The White House Egg

West Virginia Egg - 2009 - (c) Linda Schweitzer

It was June, 2008. George W. Bush was near the end of his second term as president. It looked like the next president would be either Hilary Clinton or John McCain... I was still living in West Virginia.

I received a phone call from a woman, who said she was from the American Egg Board, asking me if I would decorate an Easter Egg, for the White House, to represent the state of West Virginia. Well, the whole thing sounded strange. I was not even aware of a display of Easter Eggs of the States at the White House, and I had never painted an egg, so I turned her down.

Next day, I looked up the White House website. Sure enough, there were egg displays at Easter time every year! Each state sent an egg. This had been going on since Grover Cleveland! Who knew? The artists got to tour the White House and meet the First Lady (sometimes the President too!) While there was no offer of money, or even travel reimbursement, I started getting excited about this as a great opportunity!  I called back and accepted the offer.

She did make it clear that the event might not even happen, with the new president, whoever that might be. But, they had to go ahead with the planning, in case the event would take place. And, there were rules: It had to be a large chicken egg, with the contents removed, and the ends sealed, and decorated to represent some special feature of the state. But here was the zinger:

"There can be no publicity regarding your egg or your participation in the event

prior to the event taking place. This is a White House event, and they are very

strict regarding the publicity originating from them."

So I can't even publicize this! Or blog about it! Dang!

I went out and bought a couple dozen eggs and got some books from the library on egg painting. There was quite a learning curve! (Which means it took a lot of time, and ruined eggs!)

Here is my dining room table, in production mode

In order to paint the egg without touching it, I put a bent coat hanger through the two holes. I decided the view off Cooper's Rock overlook, with mountains and a river between them was an image very representative of the State.

Here is the egg on the coat hanger wire

reverse side

The egg was painted all the way around. This is the reverse side. The egg had to be received at the American Egg Board Office by Nov. 1, 2008. I shipped it off, and waited to hear if the event would take place.

Two weeks before Easter, I found out it would not happen... The White House has continued the Egg Roll on the White House lawn, but not the egg display. Sigh... all that work, for something that wouldn't even be seen.
Well, you're seeing it now! Displayed in public, for the first time!

More Exercises

Here is another exercise from Ruskin's The Elements of Drawing. I took a branch, hung it horizontally, as it grows on the tree, and drew the outline of the branch and leaves from a profile view. Then I filled-in the outline with ink. Believe me, this was a total chaos of lines until I filled-in with the ink!

Next, I drew the same branch as it would be seen from below or above. Ruskin says that "Nature puts her best composition into the profile arrangement." Do you agree?

 I just found out, The Elements of Drawing is available online at no cost through the Gutenberg Project. I am really enjoying these exercises! And right now I am glad I am not using color. I had cataract surgery yesterday, and colors look different in each eye! My doctor says that will change though... We'll see! I can't wait to have the other eye done so I'll have a matched set of eyes!

Exercises

Sometimes I like to just do exercises. It takes me in a direction I wouldn't normally go, and it sharpens my skills. Athletes do push ups, musicians do scales... etc. Right now, I am doing the exercises in a classic book, The Elements of Drawing, by John Ruskin, first written in 1904! The exercises are surprisingly challenging.

 

This tree was drawn from life, and took about an hour. But it caused me to observe the patterns made by the branches. If you were asked to draw a tree from your imagination, would you draw something like this? I sure wouldn't. I would draw something more "artistic" looking. 

 

The tree is in front of the gas company office. It sits in a line with other Monterey cypresses that all look healthy. In fact, the others have so much foliage the branches aren't visible.This tree's trunk is scarred from much pruning, as if the owners have tried to save it many times over the years. It's easy to get anthropomorphic about trees. I started feeling like I was memorializing it by doing the drawing!

If you want to try reading Ruskin's book, get the illustrated edition, which follows the link. Some of the other editions are very irritating to read, because the author refers to artworks that aren't illustrated.

 

 

Portraits and Loss

Andrew Wyeth's father, N. C. Wyeth, died in an accident, when Andrew was a young man. I was really moved, listening to this interview, that he regretted having never gotten around to painting a portrait of his dad before he died. "I made drawings of him, but nothing important, and I think that was a great tragedy of my life when he was killed, that I hadn't done it."

Portrait of the Artist's Mother - gouache - 7 x 9"

It made me wonder, too, how when my mother was dying, I felt like I HAD TO do her portrait. Maybe it was my way of processing the grief... Maybe it was because I was thinking about her so much...
She would have moments when she seemed to be aware, and other moments, gone.

Portrait of the Artist's Mother #2 - watercolor pencils - 10 x 10"

Here's to you, Mom! I love you!

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Melting into Night

Melting into Night - oil on gessoed panel - 12 x 12"

Here was a wonderful moody sunset. The thing I really like about it is the reflections of the trees in the water. They shimmer and look like they are melting.

I've read that if you want to sell your paintings, you should tell the story of each painting and how you came to paint it, because people love stories. Well, I really hope you will put your own story on my paintings. Does this remind you of anything? Can you smell the air? Hear the night insects starting their songs? How do you feel when you look at it? Do you sense a presence here? Is there a memory that you've almost forgotten...

See more of my art on my website. To leave a comment, click here.

Break of Dawn

Break of Dawn - oil on museum quality board - 6 x 6"

Some things just ask to be painted. This is my second painting of this location. The other one was also at dawn, and I was a little further away. Here it is:

New Day - oil on museum quality board - 6 x 6"

This is a 10-minute walk from where I live. San Francisco Bay is on the other side of the little bridge. But I like to think both paintings have a timeless quality and could be anywhere.That way, we can relate them to our own life. It's about the mood, the stillness, the beginning of day... 

I hope you are able get out and watch the dawn. It's a great way to start the day!

If you would like to leave a comment, click here. I appreciate all comments! To buy either painting, or both, (be still my heart!) click here. New Day is framed in a black floater frame, Break of Dawn is unframed. Shipping is free. Please forward this to your friends or share on Facebook.

Exhibit--William Keith and the California Oak

I went recently to an exhibit at St Mary's College, William Keith and the California Oak. At first I thought I'd try to talk about Keith's life and the exhibit as a whole... But, you can get a brief overview of his life here, at the St. Mary's website. He was a California painter and a friend of John Muir, and a contemporary of George Inness. He started out painting large, romanticized Hudson River School Landscapes, but later realized there was no way a painter could capture the grandeur of nature. So he began painting smaller, more intimate scenes, characteristic of tonalism, that suggested a fleeting moment, and a reality beyond the surface. Here is one of his later paintings. It is just a moment at dusk, and appears so insubstantial, the paint is like a mist.

Here is a closer view of the foreground. There are no hard edges. It has a dream-like quality. If you step onto that grass, it looks so soft, you would probably just sink in. The cows in the upper left are barely distinguishable. The paint is translucent, with several layers visible.

This is the sky. The color here is more true to the actual painting. The sky is painted solidly, with opaque paint, and that little rugged edge at the top of the trees is the most definite edge in the whole piece. Even the tree trunks are transparent! The warm colors and distant light give a sense of spirituality and comfort.