Rehoboth Nights

Rehoboth Nights
watercolor
by Jane McElvany Coonce

Today I finished my first night scene in watercolor.  I've done lots of night scenes before in oil, but this was a new challenge.

My brother has a beach house up in Dewey Beach , Delaware.  Dewey is the next town to Rehoboth.  We spend a lot of time up there, and we always go into Rehoboth for it's shops and it's restaurants.
This is a scene of the Rehoboth boardwalk at night.  In the summer, the boardwalk is hopping, night and day.  But we go up to the beach off season, and it's much more quiet.

I'm a member of the Rehoboth Art League, so I may enter this one in one of their shows this summer.

Pears and Lace

Pears and Lace
watercolor
by Jane McElvany Coonce

A new year begins with lots of ideas for the next painting.  I'm really trying to focus on watercolor while still doing the oils, too.  This is a watercolor I just finished from a still life set up.  I had never done lace before in watercolor.  I had done it in oil, but I find oil less stressful because if you make a mistake, you can let it dry and then cover it up with more oil paint.  In watercolor, there is no covering up.  You need to think things through before you ever put the brush to the paper.  You paint the tablecloth first as if it is a solid fabric with no holes.  Once it dries, you can draw with pencil the pattern of the lace, the flower shapes and the curly Qs.  Then you begin to paint the dots.  It takes a while but it was actually fun (and nerve racking). But, it worked out and I'm pleased.

First Painting for 2015

by Jane McElvany Coonce

I finished my first painting for 2015.  I have a private student that wanted to do crabs.  So I used photographs from a still life I had set up in the summer time when crabs were plentiful.  Might be hard find crabs this time of year.  Previously, I had done a crab painting with a suduko game on the newspaper.   I made this one a crossword puzzle.  My student and I did a paint-a-long, and she would do what I did on my canvas.  She added a few more crabs and a beer bottle, so the paintings aren't exactly alike.

The basket in the painting is the same old basket that my dad used to use to catch crabs in the Chesapeake Bay when I was a child.  We would camp at Seashore State Park, and every morning, he would go out on the beach with his chicken necks and string and a weight to hold the bate down on the ocean floor.  I was my dad's shadow, and he taught me how to slowly pull the trap line in and get the chicken neck off the ocean floor so that we could take a net and scoop them up.  We caught enough to fill the basket each day.  It was fun and I enjoyed "the hunt."  Later, we would carry them over to my grandmother's house who lived in Norfolk, and she would steam them up.  Of course, back then, I didn't eat crabs (what an idiot!)  Now I have to pay for them and they cost a pretty penny.
 However, it needs a title.  If you have any suggestions, please feel free to make them.  I am not very gifted in the titling paintings.

The January Art League Juried Show-2015

Cell Phone Eaves-Dropper
by Jane McElvany Coonce

I'm starting the year off right!  I made it into the January Art League Juried Show down at The Torpedo Factory in Old Town Alexandria.  Competition is always stiff.  There were 600 entries and the judge picked about 90 paintings.  So it's always a thrilling feeling when you get in.  It's like winning the lottery for the month!

This painting was done in watercolor from my trip to Umbria.  This was in a hill town of Italy.  The old lady on the bench seemed to be listening to this young man on his cell phone.  Was this boy talking to his girlfriend?  Was the old woman getting a kick out of what she heard?  I actually was attracted to this scene because of the light falling on both of the figures. He's in the bright light in the beginnings of his teenage years.  The woman, in her waning years,  was in the corner of an archway and would have been in the shadows if the sun hadn't been barely hitting her.  I thought it made a good story and an interesting composition.  Let me know what you think.

If you get a chance, go down to The Art League and see this fabulous show. It will be there for the month of January.