Harlequin

December 28, 2016  

A painting often heads off with a mind of its own. While I was seeking merriment, it invites along mystery and drama, the serendipity of melody and the pitter-patter of pattern.

Soon, there is a knock on the door and in comes a juggler with eight balls in the air and a guy on a unicycle. Say, what?!

By the end of the night the lady with lungs arrives and belts out an aria that brings us to our toes. But somehow, she makes it swing.

Now we're talkin'.

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

Night Light

December 21, 2016  

Like that famous guy is known to have said, we'll leave the light on for ya.

6" x 6"  oil on panel     sold   

Firelight in a Glass

December 14, 2016  

Here's to building a fire against the vortex outside, and inviting someone in to be warmed by it.

After breaking bread and sharing a glass in the golden glow, the night has lost its chill.

Here's to good will.

5" x 7" oil on canvas   sold  

Fruit Jar

December 7, 2016

One day it's on a shelf in her pantry. Another day it's holding gem-like preserves. Monday, it's the perfect good morning juice glass. That day it was something to remember her by. This day it was fun to paint.

Beauty is most anywhere we look for it.

5" x 7" oil on museum board    sold  

Plum Ready Warmth

November 30 , 2016

Like most mountain ranges, the Sierra is filled with micro-climates. Ours just left us with a great blast of snow - twenty inches of fresh stuff on our deck has the little red wood stove warming up the corners.

Maybe that's why the red on my palette called out to splash about. Produce and pottery and coming indoors to paint today speak of winter's arrival. I'm ready for a good book by the fire.

Nice that the author is cooking while he cooks up a new plot.

5" x 7" oil on panel   $140   Art in the Morning Holiday special

Warmth from Within

November 23 , 2016

As a painter, I've learned that the colors on my palette breathe life into me. When the world is dark, my colors make it glow. Dipping from this pool and that, I play cool against warm, dark within the light, dull against brilliant. It takes both, and all, to make a painting sing.

The same is true for me in life. I find all the colors in the human rainbow make life sing. They surprise me and take me places I never intended to go. I find confusion and understanding. Just like the process of painting, life is a continual spectrum of learning. Thank goodness.

This Thanksgiving, I am giving thanks to the rainbow that has helped me find who I am. The friends and neighbors near and far, the people who have taught me of life, and the ones I have yet to meet.

6" x 8"  oil on linen panel   sold    

Forest Understory

November 16, 2016

Beneath the majestic Redwood canopy lies the understory. It smells earthy, and green with humidity. These smaller trees lean, tossed about like a storm just blew through.

Amid arches and ribs and reaching arms, the stillness and shadows are complete.

Until a songbird unleashes his heart, brightening the filtered light. His magic turns the darkness to mystery. The light, to possibility.

9" x 12" oil linen on panel   $340   Art in the Morning special

The Second Coming

November 9, 2016

"Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; ..."

- William Butler Yeats

6" x 6"  oil on panel   sold     

Moonlit Glass

November 2, 2016

Glass is exciting to paint.

Often the subject of a painting isn't about the thing, it's about the light or the abstraction, the mood or the atmosphere. Glass lets me do all of the above. I get to push space forward and back. I get to lead your eye in and through and back and around. Like firelight, glass lets your eye roam and your mind relax.

The light skates in on a moonbeam. Then, as the jazz singers say, I get to hit you with a hot note and watch it bounce.

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

Before Dawn

October 26, 2016

I raise my cup of joe to the artists and makers of things, who rise before dawn at 1:30, silently moving through their hotel room in respect of sleeping guests, sipping their cup of extra-strong brew while they wait for their brains to catch up.

Off into the night we go, trying not to bump the van horn or slam a car door. We slide down unfamiliar streets we rehearsed from maps the night before.

On site, we don our head lamps and look for our booth location chalked in the street. At such a ridiculous hour, 99% of these people are kind and helpful. We try to be good neighbors. Some are gregarious storytellers while others prefer silence in the shadows. Some have Ph.D.s in physics or English, others are citizens who sculpt the air with exotic accents of elongated vowels or diphthongs. Many have both. Frankly, it's a highly-educated bunch.

With stealth and muscle memory, all of us move with purpose. We construct stores and studios on the spot. We look at how best to display what is our passion and our meaning.

Speaking for myself, I chose this more rugged route after enjoying showing and selling in galleries. I prefer to meet the people who collect my work. I love hearing their stories and meeting their families. It's a gift to get the chance to say "Thank you," and give them a hug. 

What I really love is the opportunity to bring some kindness into the world. Through art and color and human connection, I have this chance to make life a little nicer or more beautiful for someone else. I feel pretty lucky.

8" x 8"  oil on panel   $260    Art in the Morning special

Granada

October 19, 2016

I love the way travel shrinks the world and increases our understanding of other cultures. On the way to teaching my Italy workshop this spring, we sought out the Spanish architecture and landscapes which have fueled painters for centuries.

Granada was such a place. Within its white walls, the narrow, winding cobbled streets lead to the adventurous overlooks one discovers while being lost - full of radiant sunsets and the frequent sense of emerging from cool dark into blazing light.

Each turn brought visions of Moorish-influenced courtyards in handsomely-carved dark wood. Alhambra's stunning beauty of Muslim-influenced fountains and pools, domed ceilings and acres gardens, provide peace and aesthetic vision.

I felt the good fortune of getting outside myself.

5.5 x 5.5 sketchbook    nfs

River Bend

October 12, 2016

Wind whips over the meadow grass as moisture-laden clouds roll in. A raptor drops from the sky to score a fish, his omega-3 supplement for dinner.

But below the water's surface, all is a cool blue-green glide of calm.

24" x 30" x 1.5"  oil on canvas    sold     Art in the Morning special

Apples Re-imagined

October 5, 2016

24" x  24" oil on stretched canvas   sold  

Reflecting Pools

September 28, 2016

9" x 12" oil on panel   $230   Art in the Morning special

Watching

September 21, 2016

Looking

Observing

Considering

Measuring

Empathizing

Watching

8" x 8" oil on panel    nfs

Summer Gold

September 14, 2016

Like the rest of us, sometimes nature doesn't want to let go of summer. Love those glorious golden days

9" x 12" oil on panel    sold  

September Glass

September 7, 2016

Seasons turn in all things. We find beauty in the everyday.

6" x 8"  oil on linen panel  sold  

Pickett's Green

August 31, 2016

Nature and paint. What could be better.

9" x 12" oil on linen panel    sold    

Good Morning Lucille

August 24, 2016

My muse, Lucille, calls. Painting her brings scenes of another time, another vehicle, visions from the American landscape... the sounds of whirring grasshoppers and melodic meadowlarks stream in through the open windows. I rumble over gravel roads like a crop-duster, leaving plumes in my wake.

The scents of hay and cut grass fill the air. Plots of brilliant green grass and crisp white buildings dazzle in the sunlight. Red barns pop against cornflower-blue skies.

No doubt a coke machine with rounded edges and a long-legged girl in short-shorts, immortalized on some poster, wait just up the road, around that bend.

8" x 10" oil on linen panel   sold    

On the Road - La Toilette

August 17, 2016

An aside - I think the French must have special skills. How else could they keep their expansive universe of vowels straight?!

6" x 8" oil on panel   sold

Big Mountain Splendor

August 10, 2016

 24" x 30" x 1.5"  oil on canvas     sold   Art in the Morning special

Glass Harmonies: Agua

August 3, 2016

Looks like sunlight and water and cool fresh air. Here's to summer.

36" x 40" x 1.5"  oil on canvas     $3700 sold     Art in the Morning special

Lighthouse Shore

July 27, 2016

A piece of time preserved - nostalgic, historic, a way of life. It's a landmark beauty.

6" x 8" oil on panel   sold    

Olive

July 20, 2016

Near as I can tell, it's so good for you!... Not only is it great on pasta e insalata, you can use it on your popcorn, as a dessert topping, and as a skin moisturizer... who knows? Maybe it will even clean your floor.

6" x 6"  oil on panel    sold    

Conviction

July 13, 2016

9" x 12" oil on linen panel    nfs

Morning Calm

July 6, 2016

A peaceful morning in the corner office.

9" x 12" oil on linen panel    $290 sold     Art in the Morning special

Yes, Chef

June 29, 2016

My lunchtime reading has been, Yes, Chef, an inspiring memoir about the power of persistence and grit, by Marcus Samuelsson.

Through his artform he has found a way to mark humanity with goodness.

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

Pienza

June 22, 2016

While my workshop painters get a private tour of a gelato maker's special craft, I grab a moment in the lavender shade under a portico to sketch a cathedral.

They arrive in a rainbow of happiness.

5.5 x 5.5 sketchbook    nfs

Local Color

June 15, 2016

Bobbing boats and buoys, the visual crackle of reflected highlights and water-sparkle, the snap and snugging of boat lines as they tighten and ebb in rhythm to the waves.

Just another midday quiet in a seaside Italian village.

9" x 12" oil on panel    sold    

A Table with a View

Bells ring on the breeze through the open-window table-side view to the climbing Tuscan town. My paints are stored for a moment to savor it all.

Brubeck and Desmond play Take Five to the quiet Italian conversation that surrounds.

It's all music, the universal language.

5.5 x 5.5 sketchbook    nfs

Tuscan Village

Who said it's a dog's life?

10" x 10"  oil on linen panel   sold  

Boats Afloat

May 25, 2016

I have an undying attraction to boats.The simpler, the better. I love their vessel shape, and the independence and industry they inspire.

I love their ability to transport one silently to places beyond - both physically and metaphorically.

9" x 12" oil on panel   sold    

Up and Away

May 18, 2016

It pays to put down our phones and look at what's around us.

Have sketchbook, will sketch.

5.5 x 5.5 sketchbook   nfs

Blue-sky Clouds

May 11, 2016

If you need a cure for what ails, look up. To the sky or the universe, they're bigger than us.

And if you can, add some further mood-altering effects with Louis Armstrong on trumpet and Trummy Young on trombone, playing, "I'm Crazy 'Bout My Baby" - on, Satch Plays Fats.

Theirs is the perfect call and response. Full of swing and ebulliance, their music embraces life and lifts all who listen.

24" x 24" x 1.5"  oil on canvas   sold  

Wallflower No More

May 4, 2016

Big and bold, and leaning into everything!

Something tells me her boots are made for walkin' and she just won't be taken for granted.

6" x 8"  oil on linen panel   sold    

In Memory

April 27, 2016

Those we love live on in how they continue to shape us.

And in how they continue to make us laugh.

5" x 7" oil on panel     nfs

Portrait Sketch - In Thought

April 20, 2016

Pensive? No, just thinking.

(It's a family phrase.)

4 x 6  graphite in sketchbook nfs

Spring Melt

April 13, 2016

The moods of quiet color, and the notes of freshly-melted snow tumbling into riverflow and waterfall, create a springtime melody all their own.

8" x 16"  oil on linen panel  $430    Art in the Morning special

Landscape Beginnings

April 6, 2016

Laying-in the composition is one of my favorite phases of a painting. It's full of jazz and bounce, pacing, and the design of the negative space between the notes.

This is when I get to make use of what I've learned from Miles and Coltrane, composing the density and openess, the speed through some areas, then slowing down the eye, avoiding the stasis of repetition.

With the addition of color comes the influence of Armstrong and Ellington.

8" x 16"  oil on panel  sketch for the painting above    

Ruby Onion

March 30, 2016

Food gurus often praise the health benefits of onions.

What they neglect to mention is the wonderful wash of endorphins one gets when you pull out your paintbox and splash all of that juicy color about.  

6" x 6"  oil on panel   sold    

Dutch Treat

There is a reason most kids name tulips as their favorite flower. In their box-of-8 color-crayon hues, nothing says "Happy Springtime" better.

While we remain thrilled to be getting snow in the Sierra, there is springtime in the fresh, humid air. And maybe in a flower bed near you.

Sow some wildflowers and wish the honeybees well this year. They need your support.

8" x 10" oil on panel    sold  

Sketchbook in Hand - Desktop

March 16, 2016

Here's to a clean desktop after your tax prep is done.

Looking good.

5.5 x 5.5 sketchbook nfs

River Delta

March 9, 2016

The landscape is like music. It can draw you into deep spaces you never even knew existed.

9" x 12" oil on linen panel    sold    

On the Road - Work

March 2, 2016

Whistle while you work.

Cook while you write.

Have microwave, will travel.

Road life is made nicer by home-cooked meals and the quiet to continue working in your room at night. The other big treat is what waits on the other side.

This time I'm a guest speaker, leading an animated critique session with Placer Arts in Auburn CA. Always a blast!

Joining a bunch of painters and drawers, photographers and collage artists is exciting stuff. Creating is solitary work. So it's great to see everyone being so supportive and thoughtful, striving to improve their work and helping others to do likewise.

Meanwhile, back at the hotel, I grab a moment to sketch a writer's solitary work - even as he cooks dinner on the side.

And he says he can't multi-task.

5.5 x 5.5 sketchbook nfs

Sunlit Lucille

February 24, 2016

Some subjects are meant to be revisited. Michelangelo had his Pietas. Cezanne had his apples. Bacon had his angst-ridden dark figures boxed in cages. Hockney had his pools. Van Gogh had his sunflowers.

I have Lucille. I just love her classic lines, her chubby front, her can-do, go-to attitude.

I love the nostalgia she conjures, which comes with the whisper of civility.

8" x 10" oil on linen panel   sold     

Seven Words

February 17, 2016

Seven words to describe a delightful seven-year old whom we could all learn from: Engaged, Playful, Curious, Creative, Ironic, Generous, Cursive.

That middle-ish one refers to her word-study du jour of the difference between ironic and sarcastic.The next one lands a tulip in a bottle on your studio doorstep.

That last one includes handwritten Thank You notes with Bravissima Rainbows. Pretty dang swell.

6" x 8"  oil on linen panel   sold  

Radiant Winter River

February 10, 2016

What fortune to be painting in the Sierra, where the precipitation is currently 115% of normal, (yeah!) The high-altitude sun beams warmth to keep me toasty, and brilliant light to keep the colors radiant.

Snow becomes a flowing river before my eyes.

Wherever you are, it pays to get outside. The ultimate refreshment.

9" x 12" oil on linen panel   sold    

Noir - Travis McGee

February 3, 2016

Travis McGee is a lanky-limbed knight and slayer of modern-day dragons in the post-Korean War era. Tanned and stoic, rough-cut yet suave, he cruises the waters of Fort Lauderdale for adventure and the airing of existential demons. Aboard his boat, The Busted Flush, his compass charts a course where "integrity is not a conditional word."

Restoring saved maidens on deck, a day that began with a dreadful lemon sky, comes to a close under an expansive rose-colored sunset - accompanied by Plymouth gin on the rocks and Peggy Lee's Fever on the turntable.

(This is part of an ongoing series of glasses I am painting in recognition of the terrific American Noir detective stories. Travis McGee's author was John D. MacDonald, one of the original environmentalists and ranter of rants on the same.)

5" x 7" oil on panel   sold

Winter's Magical Mystery

January 27, 2016

Like a woman's back, or a man's hands, nature's features have a story to tell. In its tendons and roots, its lush foliage in times of abundance, or its feral bones when there is no skin on the land, we come to know its history. And its beauty.

Such a gift to move within its light.

6" x 8" oil on panel   sold    

Sunlit Persimmon

January 20, 2016

Like sunrise on a winter day.

8" x 8" oil on linen panel    sold    

Due Cappuccino, per favore

January 13, 2016

Travel is an adventure that takes us outside our comfort zone. It shrinks the world and increases understanding and empathy. We discover new things about ourselves while we explore unimagined beauty.

We also discover things we don't want to live without!

10" x 10" oil on linen panel    sold    

A Well-used Chair

January 6, 2016

Chairs mirror the lives they've led. Whether it be elegantly polished and embroidered, or utilitarian and functional, a chair's posture reflects its engagement with others.

Like us, it has a history of rooms. It shares in adventures imagined, books read and maybe written, and offers a companionable place by the wood stove.

Drawing a chair is kind of like drawing a self-portrait. A lived life comes with wrinkles and pouches and a weak joint or two. It develops a capable style all its own.

5.5 x 5.5 sketchbook nfs

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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 six 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

For more book details, please visit my Home Page. Read reviews at Amazon. A kind book for the holidays. Fifty-nine dollars plus sales tax (CA) and flat-rate post.