Bed of Ghosts to a Private Collection

March 4, 2013

Marie Cameron with her painting, Bed of Ghosts

Bed of Ghosts, found it’s way to a new home in the Santa Cruz Mountains this weekend – a surprise birthday present from husband to wife! It’s always exciting to me when a painting finds the perfect place it’s supposed to be. I’ll miss these little fawns but look forward to continuing to work with this theme: the startling glimpse of the surreal and vulnerable white in the dark and dormant woods – a ghost deer or an albino redwood, they both make for a haunting image. The albino deer make for such easy targets in the wild sadly, and if the internet is any judge, a desirable trophy for certain hunters (the one that I was lucky enough to see in the Sierras lived in a gated community). I hear there are albino redwoods nearby and I’d love to see them too although the conservationists are understandably guarding their locations closely. I will continue to paint their improbable beauty from a distance.

Painting of Blue Corset

January 23, 2013

Is painting a portrait so different from painting a flower of a tree? Isn’t it all just color and lines and angles? Perhaps this is so for some figure painting but when it comes to portraits there is heightened question of likeness, emotion, expression and character and maybe all of this can be said of a twisted old pine but we are not hardwired to conifers, our neurons light up for people.

I like a portrait that engages the viewer, that can convey who they are or what they’re feeling through their posture, expression and most of all through the eyes. In Blue Corset the direct gaze is the key to the painting and everything else, the vibrant colors, patterns, textures and style, the busy out of focus bulletin board in the background and the intriguing tattoo are all there to give a glimpse at what might lie behind those eyes.

Painting of Cypress Crescent

January 3, 2013

It’s good to be back in the studio painting again now that the holidays are over!

Here I am working on another vista from Point Lobos. In this one I’m interested in the crescent shape that is formed in the corner in the upper right, it seems a welcome contrast to all the lines and angles, much like the contrast between the vegetation and the stone. I really enjoy how the swath of blue ocean seems to bleed down the rest of the painting.

I only had a few hours to work on this painting before breaking for yoga and a sand mandala ceremony on compassion but I feel it’s a good start. It was moving to watch Lama Ngawang sweep up his intricate and painstaking art into a pile while speaking on the nature of attachment and how nothing is permanent.

Cypress Rock

December 27, 2012

Persimmon Tangle

December 27, 2012

Cherry Blossom Cluster

December 27, 2012

Abalone and Float

November 15, 2012

Abalone and Float found a new home today!

It was lovely meeting Kristen and Isabella as they came to my studio to pick up the painting, I really enjoy getting a sense of who my clients are and how they relate to the art. I hope they also enjoyed getting to know me in the context of my studio and how I work. We spoke of my motivation in painting abalone, which beyond trying to capture their iridescence and texture, is a love of the marine environment and a commentary on its over harvesting. Kristen knew abalone from growing up in the Bay Area, San Francisco and Santa Cruz. “I even know the smell of it” she pointed out, the comment poignantly underlying her intimacy with abalone and how evocative it is for her. Abalone symbolizes place for her, a piece of California she can take with her any where in the world.

Abalone and Float oil on canvas by Marie Cameron 2008.

Painting Cypress Rock

November 13, 2012

I hope to capture the precarious nature of life on the margins of land and sea in this painting I began last Friday. I’m using one of the many photographs I took in the summer of the cypresses in Point Lobos as inspiration. It’s just so stunning to see these lone trees clinging to sheer rock face, pummeled by the Pacific! I like how the tree is dwarfed by the massive outcropping of rock on which it clings, rock which has been stripped nearly bare by the ocean. It’s almost a portrait of a landscape in which the skin and muscle has been pulled away to reveal the skeletal structure. Although the cypress symbolizes death and mourning, here I think it is a metaphor for perseverance.

Frozen Thoughts

October 16, 2012

I have lots of must dos and should dos on my agenda. Too many musts and shoulds can stifle creativity and I really needed to do something just on a whim. On Friday I took out a convex canvas I had kicking about the studio and knew it would be a great match for the heartsease paperweight I had photographed earlier this fall (sometimes you don’t even know you want to paint something until you photograph it). Here’s how it’s coming along.

Heartsease Paperweight - photo Marie Cameron 2012

I love how the paperweight has trapped the flowers in time.

These heartsease ( aka pansies or violas) symbolize thoughts.

Even more than a painting, a paperweight captures a moment.

Frozen Thoughts Computer Reference Marie Cameron 2012

Printer’s out of ink – I had to access photo from the computer.

Frozen Thoughts in Progress 1 Marie Cameron 2012

I’ve painted in the outlines of the flowers and leaves to establish shapes and flow.

Frozen Thoughts in Progress 2 Marie Cameron 2012

I’ve begun to fill in segments of the flowers and back ground.

I try to develop the reflections to help create the illusion of a glass dome.

Developing richness and detail.

Fine tuning those reflections.

Monterey Cypress Completed

October 12, 2012

Each painting takes its own path. Some paintings effortlessly appear as you draw your paint across the canvas with your brush. Not so often. More frequently you need to do more than just show up. Usually it’s a process of really looking, laying down what you think you see and then really looking again. Sometimes you need to rethink your approach and paint over or scrape off or even toss out and start again. Mostly you need to be brave enough to push yourself and patient enough to let it all unfold.

Marie Cameron Monterey Cypress, Point Lobos oil on canvas 2012

Marie Cameron’s Monterey Cypress, Point Lobos commission oil on canvas 2012

Home to Roost

September 25, 2012

When my paintings went off for exhibition at Breathe there was a huge vacuum created in my home and studio, and you know how nature feels about that, well me too – we abhor it!

It didn’t long for me to tire of all those empty nails and hooks everywhere, and soon enough they all were hung with elaborate vintage frames teasing me with all the endless possibilities of my next new project. Before I knew it the summer had flown by busy as I was with commissions and exhibitions. Now the paintings have returned and displaced those empty frames which are themselves a sort of vacuum and they too long to be filled.

Oh, did I mention that I acquired a casket? I’ll be filling that too, not in a morbid way but with a florilegia flourish.

Cherry Blossom Cluster

September 22, 2012

Watch as I whip up a little 8″ x 8″ Cherry Blossom Cluster painting. You can follow as I lay down values, layer hues, drop in details and edit out the background.