© 2023 Kathryn Freeman Studios

painting

High Tea with Friends, oil on linen, 36" x 36"

 This painting was a particularly enjoyable and successful collaboration between the client and myself because she is a designer and we speak the same visual language. The first time we chatted on the phone we hit it off and it was clear she had studied my paintings closely and really understood the formal elements- composition, geometry, perspective and color. She had a wall in her dining room picked out so that determined the size. She also wanted a deep space so that it felt like another window. She liked the painting I did a few years ago titled "Rabbit Summer" so that helped us with the narrative and structure. She also had some wonderful palette ideas that would work with her dining room. Springer Spaniels have always had a place in her life as well as a beautiful garden behind her home in West Virginia... and she is known for her baking talents.  The outcome is "High Tea with Friends".

"High Tea with Friends"


color samples for the palette 

Thumbnail sketch



Commissioning a Painting


I thought I would take this moment in time to write a little bit about how I do a commissioned painting whether it is a poetic realism composition, a simple portrait of a person or a pet, a complex narrative portrait, or something in between. 
"Plutarque"
"Portrait of a Young Poet"

"Toby with Jed and Bizzy"


I love painting for an individual or family. It is a collaboration and most of my clients seem to enjoy the creative process. It can be a painting similar to my "Interior Dreams", "Animal Dreams" or a "Story from the Woods" series or it can be simply a landscape or a depiction of certain place that has meaning to the individual. It can also be a narrative portrait telling the story of an individual or family.  This concept is based on portraits from the Renaissance in which the artist depicted aspects about the life of the subject as well as a painted likeness. 
The process can be completely virtual without me ever meeting with the subjects in person and when it is finished the painting will be shipped to the client. It starts with an email exchange in which I send a series of questions to get to know what the client is looking for in terms of the painting size, who or what is to be the subject of the painting, where the painting will be hung etc.
Once I have this information, we set up a phone call which could also be a facetime or a zoom meeting. And at this point I ask for a few photographs to be emailed or texted to me as beginning resource material. After that I start working up a composition. This is a small sketch on grid paper with written notations. I email the sketch to my client for changes or approval. When the composition is set, I often ask the client to take specific photos and email them to me, if necessary. Then I build the canvas using all archival materials and start drawing, then painting. If the client is interested in seeing the process, I am always happy to send photos as the painting develops.

I especially love painting a human with their four-legged best friend, or just the four-legged friend. Or all the four legged family members from a person's lifetime as in the last painting in this post called a "Lifetime of Animals.  Please feel free to contact me for more information and pricing.

Preliminary Sketch for "Shadow's Woods"


Final Painting "Shadow's Woods"



 
Preliminary Sketch for "Come for Drinks"


Final Painting "Come for Drinks"
Preliminary Drawing for "Sunday Morning with Shelties"

Final Painting "Sunday Morning with Shelties"

"A Gathering of Old Friends"

"Alfred on his Farm with Friends"

"Khaya and Sascha "


"A Lifetime of Animals"




                                       







Dance an Ode to Matisse


In recent years I have been looking back at various artists who have influenced my work in one way or another during my career, and studying their paintings by incorporating one into one of my own compositions. It is now time for Matisse. I first starting looking seriously at the paintings of Matisse on a trip to Russia in 1987. I was with my husband, who was a foreign correspondent. He was reporting on stories in Moscow and Leningrad, so I took the opportunity to go along and visit the Hermitage Museum. To my amazement, among the incredible collection there were a large number of Matisses -- none of which I had ever seen, even in books. You have to remember, back then St. Petersburg was still called Leningrad, the Communist Party still ran the Soviet Union, and the number of Western visitors to the Hermitage and exchanges of paintings between Russia and the West paled compared with today. One of the paintings was The Dance, which was commissioned by the Russian collector Shchukin, who asked Matisse to paint a second version of the one that hangs in the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The panel that Matisse did for Shchukin depicted the figures more robust and muscular, less graceful and in a strong orange-red color, whereas the figures in the painting in MOMA (which is the version I loosely copied in my painting), are lithe, simply drawn and lighter in hue, and the entire painting is imbibed with an airiness and lyricism. The Dance was deceptively hard to copy, which says a lot about the simple shapes and  elegant line which is the beauty and magic of Matisse.



"Dance", oil on linen, 36" x 48"

My painting "Dance" is another in my ongoing series called Animal Dreams, in which I am creating dreamlike sanctuaries for creatures that are threatened in the real world. In my Dance, a cellist is performing in the foreground with his loyal Foxhound and a hat set out on a chair for donations. There is a forest outside and a supernatural light pours through the window, casting a swathe of light across the Matisse. The music and the warm light attract a family of foxes who, inspired by the dancers on the wall, form a dance circle of their own. I chose the musician to play a cello because the shape of the cello and the case echo the shapes of Matisse's dancers, and because I love cello music and often listen to it while I work.  I recently read Fox 8 an exquisite and powerful little book by George Saunders about a fox who is the daydreamer in his pack and teaches himself how to understand "Yuman" by hiding in the bushes outside a home and listening to children's bedtime stories. The power of this knowledge leads him to learn that the habitat of his pack is in impending doom from developers who are clearcutting the forest and building a shopping mall. This book in a microcosm shows the way urban sprawl is affecting wildlife and even causing the extinction of some species. In my own neighborhood I see foxes on a daily basis and strangely, since I have been working on Dance a large, beautiful red fox has been keeping a close eye on me and my dogs. I make a point of nodding to him in appreciation that he is there.

The Dance at the Hermitage 
The Dance at MOMA

                                                                 





Adrienne's Feast, oil on linen, 24" x 40"


I loved doing this painting because it reminded me of an Italian predella panel that tell the story of the life of a saint in the various stages of their life and work.
This is Adrienne, mother of four, cherished and adored wife, talented and much traveled cook, and animal lover. Adrienne saw my painting "Lake House after the Storm" and related to it having experienced the flooding from Hurricane Harvey in Houston, Texas where she lives. She had a birthday coming up and her husband Jody contacted me. After some discussion, and learning that Lake House was no longer available, Jody asked me to create a painting specifically for his wife, including things that were dear to her. Jody was wonderful to work with as he had studied a number of my paintings and had a good idea of what I needed. He also liked the composition in Lake House-a series of arches that structure the rectangle so we decided to do something similar for Adrienne's painting. He sent me family photos and pictures of their home and their dogs and cats (a wonderful menagerie!). He told me some great stories and family legends including the phenomenon of the Christ figure statuette from Rio de Janeiro that continuously turns to face them no matter how many times they straighten him to face forward. The figure is included in the painting on a pedestal...facing Adrienne. Adrienne's three sons are grown men now but in the painting they are young boys playing ball, visible through the arch on the left. Adrienne lost a baby girl but the child lives on in her heart so Jody asked that I include a little girl in the painting. She is in the arch to the right, in a translucent pink dress, releasing white doves into the sky, where images of Adriennes's mother and father and brother Michael, are subtly represented in the cloud formations. The bookshelves are lined with Adrienne's collection of cookbooks that she formed during many international trips. Adrienne is wearing a formal blue gown that she wore as mother of the groom in her son's wedding. Some other small things are another painting of mine, called White Stockings, which they have in their collection as well as a few images of creatures that come and go on their property in Houston including deer, a white heron, and the hen that is watching Adrienne closely while she prepares a feast. Note- a favorite book and film of Adrienne's and Jody's is Babette's Feast, and Jody decided that Adrienne's Feast would be a perfect title because of the way she instills love into all aspects of her life. 




Mending the Tigers

I just finished painting "Mending the Tigers". I have been working on it since March 9 when I last posted about it in progress. It has been almost three months. People often ask me how long it takes me to do a painting but I never keep track. So now I know. I guess keeping a blog is good in that respect. 
"Mending the Tigers", oil on linen, 4' x 5'

As I mentioned in my earlier post the idea came from a short story by Aimee Bender called Tiger Mending. It is a mesmerizing story so you should read it. It is in her collection called "The Color Master". Here is a link to her website http://aimeebender.com/.
I interpreted her story to have an environmental message. In my mind the tigers were coming out of the mountains to get help from humans. Their stripes falling off as symbolic of the fragility of this great beast in the modern world. The young woman mending the tigers represents the mindfulness, inventiveness and skill it is going to take for us as the responsible party to "mend" the environment. While she is the creative and the talent who has the ability to do the mending, her sister, leading the tigers in, is the facilitator-the person with the brain and resourcefulness to make things happen. 
(Note that this is my interpretation. There are others out there that focus on the relationship between the sisters). 

While I was preparing to do this painting  I looked at lots of paintings through art history that were about tigers both to see how they were handled by artists in terms of drawing and painting but also to see their place in art.  I went to the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia to see Henri Rousseau's "Scout Attacked by a Tiger".  It is a brutal scene but Rousseau's vision is magical. They seem like mini figurines in long grass. The tiger's anatomy is a little odd but it makes for an enchanting painting. I hope the tiger came out on top of the situation, but Rousseau keeps us guessing. 


Eugene Delacroix was another great painter of tigers. I especially love his "Tiger Resting" which I also included in "Mending the Tigers", hanging above the Rousseau, and his beautiful watercolor and pencil study, simply called "Tiger". It is in the National Gallery.  I included it as a plate in the book in the right foreground- as if the young woman was studying it to see how to stitch the stripes back on. 





Mending the Tigers in Progress

It has been awhile since I've posted anything on my blog. Sometimes when I am working I am too involved it the process to spend time on social media or even my computer. I guess I will always be "old school". Even though I spend the necessary time each day on my computer for my business, sending images, emailing clients, communicating with my galleries, and trying to update my facebook studio page and instagram (yikes!)  I never really feel like I am truly "working" unless I am up in my studio standing in front of my painting wall. I had been working on another book and some portrait work so it took me awhile to get this painting up and running. To dust off the cobwebs in my brain I first did a full size drawing in charcoal and chalk on brown paper. The drawing and the painting are 4' x 5'. It is great to work in charcoal so I can push it around until I get the composition where I want it. So that is the first image you see here.  The second is the perspective drawing on the actual canvas. The third is the underpainting in grisaille with just the start of the first glaze. (pink area on the right) The fourth image shows more of the first glaze. That is where I am right now.  So stay tuned for more images of the progress. By the way the subject of the painting is inspired by a mesmerizing story called "Tiger Mending" by the writer Aimee Bender. I can't wait to paint the tigers!



"The Sunday Paper" and homage to "La Grande Jatte"

I finished this painting, "The Sunday Paper", just in time to frame it and put it on a truck to Dog and Horse Fine Art, in Charleston, South Carolina. My show there opens on Friday night and I am very excited about it. http://www.dogandhorsefineart.com/index.php/exhibits/item/kathryn-freeman-a-perfect-reality  Come to the opening if you are going to be in Charleston! There will be jazz music and cupcakes! Along with wine, of course. Charleston is known for its Friday night art openings.

"The Sunday Paper", oil on linen, 36" x 48"


 As you can see the interior of the painting is a typical Sunday morning in some houses-guy on the sofa, dozing off while reading the Sunday paper. His faithful dogs would love to go to the park, but their owner won't wake up and take them. So the park is coming to them.

Georges Seurat's incredible painting, "Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte", has had a huge role in my development as a painter over a period of 30 (at least) years. I fell in love with it when I was in graduate school, -for its formality, compositional brilliance, such as the use of the golden section and diagonals, use of the silhouette, shape repetition, shape symbolism, and about a million other reasons. Seurat was a genius and so much more than the "pointillism" technique he used for awhile, which tends to be his big claim to fame in art history books. He died at age 32 and I always wonder what he would have produced if he had lived longer. He was a skilled draftsman as well as an auspicious colorist, so he was capable of anything.

Whenever I feel confused about painting (frequently) I return to La Grande Jatte along with going back to look at Vermeer's "Woman in Blue Reading a Letter". Those two paintings clear my head, reinforce what painting is about, and restore my faith.  I had seen lots of studies and reproductions of La Grande Jatte but I had never seen the big finished painting until last year when I finally got to Chicago. The painting took my breath away and I felt dizzy standing in front of something I had studied and admired for so long. I spent the entire day there.

It was time to pay homage. So I decided to make the park in "The Sunday Paper", La Grande Jatte.

I had to expand Seurat's landscape a little bit so that it was visible out the door and the side window, and I borrowed a few figures from some of his other paintings and studies. As you can see, a few elements of the painting have already seeped into the room. The monkey on a leash being held by the woman with the black parasol has sneaked into the picture along with her hat, as have some of the vertical elements and diagonals. I do realize that there are a lot of people who are not reading a hard copy of the newspaper anymore, so there is a tablet (maybe a kindle?) on the coffee table on top of the red book. So that is me tipping my top hat to new technology, while also tipping it to one of the greatest paintings of the 19th century. Thank you Georges. 

"Armchair Blues"

This is my most recent painting. The inspiration for it came from multiple sources as is the case with most of my paintings. As you all know by now, I am a big advocate for adopting shelter dogs. The before and after photos are among the things I like best about the dog rescue world. So in the first photo you see a skinny, sad, mangy dog on a concrete floor or tied to an outdoor dog house in a dirt yard. Then the second photo shows the same dog looking well fed, happy and relaxed on a comfy couch in someone's living room. A few months ago I discovered there is a little company that produces piano music especially to calm the nerves of stressed dogs. I downloaded some for my two, and oddly they did seem to enjoy it. One of my favorite Italian Renaissance painters is Fra Angelico. Lately I have been looking at his interesting and often dissonant color palettes, which influenced the yellow and blues in this painting. And lastly the title... there is a great tune that Ray Charles performed called the "Rockin Chair Blues".  It is the perfect music for this painting but since the dogs are in armchairs, not rocking chairs, (that would be tricky), I changed the title a little.
And I also need to thank Ellie, of Two Blockheads fame, for letting me use her photo for the dog in the striped chair.

                                "Armchair Blues, oil on linen, 36" x 48"
                     

Here are some links you might like:

Music to calm dogs:  http://throughadogsear.com/
Two Blockheads:  https://www.facebook.com/TwoBlockheads
Rockin' Chair Blues:
Remdog and Loulou enjoying some tunes:





"Lake House, After the Storm"

I just recently completed a painting titled "Lake House, After the Storm".
It is a long canvas, 30 x 66 inches, oil on linen. I love working on this format as it lends itself to narrative and enables me to create a sequence of  events that tells what the beginning of the story is, (even if the catalyst for the narrative is outside the picture plane), what is happening in the picture plane, and what is likely to happen outside the picture plane on the other side.  The idea for this painting grew out of other images that I have been working on in the past few years - the floating room paintings like "Water Music" and "The Attraction of Fishing" as well as "Moon River" where the water is slowly wending its way into the interior.

"Water Music" 
"The Attraction of Fishing"
  
"Moon River"

I composed "Lakehouse"  using a series of arches to emphasize the right to left movement as well as to isolate the series of vignettes and images. I liked the idea of painting a room and then "flooding" it by glazing color over the floor plane.  I have always been fascinated by images of flooded rooms after natural disasters and how a room seems familiar but at the same time is rather disorienting.

The kernel of the idea for "Lake House" came to me one day when I was walking my dogs in a fundraiser for Best Friends Animal Society with Lucky Dog Rescue. For part of the walk I strolled beside a young man who told me that he first got into animal rescue after Hurricane Katrina. He was working for a company in the south, so he went to New Orleans to help. His job was to paddle around the flooded homes and pick up animals that were stranded. He said it was a very moving experience and he has been involved in animal rescue ever since. The image stayed in my head and even though I know his experience didn't look anything like this painting, the image was inspired by his story.

I tried to make the interior in this painting some what timeless with the classical columns and arches, and the fresco on the exterior wall. I wanted it to create an association for the viewer of ruins or a once beautiful place that is being threatened or destroyed, so the title "Lake House, After the Storm" is meant to evoke an association of the threat of global warming on our environment.

Here are some images of the process:

Graphite study for composition and light

Underpainting in grisaille on gessoed linen

First glaze or "imprimatura"  over the underpainting

Image where some of the interior and the floor plane are in


The finished painting
 (click on it to enlarge the image)






The Remains of the Day

In "The Remains of the Day" the hero returns from a very long day at work, to find that he has been away so long, a large tree has grown in his living room. His little terrier looks at  him as if to say "Sorry, but there was nothing I could do to prevent this".  He decides to make  the best of the remains of his day, so he strips down to his boxers, makes himself a scotch, and climbs up to the roof terrace to relax.  It is the story of the "everyman". In literature  and drama, the term everyman has come to mean an ordinary individual, with whom the audience or reader is supposed to be able to identify easily, and who is often placed in  extraordinary circumstances. The three panels that make up the triptych are each 18" high by 24" wide.





Here is the preliminary sketch for the panels-graphite on paper



Goodnight Moon Limited Edition Prints


Goodnight Moon
Giclee Prints available from now until December 10th
24" x 24" 
signed, limited edition
printed on archival watercolor paper


I have had so many requests for prints of Goodnight Moon (must be the title!), I have decided to do a limited edition that will be available leading up to the holidays. The price is $375 plus $15 for shipping. (if you are nearby I will  deliver it to you!)
Email me by December 10th if you would like to order one, and I can get it to you by Christmas.

For the Love of Dogs

As a compassionate lover of dogs and as an advocate of animal rescue I am constantly seeing animals who are saved by rescue organizations that are in heartbreaking physical condition from neglect and abuse and in dire need of veterinary care. Every time I see one, I want to respond with a donation to help the organization to save the dog. A couple years ago I decided that I would start doing portraits of dogs and that each time I did a portrait I would make a donation for a specific dog in need that had captured my heart.

Recently the timing of this was like clockwork. A dear friend asked me to paint a beautiful spaniel named Milo. It was to be a thank you gift for her close friends who live in Italy. Milo has the most glorious life a dog could imagine in a beautiful place, going out on boats regularly and playing on the beach. His owners love him deeply and take very good care of him. His coat shines, he is athletic and healthy and has a huge smile. It was a joy to paint such a happy dog and it was also a joy to paint his surroundings of blue sky and cobalt water with the Capri Faraglioni behind him on the horizon.  Just after I painted this little portrait, I heard about another dog- Griffin, who had just been rescued by Second Chance Rescue in NYC. When Griffin was found he was so emaciated he couldn't raise his head. He needed immediate and intensive vet care and Second Chance set up a fund for him- which I was able to contribute to because of the portrait of Milo. Two dogs worlds apart in their life situation and their health, but I truly believe that animals share souls and in some strange way Milo and Griffin's souls will always be connected.




Forest Nocturne



Forest Nocturne

I am easily disoriented by
by the shortening days
as winter’s breath creeps up
and darkness looms.
But I forget,
and take a walk
that is a little too long
for the allotted daylight.
As the sun begins to settle
behind the trees
and the shadows lengthen
into nothingness,
I feel a presence in the woods.
The warm earth cools
and the rising mist
veils the rock masses
and fallen trees.
And the audience begins to assemble
in their usual places
for the evening concert.
I am the uninvited guest.
So I hasten my pace

towards home.

When the Size of a Painting and the Size of a Wall don't Match Up

Sometimes it happens...A person falls in love with a painting they see in an exhibit. They take down the dimensions at the gallery, then go home and measure their wall, and they come to the conclusion that it doesn't quite fit.  In some cases the wall is expansive and the painting is just not quite large enough to engage the space. And in some cases the painting is too big or not the right proportions.  In the past year I have had two clients who originally saw one of my paintings in the gallery, but then asked me to do a similar piece for them, custom designed for a particular location in their home. I love to do this as it allows me to get to know them, and see the environment where the painting will go. It also gives me the opportunity to make the painting more personal.

I painted Oliver's Dream last fall after visiting the client in Hobe Sound, Florida over the summer. They live very near the ocean but do not have a view, so she asked that the painting open the space with a view of the water, and she also wanted to bring some of their tropical surroundings into the room. I used a palette that related to the interior while introducing some new colors such as the vibrant clementine wall.  I  painted a tile floor and worked with multiple point perspective with the eye level on the eye level of someone standing in the room to give depth and a feeling that one could walk right into the painting. I also incorporated some architectural elements from the room, such as the large Palladian windows, and symmetry.

My client asked that their adorable King Charles spaniel named Oliver be the main character in the painting, so he sits rather royally in the arm chair on the left, making eye contact with the viewer.  He loves to chase salamanders so there are salamanders of various colors hidden in the flora of the fabrics as well as on the glass table top and in the flowering vines. The client had especially liked my mermaid paintings so we placed a mermaid sitting on the windowsill, playing the flute for Oliver and the various seabirds. There is also a painting within the painting of her grandchildren, and the couple dancing below the palm trees by the water represents her three happily married sons.

Cello and Painting

Several years ago, I was listening to NPR and I discovered the music of the cellist Zoe Keating. I have never been the same since. Her cello has inspired many the the paintings in my recent show at the Jane Haslem Gallery and has fueled my creativity in general. I put it on in my studio and it makes my mind more fluid and lets emotion rise to the surface. Here are three of the paintings that are directly related to songs from her album "Into the Trees". And here is a link to her website. 
Thank you Zoe.
http://www.zoekeating.com/






Into the Trees


This is a painting I just finished titled "Into the Trees". It is oil on linen, 36" x  48". It will be exhibited at the Jane Haslem Gallery during February and March. There will be a Valentine's Day opening from 5:30-7:30 pm, so come and bring someone you love (spouse, partner, child, significant other, granny or grampa)
There will be a lot of drawings and  paintings, including "Stories from the Woods" and a number of "Love Letters".

The Evening Entertainment

This is a painting I finished recently for a show at Dog & Horse Fine Art in Charleston, South Carolina. It is called The Evening Entertainment. The narrative is open to interpretation, but I think any one who comes home from a long day at work to be greeted by their dogs, will be able to relate.  The painting is oil on linen 36" x 48".  Check out the Dog & Horse gallery website when you have time!
http://www.dogandhorsefineart.com/exhibitions.html

Bugfire

I finished this painting earlier this summer. It is inspired by a book by the same name, "Bugfire" written by the author Jean Heilprin Diehl. The setting for the painting is the Amazon Littlebee House on Block Island, RI. Last summer I was walking by the house and someone was trimming the magnificent hedge that surrounds the property. When I passed by again, I saw that they had made the opening in the hedge into a heart. Jean's novel is about an adolescent girl who is facing some challenges in her family life and finds enlightenment by helping a younger child whose personal challenges are greater than her own. I see the opening in the hedge as sort of a window to the luminosity of the spirit and the fireflies as real and allegorical flickers of light against the impending gloom of dusk on a heavy summer evening. One of my art students, beautiful Caroline, was kind enough to model for the figure. To know why the title of the book, and the painting is "Bugfire" you will have to read the novel when it is published. It is wonderful.
The painting is oil on canvas, 36" x 36"