The first three weeks of the New Year I had been up to my eyeballs in office work — the soul-sucking mind-numbing numbers-crunching paper-cut-inducing head-banging end-of-year secretarial & administrative chores required of being a self-employed sole-proprietor...
musings from the studio and beyond ~
dawn chandler’s reflections on art and life. . . .
oil painting
santa fe september
Summer has been protracted this year. ~ sigh ~ I’m ready for the days to cool and the colors to heat up into hues of fire. Maybe sharing this painting of an earlier Santa Fe September view will entice Mother Nature to pull out her autumn colors…. (Please?) I began...
the unusual transformation of a landscape
It's a few hours away from the first day of winter and I suppose I should be writing something solstice-y or festive-y or fa-la-la-la-la-lish But as much as I love this time of year, with the relentless sunshine we've been having this month where the skies look more...
of lakeside chairs, vermont gardens, & the contemplation of a new hampshire river….
The final installment of my August painting trip in New Hampshire... Of all the scenes in this small New Hampshire tract where I spent a few days in early August, none captivated me more than a little corner between my aunt's tool shed and her guest house. Here,...
of sunrise clouds and sunset boats….
I promised a few weeks ago to share with you the several little plein air paintings I did while traveling New Hampshire last month. I've fallen behind with that. The truth is I've had a hard time turning my thoughts back to New England when my heart is breaking in...
of painting tidal rivers and lakeside tool sheds
Walk for maybe ten minutes from my aunt's front door, across the academy yards, past the post office, past the Congregational Church (with a wave down the lane to the Unitarians), past the town hall and bandstand, and make a quick right turn into Me &...
back to the high meadows of new mexico . . . .
We had been camped on the far edge of the high south meadow. The evening before we were lead up a west slope trail, where, just beyond the ridge in the blaze of sun sinking quickly before us, we stood at a fence line, and watched color radiate from a point just beyond...
painting among lovebirds, enemies & johnny depp
A week ago my pup and I hiked up to one of our favorite spots high in the forest above Santa Fe. Take one of the major thoroughfares, then turn off onto a well-used ‘unofficial’ trail; after a ways cross a meadow; make your way through the far evergreen grove and...
painting morning light on albuquerque’s la luz trail
When My Good Man revealed this weekend that he is on the “waiting list” for this year’s La Luz Trail Run, and that he wanted to do a training run up there this weekend, my painter’s mind started scheming. My last plein air painting excursion was in early April. After...
how a landscape painting evolves
It's always a little amazing to me how a landscape painting evolves. Even though I'm intimately aware of the stages, it still surprises me every time when, in the end, I have something I can actually recognize and identify. Between the first dabs of paint and my...