Category Archives: Art

Five Beautiful Things for Which I am Grateful…

29 Thursday Dec 2022

Posted by in Art, Five Beautiful Things, Iceland, Reflections, Sheep, watercolor

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© Joan Currie – My sheep watercolor. Loved the Icelandic wool!

I’m glad to be here. I’m glad to be anywhere. – Keith Richards

In the last few days I have been thinking about the many things in 2022 for which I am grateful. The year started off quietly but the latter half was filled with a certain sweetness and gentleness of family connection, some exciting adventures, followed by succumbing to Covid infections.

  1. From the first of the year I made an effort to connect with my loved ones on a daily basis. The compilation of photos on my phone always brought tears to my eyes! New ones popped up every day and my family loved to receive them. I made sure to download the photos they shared with me, and added them to my photo library.
  2. One of my 2022 resolutions was to make time for a daily art practice – even just 20 minutes some days. I discovered new techniques and painting supplies, particularly watercolor. I framed a number of my landscape and animal works for my living room gallery-wall and changed out the pieces frequently.
    I was able to carve out some space in my back studio-shed to begin oil painting this last year. It was very satisfying to embrace the medium of my favorite Masters.
  3. I was very grateful to have made two trips (Reykjavik and Amsterdam) with my youngest daughter. Both places were our ancestral homes and we connected with the people and the landscape in a special way. I loved the coarse texture of the Icelandic wool and brought some skeins and fleece home with me for my knitting and rug hooking projects.
  4. Despite getting vaccinated, several family members and I got Covid this year, but I am glad we got through the course of it, including rebounds, without any longterm effects (so far, so good!).
  5. I remembered the introduction to a soap opera my mother watched years ago called “Days of our Lives.” I revisited the show’s promo, “like sands through the hour glass, so are the days of our lives,” and noticed the sand seemed to be flowing through the glass bulb at an alarming rate! It reinforced how precious time is and looking back this year, I am thankful and fortunate to have spent so much time with people who were loving, kind, curious, and supportive.
Schaap en twee lammeren in een stal by Frans Lebret (Rijksmuseum)

Beautiful Reindeer on Christmas Day!

25 Sunday Dec 2022

Posted by in Art, Christmas, Reindeer, watercolor, Winter

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© Joan Currie – My reindeer watercolor.

We wish you a Merry Christmas,
We wish you a Merry Christmas,
We wish you a Merry Christmas,
And a Happy New Year!
Good tidings we bring to you and your kin;
Good tidings for Christmas
And a Happy New Year!

My best Christmas wishes to you and your loved ones!

Love, Joan xox

Beautiful Christmas Gift Tags…

18 Sunday Dec 2022

Posted by in Art, Birds, Christmas, Crafts, Reflections

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© Joan Currie. My watercolor birds as gift tags.

One of the most glorious messes in the world is the mess created in the living room on Christmas Day.
Don’t clean it up too quickly.
Andy Rooney

When you are finally cleaning up the mess of ribbons and wrapping paper, be sure to save some of the gift tags. I treasure the ones I have collected since I was a child. My mother loved to use the front of beautiful note cards with images of winter such as those by Cornelius Kriegoff, A. J. Casson, and Roy McMurtry. She had beautiful penmanship and always wrote a sweet note to go along with the present. I especially love the gift tags given to me from my daughters – their early attempts at printing “Mommy” and their names are delightful!

Last year my gift tag theme was Christmas trees, but this year I decided to go with birds. I hope one of my children continues my tradition of not only saving the tags but of creating them as well.

Beautiful Valentine’s Day Red…

14 Monday Feb 2022

Posted by in Art, Domenico del Ghirlandaio, Red, Renaissance, Valentine's Day

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Detail of Old Man with a Young Boy by Domenico del Ghirlandaio

All of my life I’ve pursued the perfect red. I can never get painters to mix it for me. It’s exactly as if I’d said, “I want Rococo with a spot of Gothic in it and a bit of Buddhist temple” – they have no idea what I’m talking about. About the best red is to copy the color of a child’s cap in any Renaissance portrait.
-Diana Vreeland

Pursuing my perfect Valentine’s red.

Happy Valentine’s Day! ♥️

Beautiful Morning…

27 Thursday Jan 2022

Posted by in Art, Daily Life, Reflections

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© Joan Currie – Morning Sun, collage

Oh what a beautiful morning,
Oh what a beautiful day,
I have a wonderful feeling,
Everything’s going my way.
from Oklahoma by Rodgers and Hammerstein

I am a morning person. I like to get up with the sun and make a definite start to the day.
But some mornings, especially when it is cold outside, I am completely seduced by the
warmth of my own bed and the feeling of the covers around me. So I decide not to get up
but to stay in bed and enjoy the moment.

Ten Beautiful Art Books About Women Artists…

01 Wednesday Dec 2021

Posted by in 10 Beautiful Things, Art, Books

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My favorite art books about women artists and a portrait painted by me to the right.

In art, what we want is the certainty that one spark of original genius shall not be extinguished.
Mary Cassatt.

My favorite women artists are Emily Carr and Mary Cassatt: the former for her landscapes and the latter for her portraits. It was difficult to narrow it down to just two as Berthe Morisot, Cecilia Beaux, Frida Kahlo, Marlene Dumas, Joan Brown, and Cecily Brown are also contenders. What I love is the great volume of work these artists have produced and in many different mediums.

The books pictured above:
Joan Eardley by Fiona Pearson (exhibition catalogue)
Berthe Morisot by Jean-Dominique Rey
Berthe Morisot Impressionist by Charles F. Stuckey and William P. Scott
Helene Schjerfbeck by the Royal Academy of Arts (exhibition catalogue)
Vanessa Bell edited by Sarah Milroy and Ian A. C. Dejardin
The Georgia O’Keeffe Museum edited by Peter H. Hassrick
Mary Cassatt: Modern Woman organized by Judith A. Barter, Art Institute of Chicago
The Art of Emily Carr by Doris Shadbolt
American Women Artists 1830-1930 by Eleanor Tufts, The National Museum of Women in the Arts
Women Artists by Margaret Barlow (1999 edition cover shown below with painting by Mary Cassatt, The Loge)

Ten Beautiful Landscape Art Books…

16 Tuesday Nov 2021

Posted by in Art, Books, Ten Beautiful Things

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My beautiful landscape art books.

It will be difficult to name a class of landscape in which the sky is not the key note,
the standard of scale, and the chief organ of sentiment. John Constable

I decided to begin painting landscapes in earnest this past summer, and challenged myself to complete fifty landscape paintings by the end of 2021. To date, I have completed twenty-five, mostly in watercolor and acrylic, but two in oil. I have enjoyed the project so much that my 2022 New Year’s Resolution List will have to include another landscape challenge: twenty-five seascape and twenty-five cityscape paintings.

Six of my landscape paintings towards my fifty paintings goal.

The books pictured above and listed below have served as wonderful sources of inspiration. I found most of them in the library or online. I like buying used books, especially art books. New art books are beautiful, but very expensive, and if they are too precious, I tend not to open them. So my second personal challenge has been to find instructive art books in the various used-book sales that the surrounding libraries and bookstores have, and never to spend more than $10 on any book.

  1. Masters of 17th Century Dutch Landscape Painting by Peter C. Sutton (Exhibition catalog)
  2. Turner In The North by David Hill
  3. Unknown Terrain: The Landscapes of Andrew Wyeth byBeth Venn and Adam D. Weinberg
  4. American Watercolors From The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Forward by John K. Howat
  5. Jean-François Millet by Alexandra R. Murphy
  6. Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Masterpieces at the Musée D’Orsay, Forward by Michel Laclotte
  7. Joan Eardley by Fiona Pearson
  8. The Age of American Impressionism, Masterpieces from the Art Institute of Chicago, ed. Judith A. Barter
  9. Baltic Light, Early Open-Air Painting in Denmark and North Germany by Catherine Johnston, et. al
  10. The Hudson River School, The landscape of Bierstadt, Cole, Church, Durand, Heade by Louise Minks
  11. Bonus: Corot by Jean Leymarie

Ten Beautiful Things I Like About a Soldier…

05 Wednesday May 2021

Posted by in 10 Beautiful Things, Art, Reflections, Ten Beautiful Things

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© Joan Currie – Soldier watercolor


Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. John 15:13 KJV

  1. The way he looks in his dress uniform.
  2. The way he pays attention to detail in his turnout.
  3. The way he cares for his equipment and weapons.
  4. The way he lives by his regiment’s motto.
  5. The way he looks after his buddies.
  6. The way he keeps himself in good shape.
  7. The way he stands, even when he is not on parade.
  8. The way he can stay calm under extreme stress.
  9. The way he understands that he is at the pointy end of the stick.
  10. The way he always remembers his family and loved ones even when he is far away.

Aspirational weight…

31 Wednesday Mar 2021

Posted by in Art, Reflections

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© Joan Currie – Blue nude watercolor

There is nothing more rare, nor more beautiful than a woman being unapologetically herself; comfortable in her perfect imperfection. To me, that is the true essence of beauty. – Steve Maraboli

When I renewed my driver’s license recently, I was surprised at the weight listed on the new license. I had made no changes during the renewal process, so all of the information was the same as it was several years ago. Was the weight listed my true weight at the time or an aspirational weight? If it were an aspirational weight, I wonder by how much? Short of requisitioning my medical records, I truly have no idea!