Star Crystal

December 27, 2017

Stars fill the universe. Luminous, their brilliant points of light inspire us. We stare up into the sparkling deep and feel small in its presence.

That's a good thing.

Humility helps us see each other and ourselves more clearly.

 6" x 6"  oil on panel   sold    

Curve Ball

December 20, 2017

Take a break.

Leave off the ly.

See the world different.

6" x 6"  oil on panel   $210    Art in the Morning special

Rodeo Sky 3

December 13, 2017

Your very own picture window.

Aaron Copland invites us to soar.

Just say yes.

 20" x 20" x 1.5" oil on canvas   sold   

Crystal Color

December 6, 2017

'Tis the season...

When you and Santa, or your fellow turkey, sit down for a breather with a gem-colored something, I recommend kicking back with Ray Brown and Christian McBride. Let their basses take you for a walk.

Soon you'll be tappin' and swingin', and doing some call and response of your own. Their invitation is as big and warm as the bass. With a smile.

That's love.

6" x 8"  oil on linen panel   $215    Art in the Morning special

Big River, Gold Land

November 29, 2017

Oh to be a fish that swims within the blue, careening around the river's curves and skimming through its shimmering - to push against the current and feel the bubbles pop against my side.

Or, to be the leaf that turns gold in autumn and quakes in the sunlight to celebrate my glow.

I would like the anonymity of the grasses, whispering in the breeze. Rippling like a squall, now gold, now rust, now turning my hints of green. Without me the river wouldn't look so deep. Without the river, I wouldn't look so gold.

Or to be the river, and flow like water, baby.

9" x 12"  oil on panel      sold   

Quiet Muse

November 22, 2017

I like the way the blurred edges and low value contrast create an atmosphere of veiled light, and a sense of intimacy.

I wish I could paint her every week.

11" x 14""  oil on linen panel   $360    Art in the Morning special

Gold River Autumn

November 15, 2017

It's a gift to soak up nature's beauty, its calm, its integrity - to feel its mass, its weight, its breeze and warmth against my cheek. I never don't love it. Ha! 

It's fun to ask myself what I want to say about it in my painting, and how, so that you can feel it, too. 

I like to push the radiance of the sky to set off the sculptural planes that say "mountain" - even as I ask them both to lie quietly back. 

I always listen for the music in the water. It's a melody that balances my compass needle and helps me find true north. I let the sky dance on the water. I can't help but smile when a fish comes up to kiss the light. Making a little "bloop," it leaves rings in its wake.

9" x 12"  oil on panel     sold

Rodeo Sky 2

November 8, 2017

I think I may have to take up bronco riding.

I sure do love Rodeo Skies!

Don't forget to queue up the Aaron Copland.

20" x 20" x 1.5" oil on canvas   sold   

Big Fountain Peace

November 1, 2017

Peace you can walk right into. Let's go.

24" x 30" x 1.5" oil on canvas    -  please see Cool Big Fountain Peace  

Firewater

October 25, 2017

I needed a huge dose of nature. It delivered! The Valley of Hope in Fall Color.

I made a break for it last Thurdsday ~ high winds with gusts to 45. Holding onto my easel umbrella while I worked had me thinking I was channeling Hemingway, wrestling the fish of a lifetime.

With fiery light and reflected color, racing squalls and occasional calm... it was hilarious and ridiculous.

I just had to laugh at the absurdity, embrace the abstraction, and pretend I was windsurfing with a paintbrush in my hand.

9" x 12"  oil on panel      sold   

Summer Sundae

October 18, 2017

Summer classic, with fall color.

18" x 24" x 1.5" oil on linen   sold  

Strait Green

October 11, 2017

You're always looking for the language of marks. How to speak of atmosphere and light, space and flatness, that which dissolves between here and there - and that which suddenly appears as the sun moves through its day.

The desire to paint pulls me up hillsides unfamiliar, in places I've never been.

One of the rewards is a spectacular view. Another is turning around to find a herd of peaceful beasts munching on the green.

One moseys up to check out my painting. I think I passed muster.

9" x 12" oil on linen panel   sold  

Rodeo Sky

October 4, 2017

Like nature, Aaron Copland's music is transcendent. It soars with grandeur. He surprises us with expansive space, the snap and crack of clashing temperatures, golden light that is metaphorical and real.

He takes me someplace else, and I am always better off for it.

20" x 20" x 1.5" oil on canvas   sold  

Paradise Cove

September 27, 2017

Nestled in this quiet rocky cove, I put my brain in a little boat. I made sure the mast was true and the sail tight. Then I pushed it off from shore and settled back under the shade against the tree.

Watery periwinkle lit up the sand while waves tossed turquoise into the sky. The horizon rolled blue into the beyond.

After hours or days or weeks or years, a little white triangle emerged from the edge of blue. I watched it grow into a sail and then a boat. When it bumped onto the beach I put my brain back in its place and we all went home, happily ever after.

9" x 12" oil on linen panel   sold  

Eyes Wide Open

September 20, 2017

I like her innocence and optimism, her youthful anticipation. I like that she knows life is her library.

I hope she loves the map that will become her, reflecting the globe she travels and her world of experience.

9" x 12" oil on linen panel   $260   Art in the Morning special

Garden Fountain

September 13, 2017

Agua musica en Espanol

11" x 14"  oil on panel   sold   

Jazzin'

September 6, 2017

Jazz celebrates beauty. It is full of swing and brilliance. Even its shadows are luminous.

20" x 20" x 1.5" oil on canvas   $1340   Art in the Morning special

Sky Meadow 1

August 30, 2017

It's good to take your brain outside and let the breeze blow through it. Ahhh.

8" x 10"  oil on linen panel     sold    

Unconsoled

August 23, 2017

When painting anything, we're after more than a likeness. Whether it's plein air or portrait, still life or complete abstraction, we want to evoke as well as tell.

Some days I so get this guy.

12" x 16" oil on linen panel   $320   Art in the Morning special

Blooming Meadow

August 16, 2017

Don't you just love nature's bouquet?!

9" x 12" oil on linen panel   sold  

 Gusher

August 9, 2017

Balanced at the edge of the path above the river's roar, it filled my senses. I sought to tell the story of the water's speed, the power of the turbulence, the slash of yellow light that suddenly cut between the cliffs above and broke rust and sauterne through the water.

I kept the plot simple and focused on nature as it surged. Leaving me excited and breathless its wake.

8" x 10"  oil linen on panel     nfs

Sculpted

August 2, 2017

Painting human "sculpture" means measuring and checking proportion while diving into beauty. It's been a wonderful new challenge working from live models. With no muscle memory, it takes my entire brain. The world falls away. I love it.

Plus, you meet some pretty wonderful, often stunning, people!

They too add to the pursuit of creativity, honing their craft and artistry - while they consider drape and pose, light and shadow - so that we can pursue ours.

11" x 14""  oil on panel   $290    Art in the Morning special

Expansive Spring

July 26, 2017

Ripples, whispers, plops and pops,

Trickles, tangels, twinkles, and laughing waters,

Burbles and burps, babbles and bubbles,

It's the best talk therapy I know of.

9" x 12" oil on linen panel  

Spring Green

July 19, 2017

Seek and ye shall find. I don't know who said it, but it sure works for me.

Following that bird wasn't such a bad idea, either.

9" x 12" oil on linen panel   sold  

Amber

July 12, 2017

The subject is not the thing. The subject is what one is trying to say, the thing or the scene or the figure, is the vehicle.

When choosing a scene or setting up a still life, or observing the model, I get to be playwright and director, choreographer and stage lighting expert. What I want to say influences my choices in what I choose to paint.

Once I do that, I make myself slow down and ask, What is this painting about? How do I determine the focal point of the message? How do I marshall my tools - the composition, the light, my color choices. What strokes are blurry and which are crisp. What can I eliminate. Everything is to serve the painting.

On this piece I had orchestral assistance from Duke Ellington's "The Beautiful American."

20" x 20" x 1.5" oil on canvas    sold  

Sparkling Spring

July 5, 2017

Find yourself a river, a creek, a watery patch, a sea of grass. Watch the light bounce. Find the abstraction. Play in its patterns.

Seek the life that it supports, in sound, and in movement. Let's sit down together and spend some time there.

Let's listen and breathe, and just be silent.

9" x 12" oil on linen panel  

Luminous Spring

June 28, 2017

I love the unpredictable that is plein air. You never know what gift nature will give you. It usually comes with a challenge to make it that much sweeter. Whether it's cold, rain, snow, ice, bugs or bats or snakes in the grass, grizzly awareness in the Tetons or a moose drawing a bead by a pond... or simply just too much visual information to make sense of, the beauty and the beast keeps me coming back.

As my thoughts develop, so does the day. The sun climbs, frozen ground begins to thaw, streams move from ice to flowing blue.

Today's gift was the clouds moving in to catch the bounce of light off the backside of this mountain, creating a room of light. Luminous and glowing.

I understand why birds break out in song.

9" x 12" oil on linen panel   sold  

Quiet Cup

June 21, 2017

The longest day of the year, it's a good thing.

It's the launch of the season of road trips, maps spread out on the table, and coffee a in classic diner along the way. Early dawns and late sunsets, sand in your toes, big books balanced on your stomach. Evening brings the cooing of doves and nightshade plants scenting the night.

Happy Summer Solstice.

6" x 6"  oil on panel   $190    Art in the Morning special

Alpine Brilliance

June 14, 2017

I loved being out in freshly fallen May snow. The old humps of meadow grass cracked with ice as I walked. Birds weren't warm enough to sing until late morning. Cloaked in a whole lotta layers, I was prepped for wind and a high of 41.

The mountain sang its own song. Brilliant morning sun on that new snow told me the "about-ness" of this painting. The cold temps helped me cut to the chase with clear and telling shapes of form and value, light and shadow.

Jumping jacks and running in place to keep the blood in my fingers had the birdies wondering what strange creature had come to roost.

9" x 12" oil on linen panel   sold

What If...

I love the balance of this composition and the way it heightens her sense of stillness, as she wonders, What if...

11" x 14""  oil on panel   $230    Art in the Morning special

Waterplay

May 31, 2017

Fountains are a means to a meditative calm. I love that in Spain you find fountains everywhere. They are part of their culture.

Tucked into garden corners, on pathways and major boulevards, in plazas and private courtyards, they change the space and temperature around them. The simultaneous music and sense of quiet invites one to sit. (Or, paint!)

They sparkle in the blazing Spanish sun near refective pools, and burble quietly like cooing birds in verdant shade.

Feel the calm.

11" x 14"  oil on panel   sold       

Weather Report

May 24, 2017

Palm fronds play percussion as clouds roil above. I like the bit of theater they create as a backdrop to the weather vane and cupola.

I feel like I'm in a tropic novel and wonder what's about to unfold.

Plus, I just really like that weather vane against that sky.

8" x 10"  oil on panel   $430    Art in the Morning special

Turquoise Surf

A study in contrasting textures and light, I set up in the wind-shadow of a tree.

Turbulent waters whipped by the wind crash against gritty volcanic rock. Birds of white toss about overhead. Turquoise breaks clear on the sand as the far shore holds the warmth of golden sun.

9" x 12" oil linen on panel   sold  

Tulip Blaze

May 10, 2017

Birds of the flower, they spread their wings and take flight.

6" x 8"  oil on linen panel   sold  

Tropic Tapestry

May 3, 2017

Roll out of bed, walk out the door, and start painting. Bliss.

Who knew lizards were so curious. They investigate everything I do. Backlit by the sun, their hot-orange throat bellows in and out before they impress me with their push-ups. Wild chickens worry their way through my scene.

Night brings a pile of stars spilled across the sky.

Stop the world, I want to get off? You betch'ya. Right here.

9" x 12" oil linen on panel   sold

Volcano Sunrise

April 26, 2017

Morning. The world is splashed in unfamiliar color and sound. Jungle on all four sides and no muscle-memory for these surroundings. Terrific!!

Please, Mr. Bill. Don't make me go home.

9" x 12" oil linen on panel   sold  

Spring Melt, River Wide

April 19, 2017

I threw my gear in the car and drove out of the mountains of white stuff  surrounding us in the Sierra. It was good to see it in liquid form as it rushed and gushed and stretched out across the land.

Under pearly light, the powerful currents plowed over islands and swirled into eddies. The air was moist and verdant, hinting of green buds about to push through and brighten the day.

Red-Tailed hawks fed two little heads in their nest. A humming bird did vertical drops, only to soar straight upward, making sure that I wouldn't even think of pitching a tent on his ground.

Egrets and Great Blue herons flew by in origami grace. As I looked up from my painting, a Merganser and I shared a startled expression as he whizzed by at 30 miles an hour, afloat on the watery autostrade.

8" x 10"  oil on panel   $450    Art in the Morning special

Raw

April 12, 2017

Hatch an idea cracked sunny side up over easy yolk on you egghead which came first hardboiled... wait, why did you cross the road?

Seeing things fresh.

6" x 6"   oil on panel    sold   

Haiku Orchid

April 5, 2017

Orchid under roof

blooms break against winter moon

Snow walls, silent, rise

8" x 10"  oil on linen panel      Art in the Morning special

Imagine

Wonder.

Conjure.

Magical.

What isn't... What if.

5" x 8" sketchbook    nfs

Winter's Glow

March 22, 2017

Snow creates its own language of light.

Stab a ski pole in on a sunny day in the Sierra and you see a pool of clear watery turquoise. It could be your portal to the Bahamas. The high-altitude light is brilliant as it bounces around in there.

When there is a storm, and it subsides near end of day, the skies remain pearly in their overcast. The light is a cooler, purple-gray, with a peach wash across the snow.

Clouds parting to clear, set the forest a-blaze in backlight from the retiring sun. And the snowy floor flashes with bits of hot color like ember glow.

I love that, like with any language, the more you use it, the more aware and fluent you become.

8" x 10" oil linen on panel   sold  

Tropic Glass

March 15, 2017

I keep hearing people say, "I gotta head to somewhere I can wear shorts and flip-flops."

Here's a bit of tropic, Gauguin color for you. Cheers.

6" x 8"  oil on linen panel   sold    

Still Life with Books

March 8, 2017

A quiet day of reflection.

8" x 10" oil on panel    sold   

Stormy Winter Light

March 1, 2017

I had voices on my shoulder as I painted this. Usually when this happens it's some old-school master-artist type.

This time, it was an ornery Calvin, hurling opinions and gestures. "Really?! Painting isn't hard enough? You're going to try to paint that?!"

Meanwhile, a suave Hobbes, cocks his eyebrow and slips his arms into sleeves saying, "I like to say smock! Smock! Smock! Smock!"   

5" x 7" oil on panel    sold   

Unmoored

February 22, 2017

Art is my compass.

9" x 12" oil linen on panel  

Rose

February 15, 2017

Love. It's a communicable medicine.

6" x 6"   oil on panel    sold

Stormy Orchid

February 8, 2017

How can a person not fall in love with paint. It's music in living color. Marks that crash and lick and kiss and stumble, caress and burn and shadow and scumble.

Discordant and melodic, like a musician, we know not where they'll lead. Beauty or mud, joy or despair. I have a picture of de Kooning in my studio. His face is snarling. His body is spent. He looks like he's been wrestling with a lion. But it was just his painting.

I love that during weeks of being snowed in, playing the part of a human shovel against mounting walls too high to reach, I can set up an impromptu studio in the middle of the living room, and paint my stormy orchids.

6" x 8"  oil on linen panel   sold

Wake-up Call

February 1, 2017

Lately, I wake up with more questions than I took to bed. Thank you for being a part of how I find meaning. Trying to create a little beauty and a moment of calm for others helps me find a way forward.

6" x 6"   oil on panel     sold   

Winter Morning Cup

January 25, 2017  

The morning sunlight on the ceiling always tells me if it's snowed. Cooler and bluer, the light comes in sideways.

Yellow dapples bouncing about, and bass drum thuds of melting snow, tell me if the sun is shining. The nuthatch outside trumpets reveille.

My socks of many colors hit the floor in pursuit of something warm to fill my cup.

8" x 8"  oil on panel   $230    Art in the Morning special

Noir- Lew Archer

January 18, 2017  

Lew Archer was Ross Macdonald's fictional solitary gumshoe. His detecting skills were applied to the fleshy underbelly of the west coast in the 1950s and '60s.

Against a soundtrack of new jazz and the churning oil pumps and bulldozers of land deals, water deals and oil deals, he tried to keep the weak from getting carved up along with the land.

Dark and moody and full of atmosphere, at the end of the day, there was always a bit of California sunlight in the bottom of his glass.

(Part of my series of glasses representing different fictional noir detectives.)

5" x 7" oil on museum board    sold   

Spanish Flower

January 11, 2017  

When I'm feeling snowed-in, metaphorically or literally, nature's simple beauty usually helps me find a source of light.

5.5 x 5.5 sketchbook    nfs

Calm

January 4, 2017  

Peace.

Three feet of fresh snow at our house makes the world a padded cell of silence and beauty. The calligraphy of Flickers and Chickadees, squirrels and rabbit tracks embossed on the snow, tells me what my neighbors are up to.

In the unexpected pause, I have a moment to reflect on the importance of kindness - often under-estimated and so easy to practice. We all know how much the smallest gesture can change our day.

I feel lucky to have you to help me spread my brand of kindness and color, and the chance to take a pause with peace.

8" x 10" x 1.5"     oil on canvas     sold    

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The Book!

"Art in the Morning" is my way to greet the day. What began as an attempt to make the world a kinder place through art, has turned into nine years, and running, of weekly paintings accompanied by my musings on nature, painting, life, and jazz. 

Once a week I send out an email with a painting, hot off my easel, for you to enjoy with your morning cup of coffee/ tea/ chocolate before you dive in to your work day. It's just a moment to relax. 

It's my attempt to make art a part of our every day lives. All of the arts should get out of the cloisters and into the moment. Any moment.

Share it with a friend. If they want to receive it regularly, they can just send me an email with "Please Add" in the subject line. I never share your address.

Email me: Kit@KitNight.com  (this is not a link)

Night has no "K".

Thanks and enjoy!

- Kit

Thanks for all of the great sales of my book of the same name. After many printings it is now sold out.