Over the Edge

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Flowing left to right, in a reading motion, bits of color like words, letters, punctuation. An abstraction of light read by our eyes as cold water moving under a clear sky. Caps of ice are formed as it sensuously rolls over and around, embracing obstacles in its path before mindlessly rushing on.

Here are brushtrokes and color emulating the language of visual abstraction spoken by Mother Nature. My painting is like an infant babbling, trying to speak the language of its parents. I create with two-pronged intent steming from a single desire: to establish a life-line to that from which I was born and to produce a tangible product for which others will trade support.

I don't want to be pretentious - I want to be the real thing. - Nancy Boudreau

This painting is about 5" x 7" acrylic on gessoed mat board, protected in a cream-colored mat. As with all these little studies, the text above is handwritten on the back of the painting, which is also signed and dated.

Winter Stream

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Behind me a hillside in perpetual shadow, damp waves of chilled air rolling down into this ravine. The bridge of my nose aches from the cold. On the far side, high above, snow is colored by the last afternoon sun. The surface of the water below has a brassy sheen, like beaten metal, an effect of the angle of view. The contrast of warm colors pooled at the bottom of this blue-lit space rivets my attention.
- Nancy Boudreau

This is a painting from Walter G. Merrit Park, also known as Michael Ciaiola Conservation Area, on Haviland Hollow in Patterson New York.

This painting is about 5" x 7" acrylic on gessoed mat board, protected in a cream-colored mat. As with all these little studies, the text above is handwritten on the back of the painting, which is also signed and dated. For comments and queries, please feel free to contact me directly at: nb@nboudreau.com

Snow Field

Surface patterns are formed by underlying behaviors, the drainage of melted snow down a grassy slope, overlaid with perpendicular shadows of trees, creating a blue grid distorted by perspective. These are some of the strange beauties that the New England winter brings us.

- Nancy Boudreau

This painting is about 5" x 7" acrylic on gessoed mat board, protected in a cream-colored mat. As with all these little studies, the text above is handwritten on the back of the painting, which is also signed and dated.

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Snowy Rill

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Three feet from the window, I feel cool air rolling down off the glass. Inside, I am wearing a hat, muffler, three layers of clothing and a blanket. Outside, the soft hollow roar of air moves through bare trees. It's black on the other side of the glass and 20˚F, well below freezing. Down the yard and out in the woods, a snowy rill wanders, defying the cold. There's shelter in this low wet spot, where spring will make its first appearance three months from now when the dormant skunk cabbage rise. I imagine hibernating box turtles among the tumble of small boulders, tucked into the mounds of fallen leaves trapped there, wrapped in a moist warmth of the vegetative decay.

- Nancy Boudreau

This painting is about 5" x 7" acrylic on gessoed mat board, protected in a cream-colored mat. As with all these little studies, the text above is handwritten on the back of the painting, which is also signed and dated. For comments and queries, please feel free to contact me directly at: nb@nboudreau.com

Moth Orchids

Commonly called Moth Orchids, Phalaenopsis come in a wide range of sizes and colors. Though the care required to maintain and grow Phalaenopsis is very simple and they can be easily kept as houseplants, it wasn't until propagation techniques improved that the plants began to be produced cheaply enough to make them affordable for the average buyer. Nowadays almost every supermarket sells several varieties of Moth Orchids. And surprizingly enough, you can get these beauties to bloom again year after year.

- Nancy Boudreau

This painting is about 5" x 7" acrylic on gessoed mat board, protected in a cream-colored mat. As with all these little studies, the text above is handwritten on the back of the painting, which is also signed and dated.

Buttery Orchid

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Buttery little phalaenopsis, blooming on my desktop, what a December treat, seeing you so robust and thriving after your summer-long camp outdoors under the maples. All that evergy stored up, feeding my need for green through the next three months of winter. Can I tell you how thankful I am for your miracle?

- Nancy Boudreau

This painting is about 5" x 7" acrylic on gessoed mat board, protected in a cream-colored mat. As with all these little studies, the text above is handwritten on the back of the painting, which is also signed and dated.

Reflections on Lake Windwing

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In Ridgefield Connecticut, Lake Windwing is a picturesque little park with ball fields and easy trails for walking dogs. November reflections in the lake are sober, muted, the color of bare trees and dried grasses. It's only on days when the sky is clear that the colors perk up the surface of the water with liquid jewel-tones of blue. - Nancy Boudreau

This painting is about 5" x 7" acrylic on gessoed mat board, protected in a cream-colored mat. As with all these little studies, the text above is handwritten on the back of the painting, which is also signed and dated.

Lake Windwing

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Ridgefield Connecticut, Lake Windwing, one of a chain of ponds, of which Bennett's Pond is included. Late November and all the trees are bare now, the hills covered with russett-colored fallen leaves.

- Nancy Boudreau

This painting is about 5" x 7" acrylic on gessoed mat board, protected in a cream-colored mat. As with all these little studies, the text above is handwritten on the back of the painting, which is also signed and dated.

Bittersweet Crown

This is a painting of a windbreak along one of the fields of Hadlow Farm in Sherman Connecticut, part of the Naromi Land Trust. The break is crowned by a beautiful invader, a heavy growth of bittersweet, a glorious blaze of orange, topping the grey and brown tangle of bare branches. The trees carry their burden like a talent, an unbidden asset that they're obliged to display. It weighs them down, but makes them beautiful.

"Just Looking: Essays on Art" by John Updike, published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1989 has insightful and entertaining writing about a wide variety of painters and sculptors. The last essay in the book "Writers and Artists" is especially meaningful, today. Prior to the existence of the internet and blogging artists, the best of us were adept at expressing ourselves with pen and paper, lines on a page that formed either letters or symbols conveying meaning. Today, the internet is simply a public space in which to busque, a kiosk for posting. The best of us are still succeeding because of an ability to convey meaning to a broad audience, through written word and visual image. - Nancy Boudreau

Friends and patrons - you can help, by passing this website on to others that might enjoy the art and thoughts expressed here. Improving "traffic" on the blog, leaving comments, starting dialogue is valuable food for thought, fueling the development of ideas. Your input, is as they used to say, "as good as gold" and an essential part of the artistic process.

This painting is about 5" x 7" acrylic on gessoed mat board, protected in a cream-colored mat. As with all these little studies, the text above is handwritten on the back of the painting, which is also signed and dated.

Shadows at Noon

Back to the Pootatuck River running under the bridge on Church Hill Road in Sandy Hook, Connecticut. It is noon, and in mid-November the low angle of the sun causes the trees to cast long shadows over the water. Do you see the little triangular rock, the one that appeared in two earlier studies? Here it is in a larger context, set against the forces of two opposing diagonals: the long shadows laying against the rush of white water, both bearing down, down, down. How heroic this common little rock seems, holding it's own against relentless forces. We are like the little rock, one among billions, difficult to discern from one another when seen in the larger context. We are the heroes of our own stories.
- Nancy Boudreau

This painting is about 5" x 7" acrylic on gessoed mat board, protected in a cream-colored mat. As with all these little studies, the text above is handwritten on the back of the painting, which is also signed and dated.

Reflections of Two Trunks

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The reflections of two tree trunks dancing on the surface of Quaker Brook in Patterson, New York at the Walter G. Merritt Park in November. How strange the shapes, Dali-esque they are.
- Nancy Boudreau

This painting is about 5" x 7" acrylic on gessoed mat board, protected in a cream-colored mat. As with all these little studies, the text above is handwritten on the back of the painting, which is also signed and dated.

Sky and Trees Before Daybreak

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A November morning in the wooded hills of western Connecticut, just before sunrise, the sky is an incandescent blue decorated with a black lace of tree limbs, branches and twigs. It's only a week since the last leaves fell and will be six months more before new leaves appear. The season of green is over. Maples, oaks and locust have begun their long sleep.
- Nancy Boudreau

This painting is about 5" x 7" acrylic on gessoed mat board, protected in a cream-colored mat. As with all these little studies, the text above is handwritten on the back of the painting, which is also signed and dated.

Late Afternoon in November

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Late afternoon in November, hiking through Walter G. Merritt Park in Patterson, New York. Here on the east facing hillside everything is in shadow, bathed in a dim blue light. As the light wanes, the damp chill increases. The cold seeps inward. Hills in the distance reflect the low angled sun and I am reminded of how dependent we are on this single source of heat and light. How cold would a sunless world be?

I've included a photo of the painting in the studio this morning, so that you can see it in situ. Sunflowers from a friend and an earlier painting brighten my working space. Brushes and computer, a french easel with it's legs tucked up out of the way, these are my tools. Music is my studio companion, a mix provided by Pandora Radio and gotradio.com.
- Nancy Boudreau

This painting is about 5" x 7" acrylic on gessoed mat board, protected in a cream-colored mat. As with all these little studies, the text above is handwritten on the back of the painting, which is also signed and dated.

Water Under the Bridge study 2

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Reflections are more than illusion. Nearby objects color our lives, influence our existence whether we notice it or not, whether we wish for it or not.

This painting is another view of the Pootatuck River, colored by autumn foliage and nearby buildings housing Chao restaurant and Mocha coffeehouse, at the cozy heart of Sandy Hook, Connecticut. On Memorial Day, this is the sight of The Great Pootatuck Duck Race, not to be missed!

- Nancy Boudreau

Today's painting is about 5" x 7" acrylic on gessoed mat board, protected in a cream-colored mat. As with all these little studies, the text above is handwritten on the back of the painting, which is also signed and dated.

Water Under the Bridge Study 1

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Painting reflections as they're seen in the surface of moving water, is the act of creating a visual metaphor with layers and layers and layers of significance. This painting is a literal rendering of a photograph of my own shadow on the Pootatuck River, which qualifies the painting as being Realistic. If a viewer didn't know this, they might look at the painting and think it was some kind of an Abstract. Not trying to fool the eye or be clever, I'm simply fascinated in the many ways that we take innumerable bits of information on canvas, in our relationships, in the way we exist on world wide web, to build recognizable identities. Painting water has got to be one of the most apt ways of expressing this. As I've said before, and you may quote me, "There is nothing so fulfilling as expressing oneself well."

Having been a blogging artist for more than two years now, the whole process have become very integrated, a work of art in itself and quite an education. The creative workflow is generally: gather photo "sketches", conceive a project, paint while scribbling down notes, record the art digitally, write and refine the text, research facts, definitions, ideas and other's views, and then finally post the whole shebang to the blog, making sure to link other relevant websites to the text.

More time is spent on the management side of the business, promoting the blog itself through sites such as EBay, Technorati, GoogleAnalytics and Google Webmaster Tools, and the nitty-gritty of running the old fashioned brick-and-mortar studio: ordering supplies, preparing painting substrates, cutting mats, maintaining tools, packaging art, shipping, and documenting everything for posterity, provenance and perennial taxes.

And so, the innumerable bits of information, innumerable actions culminate to build an identity - an artist.

- Nancy Boudreau

After all my "blah, blah, blah" if you can still manage to share a comment, please do so! Also, it would be mightily helpful if you were to share this with others so that they too can contribute to the flow of ideas (and traffic on the website).

The above acrylic painting is about 5" x 7" done on gessoed mat board, housed in a cream-colored mat.

Study of Running Water2

Another study of running water, working from an enlarged photo, the same one used for the last study. I can get downright obsessive about copying a photo, but will that get me where I want to go? Where do I want to go? How am I going to find out where I want to go? Fumble blindly forward? Research the paths of others? And which others?

On that subject, here's a tongue-in-cheek essay by Ken Rockwell, "The Seven Levels of Artists", and more serious ruminations by emptyeasel.com. Best of all, here's a great essay written by David Byrne, published in WIRED magazine, examining the same question but from the view of a musician, "David Byrne's Survival Strategies for Emerging Artists."
- Nancy Boudreau

This painting is approximately 5" x 7" acrylic painting on gessoed matboard, in an 8" x 10" cream-colored mat, unframed, shipped to you directly by the artist. The title and prose that appear above are handwritten on the back of the painting. The painting is also signed and dated on the back.

Study of Running Water

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Who hasn't been fascinated at one time or another, by running water? Here's a view of the Pootatuck River in Sandy Hook, as it runs under Church Hill Road. On a September noon, autumn leaves tumbling along in the currents, my attention was caught by a mossy triangular rock and the light glinting off the rippling surface of the water. There was so much color in the silky undulations. How safe and comfortable the green rock appeared. This is a study of the scene, preparation for a much larger painting that I intend to make.

Thinking back to the last painting "Context is Everything" I wonder where I am, in context to other painters. How do I fit into the overall picture? Artistically, am I tumbling along like a drowned leaf? Am I riding on the surface, shooting the rapids of events? Am I stuck on a cozy island not going anywhere particular?

- Nancy Boudreau

This painting is approximately 5" x 7" acrylic painting on gessoed matboard, in an 8" x 10" cream-colored mat, unframed. The title and prose that appear above are handwritten on the back of the painting. The painting is also signed and dated on the back.

Context Is Everything

Imagine yourself as a flying kindergartener, soaring over the wooded hills of northwest Connecticut. Can you see the winding roads and driveways? Can you see the trees and gardens of red and white roses? Can you see the houses, lit inside? Gleaming windows and flat screen televisions?

This is certainly not a "realistic" painting, but a few strokes and bits of color viewed in context, conveys much meaning. This morning I share with you three other views: context as it effects writers by Tina Blue, the importance of context to archeology by Kris Hirst, and context as it concerns a developer of artificial intelligence, the IdeaPivot Corporation.

Art as food for thought, what a breakfast!

- Nancy Boudreau

This painting is approximately 5" x 7" acrylic painting on gessoed matboard, in an 8" x 10" gray colored mat, unframed, shipped to you directly by the artist. The title and prose that appear above are handwritten on the back of the painting. The painting is also signed and dated on the back.

The Beholder

Using the dagger striper brush this morning, experimenting with strokes and blending unique to this particular brush shape. Thinking of friend Nick who favors subdued colors and the theories of beauty proposed by philosopher Ayn Rand versus those of Yanagi Soetsu and Okakura's "The Book of Tea."

In "Atlas Shrugged" the author's character rails against abstract art, deeming it thoughtless, hence without value, or worse, just plain bad. In philosopher Rand's scheme of things, rationality and ordered purpose are the ultimate values. Illustrating this, I painted "How We See The World" a large painting comprised of transparent rectangles, very orderly shapes, layered in such a way that they suggest an expansive landscape.

In today's painting, I defer to the ideas proposed by the Japanese philosophers, where beauty is sought in the unique and random qualities of natural expression.

Who is right? What is beautiful?

Well, wouldn't that depend on who is asking the question and how their world view is structured? Isn't this what's meant by "beauty is in the eye of the beholder"?

- Nancy Boudreau

This painting is approximately 5" x 7" acrylic painting on gessoed matboard, in an 8" x 10" gray colored mat, unframed, shipped to you directly by the artist. The title and prose that appear above are handwritten on the back of the painting. The painting is also signed and dated on the back.

The Unknown Craftsman

Sometimes one just has to lower the bar, bust loose, and follow one's whims. Two of the many reasons why: 1. For a healthy, playful release of the tension that comes with always striving to reach perfection and 2. To manifest the true heart of artistic expression in as natural a way as possible. Two books on my shelf say it all, "The Unknown Craftsman" by Soetsu Yanagi and "Shoji Hamada, A Potters Way and Work" by Susan Peterson. Read them.
- Nancy Boudreau



This painting is approximately 5" x 7" acrylic painting on gessoed matboard, in an 8" x 10" gray colored mat, unframed, shipped to you directly by the artist. The title and prose that appear above are handwritten on the back of the painting. The painting is also signed and dated on the back.

October Woodland

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Heavily overcast skies give a bluish illumination that creates no shadows, the light coming from no specific direction at any time of the day. There is no sun rise or sun set, only a general dim illumination that increases and decreases. It is the degree of dampness that effects the saturation of color. This painting is a view of the backyard woodland in New Fairfield Connecticut, a typical example of fall foliage in the northwest hills.
- Nancy Boudreau

This painting is approximately 5" x 7" acrylic painting on gessoed matboard, in an 8" x 10" cream colored mat, unframed, shipped to you directly by the artist. The title and prose that appear above are handwritten on the back of the painting. The painting is also signed and dated on the back.

First Snow

This is my view, looking out the back window of my studio into the woods of New Fairfield Connecticut. I see woodpiles and an old abandoned playhouse that is rotting, everything covered with the first snow of the season which is two months early. "Once upon a time there was a poor woodcutter. . . "
-Nancy Boudreau

This painting is approximately 5" x 7" acrylic painting on gessoed matboard, in an 8" x 10" cream colored mat, unframed, shipped to you directly by the artist. The title and prose that appear above are handwritten on the back of the painting. The painting is also signed and dated on the back.

Old Beech

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Back up on the Ives Trail in Ridgefield Connectcut, this is one of the ancient specimen trees mentioned in yesterday's painting. This copper beech's trunk reminded me of a muscular human form, light and shadows draped over it's sculptured limbs. Twining verticals of color rising up the trunk constrast nicely with the horizontals of the meadow and sunlight resting across the grass growing behind this form. Cool shade, balanced light and forms - this is a peaceful place to linger.
-Nancy Boudreau

This painting is approximately 5" x 7" acrylic painting on gessoed matboard, in an 8" x 10" cream colored mat, unframed, shipped to you directly by the artist. The title and prose that appear above are handwritten on the back of the painting. The painting is also signed and dated on the back.

Ives Trail View

On the Ives Trail in Ridgefield Connecticut, there is a field that looks toward Danbury, a framed view. Overgrown specimen trees, abandoned arbors and collapsed gazebos mark where once a hotel stood. Even the deer appreciate the place, and the field is criss-crossed with their trails and dotted with their beds.
-Nancy Boudreau

This painting is approximately 5" x 7" acrylic painting on gessoed matboard, in an 8" x 10" cream colored mat, unframed, shipped to you directly by the artist. The title and prose that appear above are handwritten on the back of the painting. The painting is also signed and dated on the back.

5am nHeresLookinAtCha

A self portrait; the double reflection as seen in the dark glass of the window and storm window by my easel at 5am on a Tuesday morning - reminds me of the sounds made by a twelve string guitar, a la Leo Kottke or Michael Gulezian. The plan today was to finish a painting in two hours - trying to gear up to the painting-a-day pace after spending the last two weeks working on a single larger canvas.

-Nancy Boudreau

This painting is approximately 5" x 7" acrylic painting on gessoed matboard, in an 8" x 10" cream colored mat, unframed, shipped to you directly by the artist. The title and prose that appear above are handwritten on the back of the painting. The painting is also signed and dated on the back.

How We See The World

There's a lot of abstraction in reality, and if enough basic abstract elements are combined, a semblance of reality can be built. This painting is created entirely of transparent rectangles of acrylic paint on a rough textured surface. The rectangles are a basic shape that remind me of many things: of the DIV tags in web pages, which are blocks of content used to build a layout; of the rectangles of kindergarten art, childrens' paintings of home, land and sky; of a philosopher's building blocks of reason, layering logic to create a world view; of the pixels in a computer monitor which in context form images. This is how we see the world, everything is in context. In this painting everything in the world is made from rectangles, everything is constrained to right angles. Such a place would seem to be awful to live in, devoid of beauty or imagination. Yet, life will burst out despite constraints, and in it's complexity, life acquires luminous depth and freedom. That is how we live, despite constraints. - Nancy Boudreau

The is an acrylic painting on stretched canvas 36" x 48" and is available directly from the artist. The above text is handwritten on the back on the canvas, in pencil, sealed for permanence. The canvas is also signed and dated by the artist.

If you are interested in this or any of the other paintings in the archive, or if you have any questions, feel free to contact me at:

nb@nboudreau.com

A Rose for Carol

Friends and family gathered recently for a memorial for Carol Kasper at Sage Restaurant in New Haven. It was a calm, sunny day and the Quinnipiack from Schooner was moored close by. After a canon salute from the ship and testimonials we were invited to cast roses onto the water of Long Island Sound. The color of the roses, the water, the light, the great ship riding weightless in attendance and all the grieving friends milling about. . . I will never forget. - Nancy Boudreau

Reflections on Babbling Brook

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Listening to an audio version of "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand while painting this one, I see a correlation in the depth of description that comes from careful and thorough observation of things and their relationships. Rand goes far beyond surface detail, giving the reader/listener a clear view of underlying conditions even as they flow through change. The result is dynamic.

Standing with my bicycle on a roadside bridge, looking down onto Babbling Brook, the reflections here always catch my attention. This meandering brook runs through one of many parcels that belong to Naromi Land Trust in Sherman Connecticut. Residents have worked hard to preserve such wild spaces and have gained recognition for their efforts from The Nature Conservancy. I also recognize their efforts, and hope that they can appreciate my tribute. - Nancy Boudreau

The painting is approximately 5" x 7" acrylic painting on gessoed matboard, in an 8" x 10" cream colored mat, unframed, shipped to you directly by the artist. The title and prose that appear above are handwritten on the back of the painting. The painting is also signed and dated on the back.

Sunset Shadows On Upland Pasture

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Back at White Silo Farm in Sherman Connecticut, watching light from the setting sun grazing hillside contours. Lavender and blue pooling in dips and hollows, the light is a brassy yellow coming through thin, dry, clear air, animated by backlit dancing insects. An undeniable though gentle introduction to autumn. - Nancy Boudreau

The painting is approximately 5" x 7" acrylic painting on gessoed matboard, in an 8" x 10" cream colored mat, unframed, shipped to you directly by the artist. The title and prose that appear above are handwritten on the back of the painting. The painting is also signed and dated on the back.