Empty Street in Autumn

 This is my street, Latches Lane, where very often there are no cars.  How lucky I am to live here.

EMPTY STREET IN AUTUMN

Nancy Herman

6" x 8"

oil on canvas board

for sale on Dailypaintworks auction.

THREE POPPIES

Every spring I wait with bated breath for the appearance of my Poppies. 

 (By the way this is the only way we use the word bate these days.  It comes from "abate" to hold back.  Since I am a terrible speller I looked up the spelling to be sure and found this funny little poem that uses the incorrect spelling of the word to good "effect"...and why is it not "affect"?  Well I think because in this case it is a noun.)

Geoffrey Taylor

Cruel, Clever Cat, 1933

Sally, having swallowed cheese
Directs down holes the scented breeze
Enticing thus with baited breath
Nice mice to an untimely death.

So much for the grammar discussion.  Here is one of my favorite Poppy paintings.  I recently found a painting done by my grandmother of Poppies so I suppose you could say Poppy painting runs in the family.

THREE POPPIES

Nancy Herman

12" x 16"

oil on stretched canvas

close up

THREE POPPIES

SOLD

$75.00

RED MAPLES AND FOR GET ME NOTS

For Get Me Nots make sure you don't forget them by appearing every spring whether summoned or not.  I love their cheery blueness and welcome them even though they are never exactly where they were intended.  They have a way of their own which makes them truly unforgettable.  

The paintings I am posting lately began years ago and have been updated recently, probably yesterday or the day before.  I am having fun digging in to the old paint to bring it new life.

RED MAPLES AND FOR GET ME NOTS

Nancy Herman

12" x 12"

oil on stretched canvas

$50.00

City Summer

Google maps provide a very interesting glimpse of the world.  You can sit in front of your computer wherever you are and cruise along streets far away or around the corner.  These scenes are not happening in real time but were taken presumably by a car with a camera but it could as easily be a drone.  They are videos frozen in time.  The people will always be caught mid step where they are.  The buildings will always be standing on that street corner.  We have been capturing things forever as humans from the time man carved an image in a shell 540,000  years ago.  But Google maps is a new wrinkle.  You can go almost anywhere in the world where there is a public road and ride down it in the comfort of your home.  This is a strange and wonderful thing.
I am looking for scenes of Philadelphia for a project.  I am really not going to go out with my paint and easel or even my camera to the wilds of the city in this weather.
What to do?  In the comfort of my studio I cruise the streets.  I came across this scene in North Philadelphia that says something to me about living in the city in the summer. I not only was able to find what I was looking for but it was nice and warm there.

          

CITY SUMMER

Nancy Herman

12" x 9"

oil on hard board

$200.00

RED TREE AND YELLOW WALL

RED TREE AND YELLOW WALL

Nancy Herman

12" x 12"

oil on stretched canvas

I have been somewhat besotted this year with the autumn colors. This is a scene from somewhere in Chestnut Hill.  I wanted to paint it to express that wonderful feeling of surprise when you come upon an especially luscious tree in the fall.

This image does not display the texture of the painting.  My scanner is broken and after several months of using masking tape to hold it together I think it has finally given up.  Anyone have a good scanner they can recommend?

$500.00

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