NORA KASTEN Artist Oil Painting "Floral With Portrait"

"Floral With Portrait"

© Nora Kasten

Oval Oil painting on oil primed linen on board  (36"x24")  February 19, 2011

"The painting is not somber as it appears in the photo above.  Photography is another art that I need to learn more about.

I used a drop of clove oil in each of my alkyd oil paints on this painting to lengthen the drying time but now it's drying too slowly.  Who knows when I will be able to put the painting in it's frame.  I'm seriously considering going back to regular oil paint, using Res-n-gel to speed up drying time and keeping the alkyd Titanium white only.  I need to give C.W. Mundy a call to see how he is handling the alkyds that dry too fast.

It's three weeks tomorrow that I got the first cold I've had in years and today I feel that it is finally gone.  I only mention this because so many of you other artists are experiencing the same thing."

NORA KASTEN WEBSITE

NORA KASTEN Artist Oil Painting "Floral & Teapot"

First day's work on "Floral & Teapot"

36"x24" On oval, oil primed linen on 1/2"board

 Setup for "Floral & Teapot

"It's a joy to be painting again and this one is for a special place in my home.  I already have the ornate antique gold frame for it but must get those flowers completed today because they're wilting fast.

Tomorrow is Valentines Day and it is with Great Love that I remember Karl and my first Valentines Day together, twenty eight years ago.  He was against the whole Valentines Day thing, saying "It's just a holiday for increasing merchants revenues". . . . .  Karl was always thinking business.  Well, when he learned how unhappy I would be if no valentine arrived, he came home from the office that day with beautiful roses and a Valentine card 36" high, 18" wide and the biggest boyish grin on his face.  How I Loved that man!!


This morning while reading Diane Leonard's blog, I really enjoyed her writing  on LOVE .
She wrote it for Valentine's Day and I hope you will check it out for yourself.
http://dianeleonardartist.blogspot.com
The words below are Diane's and not all of her message but I agree wholeheartedly.

   " Love opens the door to discover our highest potential!

   It let’s our hearts soar and brings us joy.

   Love is all around us -- it is the beauty that we see in our world

Love is what drives us to be our best, 

and to see the best in everyone!

Love is the power to be whatever we want to be.

 Find love in all that you do, in all that you see, 

and share that love with everyone around you."


NORA KASTEN WEBSITE  

NORA KASTEN Artist Oil Painting "On The Upper Porch"

"On The Upper Porch"

© Nora Kasten

Oil painting on lead oil primed linen  (22"x18")  August, 1993

"This is an old painting I didn't feel was "worthy" but had taken it off of the stretcher bars and saved.  Since, I'm in this clearing out mode I'm disposing of a lot of things including old paintings. There were several old painted canvases under the bed that I had forgotten were there and I threw away all but three of them.  I'm glad that I kept this one for whatever reason because I had  primed this canvas starting with the raw linen, using rabbit glue and oil primer.  The support looks like it is a good 1/8" thick.  I notice my signature is from a time when I was testing how I wanted to sign my paintings.  Yesterday, I used Elmer's glue to affix the canvas to 1/2" gator board since I've been disappointed with the results lately using Miracle Muck.  By the way this painting "On The Upper Porch" is #91.

NORA KASTEN WEBSITE

NORA KASTEN Artist Oil Painting "Macy At Four"

"Macy At Four"

©  Nora Kasten

Oil painting on linen  (16"x 12") Completed 2/8/2011

"My little Macy didn't turn out as I envisioned but I'm happier with it than the one I painted so many years ago.

Can you get colds back to back.  I believe that I have but am finally feeling better again.  A beautiful day today to be out in the sun and it must help.

I've been painting one coat of alkyd oil house paint on each of the oil primed canvas boards that I purchased recently.  All but two were purchased from ASW and two large ones on 1/2" gator board from New Traditions Art.  Even New Traditions oil primed canvas isn't what I'm wanting. I learned about the alkyd house paint as a priming coat several years ago from Ted Goerschner's book "Oil Painting, The Workshop Experience" and it works very well.  I just don't want to be doing all the extra priming in my old age.  

I ordered a roll of Artfix L84C oil primed linen canvas from ASW today and when it arrives I will take it to a wonderful printer, G&H Printing, here in Naples and they will adhere the canvas to 1/2" black FormCore.  They will use four 4'x8' sheets of the FormCore for my canvas and then cut the sizes I specify.  We've done this before and it's great.  The last time I still had to paint the alkyd house paint over the finished canvas boards but this time I believe the newer and heavier oil primed canvas will be just right.  I'll be sure to let you know.

NORA KASTEN WEB SITE

NORA KASTEN Artist Oil Paintings "Macy"

"From the e-mails and comments that I've received about the last post, I can tell that I misled you.  I'm not painting over an old painting! . . .  . those paintings are like my own babies to me.  Here you can see the one I started the other day with the face and background wiped out along with the original painting done many years ago.

The cold going around finally caught me so I've been laying low for a couple of days, soaking up some sunshine and reading art books."

NORA KASTEN WEBSITE