postcards from Brooklyn

Since I have two children with families living in Brooklyn I often am inspired by the shapes and colors I find there to paint.  As a result I have just published another book in what seems to be developing into a series of Postcard books.  This one has lots of images and musings from Brooklyn and has just hit the news stands.  It is available from Amazon for only $15.00.

8:30 Monday Morning

8:30 Monday Morning

Nancy Herman

6" x 8"

oil on canvas board

This guy, waiting for a ride with his lunch in his hand looks ready for the week ahead.  

$150.00

Caught on the Corner

While I try to find a way to make or find a kind of reverse stencil to create soft patterns in water color, I return to oil paint with a renewed appreciation of its properties.  Oh how thick and forgiving it is!

For a while I have been contemplating the way people are attached to their environment.  The time and place we live forms us in so many ways.  I have been dealing with this idea in each painting that includes people but have decided to push it a bit further.  Can I say this in a few simple shapes, carefully choosing the color to enhance the feeling of place and time?

Many times when cruising along the streets in Google maps I come across 2 or three men or women standing on a corner talking.  I always wonder what brought them there.  Here is the first in a series of paintings about that.  I have made the paint very thick, almost like lacquer.

CAUGHT ON THE CORNER

Nancy Herman

9" x 12"

oil on canvas board

$250.00

Stroll by the Park

STROLL BY THE PARK

Nancy Herman

9" x 12"

oil on canvas board

Using more paint and more medium to make the paint juicy causes the paint to shine in some places.  This does not reproduce well. This painting is much more interesting in person.

I managed to fix my broken scanner by following some directions found on line.  It involved taking the whole thing apart by unscrewing parts, finding a broken "flange" and duct taping it down.  Not knowing what a flange was I still was able to find "it" and fix things.  I am so pleased!  I feel like a real handywoman.  Incidentally spell check did not want me to write "handywoman" and kept substituting "handyman".  Little things mean a lot.

$250.00

Red Truck on 7th Avenue

RED TRUCK ON 7TH AVENUE

Nancy Herman

9" x 12"

oil on canvas board

As you probably have noticed I have not been painting much lately as I have been working on writing and illustrating a book.  That work is on hold for a bit so I began again to think about painting.  As usually happens when there is a hiatus in work this caused me to think seriously about what I was doing.  For years I have been trying to use more paint and work with simpler shapes.  Yet I always end up making rather complicated compositions even though I am working quite small.  Apparently I am stuck with a desire to paint a complicated scene so I decided to use the computer to simplify the composition using several "filters" in photoshop.  Then I mixed my paint into a juicy pile and went to work filling the shapes created.  I am enjoying this method.
This is the first painting I completed.  Unfortunately my scanner is broken so I had to take a photo of the painting which leaves it looking quite flat.  It actually has some texture as I am trying to allow the juicy paint to describe the shapes.  The next painting has more texture.  The third in this series is going to be larger so I will have room for even more texture.  It is rather funny I think that it is so difficult for me to use more paint.  I must coax myself into it.

$250.00

SUNNY ON RUGBY ROAD

SUNNY RUGBY STREET

Nancy Herman

6" x 8"

oil on canvas

Love the way the sun caught this yellow house on Rugby Road in Brooklyn's Ditmas Park.  I am especially partial to this street as an important part of my family lives here.

$150.00

Graffiti on Cortelyou

Graffiti on Cortelyou

Nancy Herman

6" x 8"

oil on canvas board 

I interupt my immersion in fall colors for a brief jaunt to Brooklyn to visit children and grandchildren in Park-slope and Ditmus Park.  Here is a shot on Cortelyou Road that looks like it could be from someplace in the middle east.  I love the way the neat graffiti matches the pipe and brings down a little sky.

$150.00

WOMAN AND DOG ON THE CORNER

WOMAN AND DOG ON THE CORNER

Nancy Herman

9" x 12"

oil on canvas board

This woman will be standing on this corner in Parkslope in her flowered dress with her little dog forever, and the man in black will never get where he is going.  Such is the power of a painting or snapshot.  We look back at pictures we have saved and they become our history.  The artist and the photographer shape our memories in ways so subtle we don't even notice.

$350.00

ELLIE IN THE COFFEE SHOP

ELLIE IN THE COFFEE SHOP

Nancy Herman

6" x 8"

oil on canvas board

A snowy day in Brooklyn found me having coffee with my daughter, Ellie, and her new baby, Olive (she doesn't drink coffee yet so was sound asleep) in the Sweet Wolf's Cafe.  Having paintings at the Townhouse Coffee House was such a big success, I decided to find out if I could show here as well.  I met the owner and will have paintings there in June.  This is the first painting done especially for the occasion.

I was very pleased to sell 5 paintings, including 2 larger ones from the Merion coffee house and will be back there in the fall.  It is great to know that people will buy paintings without having anyone giving them a pitch, just because they like them.

The Coffee House has really made a comeback lately as people sit around for hours working on their computers.  They are not in the office or at home alone.  There is at least the illusion of company and good hot coffee and pastries always at the ready.  There were actually people talking to each other as well.

I remember very well 50 years or so ago going to the newly revised version of the coffee house at that time and hearing Phil Oakes sing for the first time.  When somebody takes out a guitar in one of these new places we will have come full circle.

SOLD

THE YELLOW DOOR

Nancy Herman

6" x 8"

oil on canvas board

Another painting from Brooklyn.  I seem to be painting a number of doors lately, although my subject matter is more varied than most.  This quote pretty much sums it up for me. 

"Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door"

Emily Dickenson

$125.00

ARGYLE AND ALBEMARLE ROADS

One of the prettiest streets in Brooklyn is Albemarle Road with a median planted with trees and seasonal flowers.  I am a fan of porches and this one beats all.  I believe this house is one of the ones described in this entry in Wikipedia.
Tomorrow back to Merion.
SOLD

ACROSS THE STREET IN DITMAS PARK

I spent last week in Brooklyn with my two grandsons.  They live in Ditmas Park, a part of Flatbush where there are old Victorian houses like this one, which I painted from their porch.  It was a lovely time to visit as their spring is a little behind ours, so the tulips and flowering trees were in full bloom.  This neighborhood has wonderful old houses with big welcoming porches like this one.
SOLD