My inspiration comes from the delightfully fresh and expressive French Watercolors of the early 1900’s. I use the same watercolor painting technique I have developed for over 19 years, but now I combine pen and ink drawing with my impressionistic brushstrokes for both spontaneity and an accurate likeness.

This exciting change came about recently in the commissioned paintings I am doing for the world-renowned Herzog Wine Cellars. I am thrilled to have broken through to this new style.

Here are examples of the new style:

a child’s portrait commissioned by a private client

Reference Photo

New Life!

a landscape of a romantic picnic with wine on the dunes

Our grandson Adam is a Life Scout in Agoura Hills, CA, Boy Scout Troop 127. To achieve the rank of Eagle Scout, Adam is required to conceive, design, lead, carry out, and complete a project that benefits the community.

amphitheater in need of repair

Adam’s chosen project was to refurbish a dangerously rundown amphitheater area at Malibu Creek State Park, replacing the damaged seating logs and overlaying all the logs with a composite wood plank material. Hundreds of people use the amphitheater year round. Due to budget cuts, the California Parks and Recreation Department lacks the resources to carry out such a task.

Adam directing his volunteers

Adam raised over $5000 in donations for his project and, displaying impressive maturity and leadership skills, directed 50 volunteers (Boy Scouts, park rangers, troop advisors, troop parents, friends and family) in restoring the seating and also beautifying the surrounding landscape, fire pit and amphitheater stage.

a beehive of activity

It was an amazing day, and at the end we stood gazing in awe at what had been accomplished. The park rangers, so dedicated to their work, were profoundly moved and extremely grateful.

new seating coming up

Adam congratulated by Park Ranger Angel Alba

PS: We will soon have 3 Eagle Scouts in our family: Adam, Adam’s father Scott, and our grandson Jackson. In this fast-changing world, it’s comforting to know that there are still hardworking, generous young people with old-fashioned values and a love of the land. We are in good hands.

Great job, Adam!

Memo to self: more drives and picnics!

This little trip was really for business … to do photography of the wine country. I am excited to be working with Herzog Wine Cellars, doing paintings and drawings for display and sale. The first of the series is already completed. It’s based on photographs I took of a vineyard last year at the end of fall.

This trip last Saturday was to photograph vineyards in winter and at the beginning of spring. Here is a painting I just finished of the little green buds popping out on the wonderful old vines. It seems like an impossible feat, but there they are reminding us of the miracles to appreciate in our natural environment.

May your eyes open to the miracles around you.  Happy Spring!

“Hello, Nomi–I am interested in a portrait of our family pet modeled on the attached photo.“

Though the pose was adorable, the photo was too low in resolution for me to see good detail of Jolie’s fur and features. My client then emailed some more photos taken with his regular camera, and I referenced all of his photos for the painting of Jolie.

To pinpoint Jolie’s features, using Corel Painter, I made a digital charcoal sketch referring to all the photos and painted freehand, with digital watercolor, on a layer above the sketch. The sketch could be toggled on and off. For a more detailed description of my technique, please refer to past tutorials in the archived posts.

When Jolie’s portrait was complete, I painted the hardwood floor on a layer beneath her portrait. My digital oil pastel brush worked well to finish the edges of Jolie’s fluffy fur against the wood floor. Voilà!!!

“Hi, Nomi – Yes, my surprise worked well, except my daughter went into our bedroom and saw it early. My wife loves it!”

LifeChronicles makes it possible for families nationwide to have videos of their loved ones over the age of 65 or those family members of any age experiencing a serious illness. Funded by donations and staffed by volunteers who do the taping in your home or teach you how to do your own taping, their services make it possible for anyone to have comforting videos of loved ones sharing their feelings and life stories.

I hope you will view the LifeChronicles website to see examples of beautiful videos and find out more about the mission of LifeChronicles founder, Kate Carter. Kate has devoted her life to bringing comfort to families by making sure no one will forget the face or voice of someone they love.

Thanksgiving with family, 2011

Do you know all about your relatives, past and present… their life stories, dreams, talents, passions? I don’t, but I wish I did. My life and work has been all about saving visual memories for family, friends and clients. I did interview my mother and make a video of her life story several years back, and I just completed an iMovie of our Thanksgiving Week 2011, but there is so much more I could do to document our family.

I would like to leave a better legacy for my children, grandchildren, and those to follow. It’s daunting, especially since I work full time and love painting and drawing portrait commissions, but I think even the smallest attempt at creating a family history is better than nothing.

Documenting your family memories can start at any age.

I have so many thoughts and ideas of what I could do, and I hope to inspire others to do some things to preserve their memories. This information isn’t reserved for older people like myself. I started my first photo album at age 10, when I got my first camera. Kids today have access to cameras in all sorts of forms and take lots of photos of their families, friends, and the events in their lives.

But what will happen to all of these photos? 

just some of my photo albums

My photo albums number over 80 (plus 32 scrapbooks!), but, when digital photography came in, I stopped having prints made. I figured that we could just look at photos on my computer. And, even though they love looking through the albums, I often wonder what the heck my kids are going to do with that huge collection!

grandkids looking at photo album, 2004

They never tire of the albums. 2009

Many of us have a gazillion digital photos sitting on our computers. They are today’s form of boxes of photos. And like the old photos in those boxes, they are usually of unnamed people. We think we will remember who the people are, but we won’t be able to pass on this information if we don’t do something about it.

What have you done to preserve your family history?

I hope you will stay tuned as I share some ideas. Subscribe to my blog to see what comes next. I would really appreciate your feedback and suggestions of ways to MAKE HISTORY!

• Most people, including myself, were not born knowing how to do it.
• It’s ok if you “can’t draw a straight line.” Straight lines can be boring, and that’s why God invented rulers!
• Though not easy – at least for me – it can be learned, and it can be FUN!
• You don’t have to draw things out of your imagination. You can copy anything you see.
• Like most skills, the more you do it, the better you get.

It’s Never Too Late to Learn

My first experience with learning to draw was at age 47, at a Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain 5-day intensive course. I was a professional photographer and had heard that drawing would improve my business skills. Since childhood I had harbored a secret wish to be an artist, so I figured that learning to draw would be icing on the cake. Little did I know that the class would lead to my eventually becoming a full-time artist … not Michelangelo obviously, but good enough to find personal fulfillment and to make my clients happy.

A Partner in Learning

I talked my husband Gerry into taking the class, too.

Voilà, Gerry's portrait of Nomi

Gerry doing his homework

Always Drawing and Perfecting

Since that first course, I have spent countless hours in classes, as well as on my own:

• drawing people in airports
• copying from art books in the car while Gerry drives
• copying from the masters in museums
• drawing every day for my work
• I am currently figuring out how to draw on my iPad.

So go ahead and draw!

No one is looking. It can be your little secret, or you can overcome your fears, take classes, and share your drawing with the world. You will be amazed at how you have never really “seen” things until you actually draw them. And guess what … you will become better at business and everything else, including other art forms. Drawing will help develop a balance between your perceptual skills and your critical thinking. Your right and left brains will thank you. Best of all, you will hereby be proclaimed an artist and eligible for your Artistic License!

Our daughter Nomi Wagner was born on 11th August this year. Recently, while we searched on the web (Google), we discovered there already exists a Nomi Wagner. We looked at your website and were curious if you can make a portrait of our daughter: ‘Nomi Wagner’ painted by … Nomi Wagner!

I was thrilled to have a little namesake in Holland. The Wagners couldn’t decide which to commission, a drawing or a painting, so they commissioned a painting and I gave them a drawing. After all … we’re family now!

I painted Nomi’s portrait, combining two emailed reference photos.

Using Corel Painter, I made a digital charcoal sketch of the combined source photos on one layer of a .rif file. I then inserted a layer of white above that (to toggle) and painted with digital watercolor on a gel layer above those two layers.

When Nomi’s portrait was completed, I dropped all layers, saved as a psd. file, and extracted it from the white background in Photoshop. Then I deleted the original portrait layer in the rif. file and painted the background and foreground in Corel Painter on a gel layer beneath the extracted portrait, now in a default layer.

To finish the painting, I dropped the layers and blended them with my Soft Blender Stump in a .psd file.

I used the same technique for Baby Nomi’s drawing, dropping the layers but leaving the background white. As always, I make changes as the work progresses.

cherub face in the making

Dear Nomi,

The portraits look fantastic!!!!!

We are very excited….

Without any doubt our parents will be just as pleased on Christmas when they receive the additional prints made by you.

Again many thanks.

Happy holidays and hope to meet you soon….

The Wagner Family

After all those fabulous holiday goodies, it’s (sigh) time to get back on the wagon.  My husband Gerry and I make a big bowl of Gazpacho every week and enjoy it as a first course. It curbs our appetites and has lots of veggies. This is our variation of a recipe I learned almost 40 years ago when taking cooking classes from Diana von Welanetz Wentworth.

Gazpacho

Mix together in a very large bowl:

64 oz. bottle of Trader Joe’s Garden Patch Juice or V8

(2) 14 ½ oz. cans stewed tomatoes

1 bunch celery hearts

1 large sweet brown or red onion

1 bunch green onions, chopped with knife

1 long seedless cucumber, unpeeled

Trader Joe’s Mélange à Trois (frozen)
or
1 lb. multi-colored fresh bell peppers

1/4 C. balsamic vinegar

1/4 C. red wine vinegar

1/4 C. Worcestershire sauce

4-8 dashes hot sauce (optional)

Pour veggie juice into large bowl. Add juice from stewed tomatoes. Chop drained, stewed tomatoes and all veggies (except green onions) in food processor. Stir in vinegars and Worcestershire sauce. Chill and enjoy! Top each serving with a dash of olive oil. I put a heaping spoon of plain Greek yogurt on mine. To your good health and a happy year!

I watch interviews and read about other creative senior citizens still out there, still making every minute count. We don’t want this party to end. We’re grateful to still be here and able to do our work, and we’re racing like hamsters because there is so much left to do. It’s ridiculous, but it’s who we are. We’re having such a good time, we don’t want to stop … ever.

It’s never been possible for me to just sit back and chill, unless away from home or on vacation. Even then, my brain is an unstoppable creativity machine. It wakes me up in the wee hours and drives me crazy, as it has every night of my entire life. This compulsion to create and produce may be because of experiencing family members die young during my early childhood (see my earliest blog posts), or it just may be who I am. Dunno.

“Mambo #5” At age 60, oldest person in local dance school recital, June 2000.

I want to be a jazz pianist. I want to be proficient in conversational French. I want to tap dance in shows – the most fun I ever had. I want to see the whole world and then come home and paint it. Not gonna happen in this lifetime … bummer.

To paraphrase “Is That All There Is?” a song written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller and made famous by Peggy Lee (I was lucky to see her sing it in person.):

If that’s all there is, my friends, then let’s keep dancing

Let’s keep creating and have a ball

If that’s all there is