Food For Friends Pt.2

photo by Kurt Lacourrege

Thank you for your generous support! The total amount of donation to Second Harvest Food Bank has exceeded one thousand dollars during the first round of Food For Friends campaign and studio sale.

For the second round, I have a list of plein air paintings from the streets of New Orleans, Chalmette Battlefield, Jackson Barracks Military Museum at the edge of Orleans Parish, and the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain. Quite a few pieces from the first round are also still available: Visit this page for your consideration.

Like the first round, 50% of all proceeds go to Second Harvest Food Bank of Greater New Orleans and Acadiana, a non-profit feeding those in need throughout Southern Louisiana. If you have a preferred organization in need of COVID-19 related donations, please let me know and I will donate your portion to them instead. 

Interested? Send me an email at kaorinola@gmail.com with Food For Friends in subject line, and include the number & title of the piece you'd like to purchase, your full name, shipping address, and phone number in the body of your email. Then we will arrange payment method, and pickup/delivery/shipment. I will also send you a proof of donation. 

Local pickup in uptown New Orleans is welcome and delivery is available within the greater New Orleans area. UPDATE: I ask you to chip in 50% of domestic ground shipping if the cost is over $20, and please inquire about expedited or international shipping with extra fee.

Hope to see you all safe and well when this health crisis subsides.

Kaori

#E1 - New Orleans Botanical Gardens (plein air)
12"x16" canvas board
250

#E2 - Staple Goods on St. Roch Ave. (plein air)
12"x16" muslin on flat wood panel
250

#E3 - Mississippi River at the Foot of Canal St. (plein air)
12"x16" canvas board
250

#E4 - Uptown Cemetery: workshop demo (studio)
12"x16" canvas board
250

#E5 - Camp at Harmony, Garden District (plein air)
12"x16" canvas board
250

#E6 - Chalmette Battlefield I (plein air)
8"x12" RayMar panel
200

#E7 - Chalmette Battlefield II (plein air)
8"x12" RayMar panel
200

#347 - B26, Jackson Barracks (plein air)
10"x20" stretched canvas
250

#368 - Jeep I, Jackson Barracks (plein air)
10"x20" stretched canvas
250

#369 - Jeep II, Jackson Barracks (plein air)
14"x18" stretched canvas
300

#370 - Jeep III, Jackson Barracks (plein air)
14"x18" stretched canvas
300

#376 - Arabi Water Tower (plein air)
24"x18" stretched canvas
450

#344 - Fontainebleau State Park (plein air)
12"x16" flat wood panel
250

#345 - Freedom study, Madisonville (plein air)
12"x12" flat wood panel
200

#347 - Closed Today, Slidell (plein air)
18"x24" stretched canvas
450

Lagniappe! 

Here are some photos of me painting "Closed Today" in Slidell, LA in April 2018, by Kurt Lacourrege, who happened to drive by and caught me in my natural habitat: by the ditch. Thank you, Kurt!

photo by Kurt Lacourrege

photo by Kurt Lacourrege

photo by Kurt Lacourrege

Food For Friends

Dear friends,

How are you doing? I hope you're feeling well and all is safe.

Here in New Orleans the situation is not looking great. Luckily I am still healthy and so are my immediate family members. But there are many, many people who are not so lucky, and I want to help, with your help.

It may be difficult for some of you to even think about helping others. With that in mind, below is what I'd like to present: please read on if you're in a position to help.

I have set up a Food For Friends campaign and studio sale here.

50% of all proceeds go to Second Harvest Food Bank of Greater New Orleans and Acadiana, a non-profit with a long history of feeding those in need throughout Southern Louisiana. With the onset of COVID-19 they have expanded their already wide reaching operation to include feeding healthcare workers and first responders, service industry and gig workers (that's me), public school children, and practically anyone who needs to eat. They deliver meals door-to-door to seniors and disabled, and in addition to monetary donations, they're accepting fresh produce and non-perishable food, cleaning/sanitation supplies, and volunteers.

Many of the small oil paintings below were created as experiments (except for one that was made for a group show), and there may be minor irregularities in size and shape. Some have been on my website for a while with higher prices. All are in oil, and come in three different grounds: archival paper, canvas boards, or stretched canvas. Canvas boards I use are considered non-archival, although they will definitely last for our lifetime. All in all, the pieces are priced at minimum for this campaign.

Interested? Send me an email at kaorinola@gmail.com with Food For Friends in subject line. Please include the number & title of the piece you'd like to purchase, your full name, shipping address, and phone number in the body of your email. Then we will arrange payment and pickup/delivery/shipment. I will also send you a proof of donation.

Local pickup in uptown New Orleans is welcome and delivery is available within the greater New Orleans area. Domestic ground shipping is free. Please inquire about expedited or international shipping with extra fee.

If you're in New Orleans area and interested in my larger pieces on my website, please inquire to arrange a private, social-distanced viewing in person. And let me know of your preferred organizations in need of COVID-19 related donations. Unfortunately I cannot ship my larger pieces at this time.

Like many of you, I had to ask my parents to stay home and not go out unless it is absolutely necessary. Since they live in Japan I can not bring groceries to them, and they don't have a coordinated support like the one Second Harvest offers. If you have neighbors who are older or disabled, please check on them and say hello as much as you can. And please take care of yourselves and your community.

Best,

Kaori


oil on archival paper (unframed)

433 - Adams Street Grocery II
14"x10" image, 15"x11" paper
200

432 - Annunciation and Melpomene (plein air)
14"x10" image, 15"x11" paper
200

431 - Tchoupitoulas and Orange (plein air)
10"x14" image, 11"x15" paper
200

413 - Hooly, Inc.: N. Alexander near Conti (plein air)
10.25"x14" image, 11"x15" paper
200

412 - Stop: Conti and N. Olympia (plein air)
10"x14" image, 11"x15" paper
200

417 - Rust IV
13.5"x10" image, 15"x11.25" paper
250

416 - Rust III
13.5"x9.75" image, 15"x11" paper
250

415 - Rust II
12.75"x10" image, 14"x11.25" paper
sold

414 - Rust I
12.75"x10" image, 14"x11.25" paper
250

oil on board (unframed)

377 - Behind the VA: Banks and Rocheblave (plein air)
16"x12" canvas board
250

375 - French Quarter Alleyway: Iberville and Clinton (plein air)

8"x12" muslin on Gatorboard

220

374 - View from Maurepas: Dauphine and Louisa (plein air)
10"x20" canvas board
250

373 - View from the Bomb Factory: N. Robertson and Japonica (plein air)
12"x8" muslin on Gatorboard
sold

372 - Neutral Ground: St. Roch and N. Villere (plein air)
8"x10" muslin on hardboard
sold

oil on 7/8" deep stretched canvas (unframed)

407 - Redemptorist Gym: Josephine near Constance (plein air)
10"x20" stretched canvas
300

406 - Royal at Clouet (plein air)
10"x20" stretched canvas
sold

405 - Laurel at Josephine (plein air)
10"x20" stretched canvas
300

404 - St. Alphonsus (plein air)
18"x14" stretched canvas
sold

403 - Architect Street (plein air)
14"x18" stretched canvas
sold

387 - Didn't See You
12"x9" stretched canvas
200

Ghost Ship v. Zorn Palette Redux

For the first time in 2-3 years (I can't remember exactly how long) I painted en plein air, and the first two didn't turn out too well. I'm blaming the small size of the panel surface instead of my technical inability to produce masterpieces(!) those two times.

The first painting was made in Fontainebleau State Park in Mandeville, LA, which is a 40 minute drive north from New Orleans, facing Lake Pontchartrain. It was pure nature with water, sky, white sand, and some tall grass on a 12"x16" panel. It's not a bad painting, but it's too colorful for my 'gloom and doom' style.

The second was done in Madisonville, LA, about 20 more minutes' drive west from Mandeville. Google Maps told me that there was a lighthouse near where Tchefuncte River meets Lake Pontchartrain. So I was going to see how close the lighthouse was to the shore, and if I could paint it.

Upon arriving at the south end of Main Street, across a large gravel area with a simple empty boat raunch and two brand-new but empty picnic areas, all I saw was this abandoned boat around the bend.

my new BFF

I found out later that the locals call it 'the Ghost Ship' but it is actually a tow boat 'Freedom' that sank there in the '90s, raised, sank again, then raised again. Someone wanted to turn this into a floating bed and breakfast at some point. (check out the posts near the bottom of the thread on streamboats.org for more info)

The biggest mistake I made was not bringing a big enough canvas to paint this view. My 12"x12" panel didn't do justice (yes I'm blaming the panel, not my skills) and I promised the boat that I shall return.

"It's all about the stance." - photo by Aaron R.
Totally ignoring the lighthouse behind me

The return match a week later started out sketchy. The morning fog was so thick that I was afraid the boat won't be visible at all. As soon as we (me and my poor husband who had to drive me around hundreds of miles) came around the bend, it became clear that the stage had already been set. Perfectly. I couldn't have asked for a better painting subject.

Turn that smoke machine up to 11, Jimmy!
photo by Aaron R.

There was no clear division between the sky and the lake, and the fog enveloped the boat like a smoke machine in some David Lynch movie. But the real fog tends to lift pretty quickly.

Zorn Palette to the rescue! The modified version I used was made up of Winsor Red Deep, Yellow Ochre, Ivory Black, Titanium White, Transparent White (Gamblin's 1980 series), and a tiny amount of Ultramarine Blue.

This 18"x36" painting of the Ghost Ship is the largest that I've done en plein air, and I actually find it easier to paint larger. I used to paint on small panels on location mainly because I can't transport wet paintings larger than 12"x16" with my current bike setup. Even when you hitch a ride with another painter, there is just no room for large canvases with two sets of painting gears taking up room.

I have to come up with a new bicycle setup that would allow me to carry large wet canvases, and wait for a bike lane to magically appear on the 23-mile long Causeway Bridge. How did van Gogh carry his wet canvas on his back?

Anyway, our return match was cut short because of an approaching ginormous rain storm (typical!). About an hour into painting the fog lifted completely, then my husband with a radar app stood next to me counting down how many minutes I had left before the storm came ("you have about 15 minutes... 10 minutes... pack up NOW!!"). There was less than 5 minutes to paint the reflection - maybe it ended up better that way.

Freedom (a.k.a. The Ghost Ship)
oil on canvas, 18"x36"

I always thought that limitations force you to be creative. Add some sense of urgency, and you do things you haven't done before.

Manchac, Louisiana

Phil took me out to paint on location for the first time in almost 2 months, and we went all out!  All the way out to Manchac that is, which is about 40 minutes northwest of New Orleans.

Manchac is located between Lake Pontchartrain and Lake Maurepas in Tangipahoa Parish. From where we set up on a narrow island on the Owl Bayou, we could see the underside of Highway 51 to the east, and the residential area only accessible via boats to the west.

I painted one of the unused boardwalks.

Manchac Boardwalk
oil on canvas, 14"x18"

Phil said that this painting looked tonalist. It definitely has a lot of grays instead of intense color.  I had never really thought about characteristics in paintings in terms of tonalist vs. colorist in the past. But now I enjoy looking at Whistler's nocturnes and Twachtman's landscapes more than before.

I hope that the cross-contour lines show how this short boardwalk twists in different directions. The boardwalk in real life looked beautiful in the dappled sunlight.