Skip to content

Posts from the ‘abstract’ Category

Jun 23

New Exhibition in Portsmouth NH

Hello summer! This spring I’ve been working on a new series of Village paintings titled ‘Freedom to Be’. These are always popular with fans of my art as I have fun with rearranging reality as I weave familiar imagery together to form new views of life by the waterfront. Portsmouth and Provincetown Massachusetts were the first places I worked with to pull imagery together to form my own view of village life. I’ve created over 40 paintings each with different arrangements of details and overall design. I hope you’ll consider stopping by the Opening Reception on Friday July 11th to view my newest work at KennedyGalleryandCustomFraming located at 41 Market Street, Portsmouth, NH 603-436-7007.

NEW! ‘Demo & Chat’ during the ‘Local Love’ Portsmouth business event at the gallery on Thursday, July 17th, 5-8pm. I’ll have my sketchbooks for you to peruse, demonstrate techniques I use in my work, and of course answer any questions you have about my life as an artist. It’s always my pleasure to speak with my fans–no matter if you’ve purchased my work or are considering a purchase. I’d love to meet you. Please bring a friend and enjoy talking art. Thank you, Ann Contact me at anntrainordomingue.com

Lesson learned: Keep painting.

Apr 5

Loving Springtime

It’s been a while since I’ve posted but all for good reasons. I’ve been focusing on painting a new group of works for my upcoming feature exhibition at the Portland Art Gallery in Maine. Spring is finally in the air here in New Hampshire after a very cold and snowy winter. I love working in the wintertime as it offers more quiet time than other seasons of the year. This gives me a chance to review recent work and make plans for new directions. Some artists wing it and throw caution to the wind. Others take some time to figure out how recent work can be a springboard for upcoming artworks. I’m in that category working in sketchbooks and playing with color and techniques until I feel a fresh approach appearing. Then it’s time to come out of hibernation and get to work.

Lesson learned: Have a sketchbook continually being filled with both good and bad ideas.

Oct 7

2 Comments

Right to Left Side Changes Everything

‘Close By’, acrylic on canvas, 36×36, available now at Portland Art Gallery, Portland, Maine.

While recovering from right shoulder surgery I decided to continue working on my art…with my left hand. An awkward thing to do after primarily using my dominant right hand my whole life but I considered it a challenge as I worked to ‘loosen up’ my artmaking. I’ve tended to use clean edges with obvious texture in my work, crisp edges arrived at by frequently using a palette knife to lay down sharp edges. Now with use of only left arm for 6 plus weeks, and limited use of right arm for the past two months, I pushed my way through the awkwardness of left handedness to find ways to still make art but with a new sense of freedom. The piece above, ‘Close By’ was created with various mark-making tools and techniques that I could accomplish with my left–stamping, scratching through semi-wet layers, not worrying about accuracy but simply the gist of shapes with refreshed color palette. All in all a good experiment and now that I am on the mend with more use of right arm, I’ll still be using my left to be sure I stay loose with my upcoming works.

Lesson learned: Right and left are equally valuable. Click image below to be taken to my website.

Jul 23

A New Way

Working in a different way than I have been accustomed to is not as easy as you might think. Well-tuned moves and ideas can be difficult to adjust or change completely. In my case not using a drawing tool to rough out an idea is a dramatic change as I explore working without a plan. Using intuition rather than a set plan, even a rough one, is a change my mind is working to find its way around. The 8×8 collage shown here is a practice of pulling paper images together, selecting from them shapes, values and line to piece together something that I have never pre-thought out. My brain is still making the adjustment as it is easy to fall back on tried and true. Loving the idea of working in a more abstract way despite the stutter steps. See my recent work now at Portland Art Gallery in Portland Maine or Kennedy Gallery and framing in Portsmouth NH.

In the last couple of months I have been recuperating from rotator cuff surgery (going well so far). It has made it impossible to paint in large format until the tendon is fully repaired. I am working in a smaller format to explore ways that I might not have done before my surgery. All good things to come.

Lesson learned: Interruptions can be blessings in disguise.

Mar 2

Another Good Day

‘Another Good Day’, acrylic on canvas, 40″ x 60″, available now at Portland Art Gallery, Maine

A new studio has inspired me to create in a new way, a bit different from my recent work. My new space is much larger, with great lighting and plenty of space to breathe. Although I miss my small quaint studio space I have had since 2013, it will always be where I allowed myself to begin to make the art I’ve wanted to make. And now I’ll continue on that journey with more elbow room and excitement. NEW: I have an exhibition of new works coming up in April 2024! Opening reception is on Thursday, April 4th, 5-7pm. Please stop by and say hello, I’d love to meet you and speak with you about what you love about my work. Thank you, Ann

Lesson learned: Big light-filled dreams are possible.

Oct 16

2 Comments

Artmaking Anew

I’ve recently been shifting my artmaking to incorporate a way of making my art in a less planned way. This includes allowing a painting to unfold as I add color, line, solids and texture. Which is contrary to how I have frequently begun my work where I draw at least a thumbnail sketch of a design and then work with color and other marks. There was a bit of freedom in starting this way, as well as feeling unsure with not knowing where it was heading. This felt more like a freefall than freedom. In the end I did like how it evolved and will continue to explore this approach in the future.

#anntrainordomingue New Hampshire artist; messy, uncommon, friendly, contemporary art

Lesson learned: Try new things even if it feels wrong.

Aug 22

New Hampshire ‘Color Love’

opening postcard web 5x5 GWren

Two artist friends and I are showing our work together this September!
‘Color Love’– 3 artists 3 visions is a 3-person show of our colorful artworks– intensely-colored abstract watercolor collages by Ethel Hills, bold impressive wildlife-inspired paintings by Rosemary Conroy, and my Ann Trainor Domingue New England life inspired paintings and watercolors. It promises to be a wonderful exhibit of three very different takes on ‘Color Love’ –where we each  internalize how color influences our work–and then create an inspiring variety of images for you to see and feel, and then possibly find an artwork so special you must take it home!

Please join us at the opening reception on Friday, September 7th, 5-7 at the Gallery at WREN in Bethlehem, New Hampshire.

 

Dec 9

Embracing Family, Embracing Series

blog-series-2-pinks-sm

Every Which Way, 24×36, acrylic

blog-series-3-blues-sm

Pattern in Blues, 24×36, acrylic

blog-series-pic-1-sm

Time of Day, 24×24, acrylic.

Its taken me some time to really embrace the idea of working in a series. I understand the concept and can readily see it in other artists’ work, but have consistently had difficulties adopting this idea in developing my own work, until now. The examples above show my recent attempts at exploring elements of my work and producing new works that embody aspects related to one another. Sort of like a family of children who look very similar, but are unique in their own way. Here’s where it has been tough for me. My background as an illustrator has given me broad skills to create just about anything. But that is not necessarily helpful in my career as a painter. Here’s what I’ve learned.

My extended family reaches far into the world as we have welcomed the changes life brings, and all is well. Marriages, divorces, friends, godchildren, distant relatives–not unlike many of you I’m sure. As relationships relate to my artwork though it sometimes appears as though I’ve adopted children from another planet, never mind my own world. So I have found it helpful to model my new found attention to working in a series after my family. Now it makes a bit more sense as I develop new art—as I choose which aspects to retain, and which to remember as an important lesson.

Finding the core element of the New England landscape (my lifelong home area) has been key to creating an armature/home where I can then change details while keeping a foundation in place. I’ll proceed into the New Year 2017 with a blueprint–one where I will still be able to enjoy serendipitous happenings as I evaluate new ideas to keep my family of work warm and cozy.

Hope you and your family have a wonderful Christmas and Happy New Year. And as always, thank you for your continued support.

Ann

(If interested in any of these artworks, consult my website http://www.anntrainordomingue.com or contact me directly.)

 

Jul 1

A Painter’s Holiday

IMG_7304You missed a spot. Not what I want to hear when I thought the job was finished. But as a fine art painter, missing a spot can turn out to be a blessing in disguise.

At times in my thoroughness to completely finish a work I find I want to rework areas no matter if they are small or large. Just want to go in and tweak or wholesale change that line or edge or shift a color and modify a shape. It is a very tricky thing to do near the end of a painting process. So many aspects have already found a balance–not perfection–just a balance of color, shapes, textures, line and form. To ‘fix’ something after the major phase of developing a painting has passed can invite some real questions–can I match that color, what brush did I use to get that texture, why didn’t I see that earlier, why did I think that bold line looked good yesterday and not today? And many more.

IMG_7314If a painting has a problem ‘holiday’ of some sort, I take a holiday too, and wait a few days before ‘fixing/correcting/adjusting/leaving-it-alone’. My mind has so many things whirring around while painting–so many decisions being made at once–that getting back into that mindset I had while doing the original work is almost impossible. If I could it would help me make the right decisions to push this painting toward the finish line.

So taking a break to reevaluate the piece is my answer. Sometimes its as long as a lunch break or as long as a year. My sort of ‘time out’ for a piece as I determine whether it is ready for prime time or not. Or as in a few cases it has been returned to me unsold from a gallery  and I have a new chance to work out the holidays or paint it over if I believe it is just not good enough.

IMG_7561Lesson learned: Take your time when deciding how to improve your work. Sometimes a holiday is actually the uniqueness of a piece and doesn’t need fixing at all. Time will tell.

The finished painting is now available at Gallery Antonia in Chatham on Cape Cod. www.galleryantonia.com Working Days End, acrylic on canvas, 36×36.

May 19

Today’s the Day

16513 Sketched Around 2 acryl ink and wc on paper 8x10 coso.jpg

Opening reception tonight May 19th,  5:30-7:30 at Copley Society of Art, Newbury Street, Boston, MA. Meet and visit with six recent Copley Fellows who completed month-long residencies in either Cape Ann or Provincetown, MA. Stop in or visit the gallery, show is up through June. copleysociety.org

This piece in the show titled, “Sketched Around” 8×10 ink and watercolor, has a little history but nothing a redraw can’t fix. This is about a view from my studio that disappears in summer with the solidness of fully leafed out trees, and then appears again as the leaves fall in autumn. The tree structures stay while the colors change. This ink and stick sketch/drawing tries to give my impression the this movement of the seasons. If you look closely you’ll see a building/structure through the branches. It brings a bit of geometric contrast to the scratchy branching lines.

« Older Entries
Ann Trainor Domingue art

Messy, uncommon, friendly contemporary landscape paintings inspired by the New England landscape

The Heartbeat of Haverhill

Good News from A Great City Haverhill, MA

Brain4Rent's Blog

Scanning the world through a marketer's eyes and sometimes just regular old human eyes.

Art Biz Success

Messy, uncommon, friendly contemporary landscape paintings inspired by the New England landscape

RedDotBlog

Messy, uncommon, friendly contemporary landscape paintings inspired by the New England landscape

Mary Byrom

Messy, uncommon, friendly contemporary landscape paintings inspired by the New England landscape

TODD BONITA'S ART BLOG

Messy, uncommon, friendly contemporary landscape paintings inspired by the New England landscape

Ann Trainor Domingue Art Blog

Insights about my messy, uncommon, friendly contemporary art

The Art Law Blog

Messy, uncommon, friendly contemporary landscape paintings inspired by the New England landscape

Urban Sketchers

Messy, uncommon, friendly contemporary landscape paintings inspired by the New England landscape