30 Day Challenge Day 30: Sedums and Skull

Sedums and Skull
Copyright 2014 Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
16" x 20"

"Life's true face is the skull.”

-Nikos Kazantzakis

30 Day Challenge Day 29: Flowers in the Backyard

Flowers in the Backyard
Copyright 2014 Hirschten
Oil on Canvas Panel
5" x 7"

"Art does not reproduce what we see, rather it makes us see."

-Paul Klee

30 Day Challenge Day 28: Cafe in Carmel

Cafe in Carmel
Copyright 2014 Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
11" x 14"

"We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us."

-Winston Churchill

30 Day Challenge Day 27: 1st Street in Carmel Looking East

1st Street in Carmel Looking East
Copyright 2014 Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
16" x 20"

"There are dark shadows on the earth, but its lights are stronger in the contrast."

-Charles Dickens

30 Day Challenge Day 26: The Violin

The Violin
Copyright 2014 Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
16" x 20"

My violin is by far the most beautiful thing I own.  It was probably built in Germany in the 1880s or so.  The back is inlaid with a mother of pearl design.  I've wanted to paint it for awhile but this is my first attempt... and boy was it difficult!  All of the weird shadows and proportions are what make it beautiful and almost impossible to depict.

"There is no exquisite beauty without some strangeness in the proportion."

-Edgar Allan Poe

30 Day Challenge Day 25: Morning Roses

Morning Roses
Copyright 2014 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
16" x 20"

"The aim of art is not to represent the outward appearance of things but their inner significance."

-Aristotle

30 Day Challenge Day 24: Give Light

Give Light
Copyright 2014 Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
11" x 14"

"Give light, and the darkness will disappear of itself."

-Desiderius Erasmus

30 Day Challenge Day 23: The Kiss

The Kiss
Copyright 2014 Hirschten
Pen and Ink on Paper
11" x 14"

since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;

wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world

my blood approves,
and kisses are a far better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don't cry
--the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids' flutter which says

we are for each other: then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life's not a paragraph

And death i think is no parenthesis.

-E.E. Cummings

30 Day Challenge Day 22: Bookplate Design

Bookplate Design

Here is another small doodle on paper inspired by the Art Nouveau class I am teaching.  Many old bookplates said "Ex Libris"which means "from the book."

"There is so much more to a book than just the reading."

-Maurice Sendak

30 Day Challenge Day 21: Stars and Feathers

Stars and Feathers

Today's entry is just a doodle on paper, the sort of thing that wouldn't normally see the light of day... but the 30 day challenge brings it out.  

"When the sun goes down the stars come out."

-Proverbs

30 Day Challenge Day 20: Kisses Sweeter than Wine

Kisses Sweeter than Wine
Copyright 2014 Hirschten
Oil on Wood
24" x 24"

"When I was a young man and never been kissed
I got to thinking it over what I had missed.
I got me a girl, I kissed her and then
Oh Lord, I kissed her again."

-Pete Seeger, Kisses Sweeter than Wine

30 Day Challenge Day 19: Guildford Street Bridge in Broad Ripple

Guilford Street Bridge in Broad Ripple
Copyright 2014 Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
11" x 14"

Whew I struggled with this one!  It was the day of burnout from this 30 day challenge for me.  My easel broke... I started cussing at the clouds for changing my shadows and geese were bothering me. It turned out a bit bright, as many plein air paintings do, but I think it could be a nice sketch for a larger painting.

"There is nothing in machinery, there is nothing in embankments and railways and iron bridges and engineering devices to oblige them to be ugly. Ugliness is the measure of imperfection."
-H.G. Wells

30 Day Challenge Day 18: Carrot Island Marsh Looking North

Carrot Island Marsh Looking North
Copyright 2014 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
12" x 24"

This is a spot on Carrot Island, North Carolina where you can look over the flat marshland to see the Beaufort houses just beyond the scrubby coastal brush.  As the sun was setting the two layers of clouds took on a rich variety of color.  This preserve is named after Rachel Carson.

"To stand at the edge of the sea, to sense the ebb and flow of the tides, to feel the breath of a mist moving over a great salt marsh, to watch the flight of shore birds that have swept up and down the surf lines of the continents for untold thousands of year, to see the running of the old eels and the young shad to the sea, is to have knowledge of things that are as nearly eternal as any earthly life can be."

-Rachel Carson

30 Day Challenge Day 17: Morning Glories

Morning Glories
Copyright 2014 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
5" x 7"

"The morning pouring everywhere, its golden glory on the air."

-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

When I made this painting my daughter voiced that she wanted to make one too.  So we enjoyed the sunny day, painting on the porch.  Here is her interpretation of the morning glories...

My Daughter's Morning Glories
Painted by Emmaline, Age 8

30 Day Challenge Day 16: White Oak Canyon Creek

White Oak Canyon Creek, Shenandoah National Park
Copyright 2014 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
16" x 20"

"I firmly believe that nature brings solace in all troubles."

-Anne Frank

30 Day Challenge Day 15: In the Shade

In the Shade
Copyright 2014 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
6" x 6"

"I never saw an ugly thing in my life: 

for let the form of an object be what it may, 

- light, shade, and perspective will always make it beautiful."

-John Constable 

30 Day Challenge Day 14: Sunflowers in the Light

Sunflowers in the Light
Copyright 2014 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
11" x 14"

 On the second day of having these flowers I moved them to a spot by the window. The morning light was so different than my spot light!  So dramatic yet gentle.

"Light-enchanted sunflower, thou

Who gazest ever true and tender

On the sun's revolving splendour."

~ Pedro Calderon de la Barca

30 Day Challenge Day 13: Sunflowers in a Jar

Sunflowers in a Jar
Copyright 2014 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
11" x 14"

"When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it's your world for the moment. I want to give that world to someone else. Most people in the city rush around so, they have no time to look at a flower. I want them to see it whether they want to or not."

-Georgia O'Keeffe

30 Day Challenge Day 12: Jude's Garden

Jude's Garden
Copyright 2014 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
24" x 36"

"Nobody sees a flower really; 

it is so small. 

We haven't time, and to see takes time- like to have a friend takes time."

-Georgia O'Keeffe

30 Day Challenge Day 11: Cow Skull with Flowers

Cow Skull with Flowers
Copyright 2014 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
16" x 20"

The Indianapolis Art Museum will soon be hosting a Georgia O'Keeffe exhibit!  I borrowed this cow skull from a friend so that my student's could create still life paintings inspired by O'Keeffe's work.  Here is my own take.  

"Sun-bleached bones were most wonderful against the blue- that blue that will always be there as it is now after all man's destruction is finished."

-Georgia O'Keeffe

30 Day Challenge Day 10: Flowers Shall Grow

Flowers Shall Grow
Copyright 2014 Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
5" x 7"

"From my rotting body, flowers shall grow and I am in them and that is eternity.

-Edvard Munch

30 Day Challenge Day 9: Flower Study

Flower Study
Copyright 2014 Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
5" x 7"

"Flowers are restful to look at.  They have neither emotions nor conflicts."

-Sigmund Freud

30 Day Challenge Day 8: The Single Apple

The Single Apple
Copyright 2014 Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
4" x 4"

"And when you crush an apple with your teeth, say to it in your heart:

Your seeds shall live in my body,
And the buds of your tomorrow shall blossom in my heart,
And your fragrance shall be my breath,
And together we shall rejoice through all the seasons."

-Khalil Gibran

30 Day Challenge Day 7: Green Apples

Green Apples
Copyright 2014 Hirschten'
Oil on Canvas
11" x 14"

"Autumn seemed to arrive suddenly that year.

The morning of the first September was crisp and golden as an apple."

-J.K. Rowling

30 Day Challenge Day 6: My Nieces Reading

My Nieces Reading
Copyright 2014 Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
16" x 20"

Well this scene certainly warmed this former children's librarian's heart!

I am so lucky to have these cuties living so close to me.

"A book is like a garden, carried in the pocket." 

- Chinese Proverb

30 Day Challenge Day 5: Pirates in the Harbor

Pirates in the Harbor
Copyright 2014 Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
18" x 24"

 Pirates like to gather in Beaufort, North Carolina!

"Whether we wound or are wounded, the blood that flows is red.”

- Eiichiro Oda

30 Day Challenge Day 4: Cosmos Flowers

Cosmos Flowers
Copyright 2014 Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
11" x 14"

"The beauty of a living thing is not the atoms that go into it,

but the way those atoms are put together."

-Carl Sagan, Cosmos

(Does anybody get my double entendre?  Ha ha)

30 Day Challenge Day 3: The Indiana Dunes

The Indiana Dunes
Copyright 2014 Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
11" x 14"

Can you feel the wind whipping over the sand?  The rickety old fence was trying to tame it but obviously not succeeding.  I was amazed at the height of the dunes!  They create a very dramatic landscape.

30 Day Challenge Day 2: Red Sails

Red Sails
Copyright 2014 Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
11" x 14"

I saw this fabulous red sailboat off of the shores of Shackleford Banks, North Carolina this summer.  It was amazing how well the color of the sails matched the driftwood and scrubby brush on the dunes of the island.  I wish I could be there now to feel the wind filling up my metaphorical sails!

30 Day Challenge Day 1: Horses on Carrot Island

Horses on Carrot Island
copyright 2014 Addie Hirschten
Oil on Canvas
11" x 14"

Here we are at day one of the 30 Day Painting Challenge hosted by artist Leslie Saeta!  Me and many other artists will be posting daily paintings during the month of September on Leslie's blog.  It is an excellent way to push yourself to progress.  This time I will be focusing on beach scenes from my summer including Beaufort, NC and the Indiana Dunes.

This painting is the first horse painting I've ever done!  (Unless you count fourth grade drawings.)  The horses on Carrot Island are all wild.  This painting had to be done from a photo since they move so quickly.  The sun was setting from the opposite direction creating amazing purple clouds to the east.