Figurative oil painting, coffee and Matisse, woman reading, large figure drawing, art history book, contemporary painting

"Morning with Matisse"
Oil on canvas, 24" x 30", SOLD

Email: marie@mariefox.com

A woman (artist, perhaps) enjoys a cup of French Roast while perusing her book about Matisse. This is always a jazzy combination for me in the morning - coffee and art history, the perfect stimulants for artistic imagination.

French Memories, oil painting canvas, colorful figurative art, woman at beach, semi-nude female figure Riviera

French Memories
Oil on canvas, 20" x 20" 
SOLD to a collector in Texas
Email: marie@mariefox.com

The original version of this scene struck me as too staid so I decided to create a more colorful, playful version. This is the other girl's younger, more spirited sister who just had to see the South of France for herself.

I Am Here, Figurative Oil Painting 24 x 24 woman at the sea, female figure ocean waves

I Am Here
Oil on canvas, 24 x 24 in.
SOLD to a collector in Maryland
Email: marie@mariefox.com

I liked the pose of this figure and eventually arrived at the idea of painting a stormy sky and ocean behind her. It's something I'd do if standing at the edge of the sea on a windy day. It's exhilarating to feel the force of the wind on one's body, so long as there's a sense of safety. Woman, wind and water.

Woman at Beach Reading, Figure painting, original oil 18 x 24 figurative canvas

"At The Beach"
Oil on canvas, 18 x 24 SOLD to a collector in California
Email: marie@mariefox.com

After completing this painting, I felt it had a very peaceful feeling about it. Perhaps its because I know the serenity of a beach and a book. As winter approaches New England, I trust I'll be spending my imaginative time at the beach with paintbrush in hand. While living in Santa Monica, on the occasional hot day, I'd stay cool by painting snowy folk art landscapes from my memory. Ah, the reality of the imagined....

Red Flowers & Valentine Heart: Oil painting 11" x 14" still life, yellow rose gerber daisies, colorful glass vase, painting a day

"Flowers and Heart", Oil on canvas, 11 x 14
$90  SOLD
Email: marie@mariefox.com

Another remake of an earlier painting. When making the color and composition changes, I'm often oohing and aahing as the color and design elements rearrange themselves to create something entirely new. I'm always amazed at how colors become something other than themselves when placed next to or surrounded by other colors. The mystery of visual perception.

Cowboy Boots Painting: 24 x 30 oil painting, vintage cowboy boots, still life womens boots, cowgirl red tail birds, butterflies leaves

"Light On Her Feet", 24" x 30"  
SOLD to a collector in New Hampshire

Email: marie@mariefox.com

These boots make me feel like dancing! I absolutely loved painting these boots. I pretty much painted non-stop for a day and a half on this canvas. The boots are depicted larger than life. Painting big keeps me from tripping over ant-hills of tiny busy details. And up close, the image achieves a certain abstraction. Enough talk - time to go dancing!

Flour Scoop: Oil Painting 8" x 10" still life kitchen art, reflective silver, colorful small painting

"Flour Scoop"
Oil on canvas, 8 x 10 $100 plus 8.95 shipping
Email: marie@mariefox.com
SOLD to a collector in Oklahoma


I jazzed up this little painting I'd done before by adding strong pure color to the pieces of paper. I also darkened the table top and added lighter reflections in the silver cup. I do love working on a painting when it is dry. The brush drags across the surface in a wonderful way.

Red Napkin colorful original oil painting of still life: Botticelli Primavera, pitcher, olives, linen fabric napkin

"The Red Napkin", version 2. SOLD
Oil on canvas, 16 x 20
Email: marie@mariefox.com

It seems that I'm always reworking my paintings. But that's okay - I do enjoy it and I think there's a good reason to do it. This week, as I repainted "The Red Napkin", I realized that the 2nd go-round is really quite different from the first. When I'm painting the original version, I'm the one in charge, telling the paint, composition, colors, objects what I want them to do. Done. Then weeks go by and the painting starts asking me for more. The second version is the painting talking to me, telling me what needs to be done. Corny, but the process does seem to work this way for me.

By changing the border of the calendar on the wall to a dark red, the Botticelli girls celebrating Primavera (original is at the Uffizi, Florence) assumed more importance in the composition. I like the way their softness contrasts to the hardness of the pitcher but imitates its curves. I removed the potato at the far left and intensified the shadow of the pitcher.

" I would appreciate any details or information you could give me about this beautiful painting. What inspired it? Thanks, Kathleen"

TAG California Open Exhibition

Great news! I learned yesterday that my painting "Sounds of the Sea" won First Place and $500 in the TAG California Open Exhibition in Santa Monica, California. My friends Perry and Kathy Anderson accepted the award on my behalf at last night's reception. They reported that close to 1,000 people appeared at the gallery during the 3 hours they were there. I do wish I'd flown across the country to attend my own party! Ah...next time.

My husband's title for this scene of a woman listening to the ocean is "Girl on her Shell-Phone".
Email: marie@mariefox.com

Teenager Asleep in Window Seat, original oil painting of sleeping child

Oil on canvas, 18" x 24"
Email: marie@mariefox.com  
SOLD to a collector in New Hampshire

Limes on Plate, daily painter oil painting still life of fruit

Oil on canvas, 8" x 8"
$130 plus $8.95 shipping via Priority Mail - SOLD
Email: marie@mariefox.com

This was a fun little painting to do mid-summer. Now maybe I'll go make a gin and tonic - and give my models a squeeze!

Seated figure model drawing

Pencil on paper, 11 x 14
Email: marie@mariefox.com

Figure lying down, drawing, pencil on paper

Figure drawing, pencil on paper, 11 x 14
SOLD to a collector in North Carolina
marie@mariefox.com

Thus far in my figure drawing class, I've been drawing by observation, rather than by knowledge of anatomy. Eventually, I'd like the anatomical structure of the body to inform my drawings, along with observation of what's on the surface. To that end, I've been studying from a set of CD's called "The Structure of Man - Learn to draw the human figure from your mind". The author, Riven Phoenix, approaches drawing of the human form as an imaginative exercise, as if the artist is inventing the figure from scratch. His is a novel approach which I hope will improve my understanding of the human figure.

Oil painting of woman at beach; figurative art, self-potrait

Oil on Canvas, 24" x 20" - $500  
SOLD to a collector in California

Email: marie@mariefox.com

Twenty years ago I painted myself in this pose, wearing a pink bikini. To create a "self-portrait" for my painting challenge group, I added my right hand holding a book and invented the beach scene. Soon the painting became a story, it seemed, about someone else. She's at the beach in her red bikini. She was reading, but her book has dropped back to rest against her leg. She's probably daydreaming, as one does at the beach. And there's that guy just beyond the top edge of her book. And a sailboat racing by. And it's summer...

Drawing of woman, charcoal

Pencil on paper, 14" x 11"
Email: marie@mariefox.com

Pencil Drawing: Woman Seated on Stool

Figure drawing, charcoal on paper, 14" x 11"
Email: marie@mariefox.com

Happy news! My painting Sounds of the Sea was just accepted for a juried exhibit, California Open Exhibition, at TAG Gallery in Santa Monica, California. The show runs from August 19- September 5. (Click title or scroll down page to see the painting.) This city was home to me for five years, and I'm very pleased that my art will be traveling from New England to pay a visit. Hey, those girls might just take off for the nearby beach and ditch that shell. Why not listen to the real waves....and splash in them!

Figurative art, woman on elbow

Pencil on paper, 11 x 14
marie@mariefox.com

Jim Dine quote about drawing:
… I knew drawing was essential to me. It kept alive the need I had for family. It gave me a line of tradition that led me back to artists I admired, not just Rembrandt and Picasso, Matisse and Degas, but others who are dismissed but who gave their lives to drawing.

Standing figure model, drawing in pencil

I bought a fabulous drawing book recently called "Classic Human Anatomy" by Valerie Winslow. The author is a skilled artist with an encyclopedic knowledge of human anatomy. Really, an unusual combination. She presents the anatomical information in great detail but always with the artist, not the medical student, in mind. I absolutely love this book and am slowly working my way through it.

11 x 14, pencil on paper
marie@mariefox.com

Sounds of the Sea, figurative oil painting, 24" x 30", two women & sea shell, Italian landscape & interior, almost nude females

Sounds Of The Sea, Oil on canvas, 24" x 36" Not For Sale

Email: marie@mariefox.com

Click image to view larger.
This painting won First Prize at The TAG Gallery Open Exhibition 2009

I loved painting this big (for me) canvas of figures. It was fun including some small still life scenes at the edges of the scene, and using essentially monochromatic colors. Somehow the idea came to me to paint the standing figure listening to the ocean in a shell. So I made the landscape out the window rural, suggesting that the sea is far away.

Figure model seated on pillow, pencil drawing

Here the model is leaning on an unseen support while sitting on a folded pillow. Some parts of this drawing have a solidity I'm happy with.
Paper on pencil, 11 x 14
marie@mariefox.com

'Asleep' pencil drawing

Pencil Drawing, 11" x 14"  
SOLD to a collector in New York

Email: marie@mariefox.com

I recently returned to my first love (in art)- the human figure. The sketches I'll post over the next days are from a drawing class. The model poses nude, but here I caught her sleeping during a break.

"Where We Are": large figurative oil painting, women at beach, colorful

Oil on Canvas, 40" x 30" $2400 SOLD to a collector in Vermont

Email: marie@mariefox.com

Details of Image Below

This is the first large figurative painting I've ever done. It took months and endured many incarnations, but it is in the end the start of something new for me. I've always loved figure drawing and am trying to apply to figures what I've learned doing still life paintings.

The inspiration for this painting was three life-size drawings I did of myself a few decades ago. I had sat on the floor in front of a large mirror, looking, drawing then getting back into the pose. What interested me was the architecture of the body, the way the torso and limbs embraced space.

For the painting, I combined the three drawings into a single composition, and made the bodies and faces different from me and each from the other. I like the mixed perspectives which remind me of the folk art I painted for 15 years (www.mariefox.com). And the colors seem to work. On to the next...

Red Shoes: still life square oil painting by daily artist, colorful

"The Red Shoes", 12 x 12, oil on canvas
$120 Plus $8.95 shipping
SOLD to a collector in Rhode Island

Carrots, Coffee & Orange: oil painting 12" x 12" square, fruit & vegetable still life, kitchen art, coffee mug, orange and blue, Marie Fox

Oil on Canvas, 12" x 12"

$120 plus Priority Mail shipping SOLD

Email: marie@mariefox.com

This is one of those paintings that just happened....and I'm happy with it. It seems playful, a good thing. The photo sent the colors in a cool direction. The yellows are really less green and the cup more lavender.

Three Eggplants: Colorful oil painting still life of garden vegetables

"Huddled Eggplants"
Oil on canvas, 11" x 14" $120 - SOLD
Marie Fox

Three Yellow Roses, oil painting, still life of turqoise vases, bowl of oranges, fruit, contemporary women painters

Oil on canvas, 24" x 30" SOLD to a collector in Laugharne, Wales
Email: marie@mariefox.com

My self-appointed challenge here was to balance a group of cool colored blue and turquoise vases against a strong hit of orange in the fruits. Separating and connecting these areas was the cloth which is also a warm color and different texture from the reflective vases. Although I never really altered the composition while painting, I did experiment a lot with the background colors until I came up with these. Big paintings are great because they're very demanding and I feel I can really 'get into them'...kind of like climbing into them. Oil paint is a lusciously physical thing...and working big means more connection with it, more manipulation and play.

Soldier Boy, Please Don't Go

Oil on Board, 8 x 10
$90 plus $8.95 insured shipping via Priority Mail SOLD

Valentine Flowers: Square oil painting still life of Gerber daisies, heat, blue glass vase, colorful orange & blue

Oil on canvas, 12" x 12
$140 plus $8.95 shipping
email: marie@mariefox.com SOLD

This still life set-up seemed to fit perfectly in a square format so I chose a 12" x 12" canvas. I like the simple shapes and strong colors of this Valentine painting. The pewter plate was made by my mother when she was a girl. Ten years ago, she asked an appraiser to give a value to her household belongings for insurance reasons. When he picked up the pewter plate, she kept quiet as he inspected it carefully. "Most likely 17th century," he announced. She enjoyed her little secret. For me, it was fun to incorporate her art in mine...and the pewter plate was the perfect backdrop for the orange flowers.

Blue Vase & Fruit

Oil on Canvas, 30" x 24"
Email: marie@mariefox.com
$1500 plus shipping SOLD to a collector in Massachusetts

I seem to have a love for fabric, and have a feeling that I'll be creating a series of paintings that focus on the folds and textures of draped cloth. I find this subject luxurious. Maybe it's because I spent many years hand-dyeing silk which I then fabricated into clothing of my own design. It sold well in designer boutiques but after a while I wanted to move onto the next project - high fashion leather belts. Sewing leather was amazing. Such a different feel from the silk, and just as much fun. So it's no wonder that fabric is the landscape I love to paint - the hills and valleys, light and shadow, paths in and out and around.

A goal of this painting was to subdue most of the colors in order for the turquoise and orange to stand out and draw the viewer's attention. It took great restraint on my part to keep the main colors neutral. I'm crazy about color and find it hard to hold back on my use of them in all their glorious intensity. I do like the way this painting turned out.