<![CDATA[Ann Heideman - watercolors a retrospective]]>Wed, 28 Aug 2024 04:29:41 -0700Weebly<![CDATA[Full sheet water colors from upstate NY - Gulf summit]]>Thu, 20 Sep 2018 03:49:17 GMThttps://www.annheideman.com/watercolors-a-retrospective/full-sheet-water-colors-from-upstate-ny-gulf-summit

After a while of getting back into painting from what I was looking at - and getting comfortable with the water color process - I began to do some full sheet paintings - there are on sheets that are 22' x 30" - it takes some time to do one of these paintings so I'd be standing outside for most of the working day. Only one has a horizon. I think they are better off with the closed space. 

I like the closed space, the confusion the impermanence of this and that and space and time and light and shadow.

A number of these I do not have photos of because they are in private collections.
]]><![CDATA[Full Sheet water colors of Connecticut from early 90's]]>Thu, 20 Sep 2018 02:39:08 GMThttps://www.annheideman.com/watercolors-a-retrospective/full-sheet-water-colors-of-connecticut-from-early-90s

When I worked at the St. Luke's school in NYC we used to take kids to camp in Connecticut ... the teachers were free in the day time so I'd do some painting. A full sheet watercolor takes about 4 to 6 hours to do so I'd be outside by my French easel most of the day. At night we'd watch over the flock.

​There are a few oil paintings from these trips as well as some smaller water colors.

The trips were scheduled for early spring so it was a wonderful time to paint in the still transparent woods.
]]><![CDATA[half sheet water colors from upstate NY - Gulf summit]]>Tue, 11 Sep 2018 01:22:27 GMThttps://www.annheideman.com/watercolors-a-retrospective/half-sheet-water-colors-from-upstate-ny-gulf-summit

 I did a lot of painting here - my hosts owned 40 acres - and had built two ponds, the small pond and large pond, on an existing stream. Actually beavers built another one. One winter we played hockey on the large pond. Our host, a painter, encouraged  friends to come and paint there.
All of these paintings were done outside, I had fingerless gloves for when it was cold. These are on a half sheet of Arches hot press - so 15"x22". I  was learning to do more complicated paintings that took longer to do - so I'd be standing outside for about three hours.
When not painting I learned to shoot skeet, and later became NY state women's' champion -- the year I left - 1995 -- I think... More importantly, I was introduced to fly fishing. ​
]]><![CDATA[half sheet water colors from Brooklyn (and a few other places) 91-93]]>Tue, 11 Sep 2018 00:07:03 GMThttps://www.annheideman.com/watercolors-a-retrospective/half-sheet-water-colors-from-brooklyn-and-a-few-other-places-91-93

I didn't paint much from 1988 - to 1990 - I was busy being a working mom. But it was suggested that I should look at my garden, which I had begun keeping a year or two earlier, as a still life - look for the drama and the shallow space - so I began to do just that. 

All of these paintings were done outside, in one standing, there were no cell phone cameras in those day nor digital pictures nor printers.

I also begin to build small ponds - I just used sheet plastic because they were only about three feet wide and a foot deep. But it was wonderful. I even had frogs for a few years despite the fact we were only a block away from the famously polluted Gowanus Canal.

The painting to the left shows the fish in the little pond as well as my son's plastic toddler toys and the big grass I grew.

Honestly it took about two years of digging out junk from the back yard before it could be a garden, but once I figure out how to grow stuff, I was hooked.
]]><![CDATA[Upstate New York - water color sketches]]>Sun, 09 Sep 2018 04:14:27 GMThttps://www.annheideman.com/watercolors-a-retrospective/upstate-new-york

it's a good thing to be close friends with people who own a country home. Although this one did not have running water - we relied on wood stoves for heat in the winter and I remember blowing up the gas oven when I tried to light it. 

we kept paper cups for coffee with our names on them. One of us wrote MINE on his and I've been using that joke ever since.

There are a number of large watercolors and oil paintings from this location as well. But these are the small ones. All of them were done outside with my French easel. there were no cell phones and printers then.

It was in upstate New York I learned to fly fish and shoot skeet.

Many of the road paintings were done on the way here.
]]><![CDATA[1990s  sketches of Brooklyn and NYC]]>Wed, 05 Sep 2018 23:44:37 GMThttps://www.annheideman.com/watercolors-a-retrospective/1990s-sketches-of-brooklyn-and-nyc
these are some of the smaller works I did at the time. We lived in Brooklyn from about 1982 until the summer of 1995 when Sean and I moved to Seattle.
We lived in a row house, with a garden and I built first a garden for vegetables and then three small ponds which became subjects for the larger paintings.

All of the paintings were done from life pretty much standing at a French easel. I wore one out by the end of the century.
]]><![CDATA[travel painting from the 90's]]>Wed, 05 Sep 2018 22:53:28 GMThttps://www.annheideman.com/watercolors-a-retrospective/travel-painting-from-the-90s

I took my little paint box with me on many excursions and vacations, as well as trips to see family, and if there was time, I did some little paintings. There are some larger and more developed works from this period also done away from home. However,  these are vacation snap shots. All were done on the spot - there were no cell phone pictures to work from  at that time - you just looked and drew what you saw. It's very direct and in the moment.

Most of them bring very specific recollections.

In general I was exploring color and ways to put down paint that I could not do in the larger more developed paintings. And I was standing out in the snow, or just outside and feeling very brave and arty. 

The feeling - 'I've got nothing lose'  that goes with an 8"x5" painting that is done in a quarter of an hour - is just plain fun.

As with the road paintings - a number of them remain in the drawer unphotographed. The price of spontaneity is not all paintings are winners. But that's not failure - that success.​
]]><![CDATA[road painting from the 1990's]]>Wed, 05 Sep 2018 22:27:12 GMThttps://www.annheideman.com/watercolors-a-retrospective/road-painting-from-the-1990s

When riding in the car on the 3 hour trip to upstate New York, I sometimes did some paintings. They are mostly 8"x5" and slightly smaller - all done from a moving landscape and all done quickly.

I had - still have - a little plastic yellow flat box for file cards and the paper fits into the lid and the base holds the very small water color box plus a very small plastic container of water, a paper towel, tape and a few brushes.

I had the box in my lap while we drove and painted what I saw as it flashed by. I loved the freedom - and the fun of working this way.
]]><![CDATA[Some Small works from the 1980's]]>Fri, 31 Aug 2018 21:21:09 GMThttps://www.annheideman.com/watercolors-a-retrospective/work-from-the-1980s

Some small watercolors from the 1980's. 

I am beginning the project of getting 40 years of artwork out of storage and photographed and on line - and I hope on some walls.in all probability these posts will get reorganized in the future, but here goes with some of what I've photographed so far. I am starting with smaller work.

I graduated from Indiana University with an MFA in 1980.  I was in Seattle for a couple of years, but then moved to NYC - landed in Brooklyn in a row house and became a pubic school math teacher.
       In the early 1980's I realized I was interested in pattern but didn't really know what to do with it.
         I was painting a lot of still lives and just what ever was around me at the time.
          My son was born in 1987 - The Hollyhock painting below represents a coming big change where I go outside to paint 'still lives' in the garden. It also was done after a long time of not painting , just mom-ing and working.
         Strangely, I learned to love gardening in the big city. One thing about Brooklyn is we had a yard. 
          From then on I focused on the landscape and largely close up. That was the end of the still lives and the beginning of my vision for what I wanted to do - deal with a close space and interlocking space.

Note my fashionable attire and nail polish. The pattern on wall paper in these portraits become an entanglement of stems creating a chaotic pattern in  the later work.
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