Happy New Year

Watercolor Painting by Dennis Pendleton. I want to start out by thanking all of you for opening my Sunday emails with my paintings and free watercolor lessons. The comments I have received have always been read with great interest. Staying in contact with all of you has kept up my spirits and helped me remember how much I love being an artist. A special thanks to all of you who took my classes at the Art Students League of Denver and my Studio Workshops. You all made it possible for me to continue my art career and survive 2020. Learning how to navigate Zoom with the help of my art angel has been a challenge that has deepened my love of teaching and enabled me to work with artists all over this country and even Germany and France. This is proof that good things happen even in the worst of times.

Choosing a painting for this email was an interesting challenge. I definitely wanted one from my travels so we could all dream about freedom and visiting romantic places. This is Paul Cezanne's Studio in Aix in Provence. I think I was drawn to the quiet solitude, enchanting sunlight and empty chairs which invite all of us to visit. His house and studio remain just as it was when he lived and painted there and his spirit is everywhere. Trees throughout the property provide dappled sunlight and shadows which are a delight for an artist. The wall, shutters and cast shadows are all combinations of yellow ochre with different violets and the table is three values of cerulean blue. The plants, so common in this area, are different greens mixed with olive, cerulean blue, ultramarine blue and transparent yellow.

Cezanne was was an artist who enjoyed his solitude and seldom painted with other artists. It was that quiet solitude that I worked to capture in this painting. Happy Painting! Dennis Pendleton