I've been busy working on coastal landscapes for a while so for a break I did a charcoal drawing of my daughter during the Thanksgiving holiday.

Battle of Gettysburg

This past weekend my husband, daughter and I went to tour the Gettysburg battlefield. We started with the auto tour and stopped at various places along the way to climb the viewing tower and climb on the rocks at Little Roundtop. Then we went through the museum and saw the movie, but my favorite part was seeing the cyclorama oil painting completed in 1884 by French artist Paul Philippoteaux.

The "Battle of Gettysburg" depicts the battle called Pickett's charge that took place on July 3, 1863. He had a team of assistants help him finish it in a year and a-half. The painting is 359 feet long, 27 feet high and weighs 3 tons! I have never seen a circular painting before so this was a new experience for me. When you go up into the room, the lights are low and then they use lights to direct your attention to the various events of the day. There are so many dead soldiers and horses... it is really overwhelming. (photo from national park service)

November Art League Show

At the Art League Gallery this month the theme is small works and large works. One of my small works, Rock Study, got into the show. The juror for the small works part of the show is Dr. Susan Frank, an assistant curator at the Phillips Collection. The show will be up through November.

Rembrandt and Lievens

I just finished reading Rembrandt The Painter at Work by Ernst Van de Wetering, so when I saw that the National Gallery was having a show called Jan Lievens, A Dutch Master Rediscovered, I recognized the name. Lievens started out as a friendly rival to Rembrandt and they shared many of the same techniques. It was great to go see some of the techniques up-close. One of the techniques that they shared was to use the other end of the brush to create embossed lines, squiggles, in the hair and beard. It is just so surprising to see it. It's like they were having fun and that's just not something that I would ever imagine. It was also great to see the textures up-close like the fur and gold-embossed capes. Also, there were some really beautiful etchings of old men. (photo from nga)