield Shack, 6 x 6 inches, Oil on Board Click here to Bid Yesterday, I took a few of my paintings to Portage Hill Gallery.   www.portagehillgallery.com On the way back, I snapped a few photos for future paintings.  This painting is the result of one of those photos.  

July 7, 2013 - Plein Air - Oil on Board. 6 x 6 inches Click here to bid A simple scene that was harder to paint than I gave it credit for.  I wanted to paint outdoors yesterday and I usually don't paint on the weekends, but yesterday was an unusual day.  I've been in the studio painting quite a bit, but now that the monsoon type rains have ebbed, I'm going to get busy with plein air.

Beach Shack is 6 x 6 inches, oil on board Sold - Thank you A hot day today.  I'm NOT complaining, but thought it would be nice to paint an old shack by water.  Very happy to be doing better than yesterday.  Looks like what was making me sick was allergies.  So I've got all the windows closed, latched and the air conditioner on.  Oh yeah, the  studio air purifier is on HIGH.   

5 x 5 inches, Oil on Board Click to Bid Another ewe.  Can't resist painting these little love-bugs, especially this time of year when spring is almost here.

6 x 6 inches, Oil on Board  $ 40.   Click to Buy Now This piece is inspired by the Daily Paintworks weekly challenge.  A photo was included to use as a reference of a beautiful field of either Lavender or Purple Larkspur.  Not sure, but purple is probably my most favorite color for flowers.  I especially love purple Iris.  Here in NY, it's not snowing, but Spring is slow to arrive.  Nice to make a painting of the elusive Spring.

6 x 6 inches, Oil on Board Click to Bid A painting from one of my recent road trips to photograph inspirations.  I was challenged by the steep wooded hill behind the buildings.  Trying to capture more cast shadows in my paintings.

6 x 6 inches, Oil on Board - Collection of the artist Two days ago I went for a road trip to get some pictures for future paintings.  This painting is the result of that trip.  This is a long haired steer who was lounging on top of hay.  Maybe warming up dinner.

5 x 5 inches, Oil on Board I painted this piece today as while it was snowing pretty hard in my neck of New York.  The temperatures are on the warmer side so the snow is not really sticking for now.  I think that will change tonight.  Well anyway, I'm so wanting some sign that spring is close. Yesterday, when I took Cooper and Cookie out for a walk, I thought I detected the first air of spring.  Maybe it's because of my age, maybe it's because I'm a smidge American Indian or maybe it's my years of plein air painting, but I'm pretty sure the air changes when spring is close. There is a slight sweetness and lightness in the air weeks before any other signs of spring become apparent.  I'm holding on to that theory as a winter coping technique.  More spring paintings to follow.