Dixie Sampier

No Texting While Driving!

One of my favorite perspectives to use in my paintings is the upper view.
After living in the flat swamps for ten years, not able to see beyond the trees, I find it very interesting to look up and see what is up above the trees now that I live in the San Diego area. There are so many great views and scenes to see around this part of the country. So with so much to chose from, I found that I was always selecting a scene for my paintings that made me look upward.

On the way up the hill on Hwy. 163 to Hillcrest I could see this old two-story house that looked so much like the one I grew up in. I was determined to do a painting of it somehow, but there was no way to pull over and get a shot of it with the camera. I drove up the hill every Sunday on the way to church and took note of just how the lighting would be during certain times of the year and how the landscape was different in each season.

After observing this particular house for over a year, I knew just when it had the best lighting on it to make it a nice painting. So, with my digital camera all set and ready to go, I clicked while I was driving! Hooray! I got a good shot! No, I don’t ever text while I’m driving and it is against the law to even be on a cell phone while driving, but after a year of observation, I knew exactly when and where I could get a good shot of that view that I wanted. I was glad the traffic was light while I drove up that hill on Sunday mornings.

When I painted this scene I chose one of the palettes and methods that I learned in art school, using pastel like colors for the underpainting and then glazing it later with colors that were transparent. I loved the effect and so did someone else who bought it!

I had no idea!

The first five years we were back in California we attended Faith Chapel in Spring Valley, and they had this darling little chapel down on the lower part of the property and up above that area was this little yellow house that I selected to do a painting of.  The day I went to paint it,  up came the wind, and the weather was changing, but I proceeded to get the painting done anyway. Some years later, they tore that little house down and built the new facility, a huge church now exists up on that hill where the little house used to be.  I had no idea it was going to be  torn down, and so here’s another story of what I paint, something happens to it!  If there was a title for a book of such stories it would be “Look What Happened!” This particular painting is in my personal collection and I love the way it expresses the mood of the weather. The whippy wind was making me do quick blobs and hurried strokes as worked on getting the essence of this place.

The Flower Cart

A long time ago there used to be a flower cart on the corner of Washington and Magnolia in El Cajon, CA. I took a picture of it so I could do a painting of it and showed it to the man who worked at the cart, but he wasn’t interested in the painting.

I decided to post this story because it is  evidence of what I paint, something happens!  Well, not only did the flower cart disappear, but my photo of it in color has disappeared. I have gone through my stash of photos and such in my studio and albums and cannot find anything but the original photo I took of Fritz and the photo of the painting in black and white, which is rather odd because I usually don’t take b and w photos and then I found a polaroid of the beginning of the painting as it was  on my easel. It shows that I started the work on a red canvas and sketched in charcoal.

This is one of my favorite ways to paint in oils.  I was taught 20 some methods on how to do an oil painting while I was in art school in Louisiana.  It is very interesting that many things that I have painting have a history of disappearing or changing drastically.  Or, even the painting itself might disappear!  I have had paintings stolen from where they were displayed and will share some of those stories in a future post.

Eureka!

When our family moved back to California (1982), and we got settled, my daughter and I would spend a lot of time at the local library. While she looked around for things to check out, I came across some books about California which looked so good to me since I had been living in the swamps of Louisiana for so long. In one of the books was a scene that intrigued me and Iwas so inspired to make a painting of it. I didn’t bother the check the book out, but later went back to the library to see if I could find it, and it wasn’t there and I failed to get the title of it.
So, for years, this particular scene gelled in my mind, left on the back of my mind and nothing I could do but dream about it.

Lo and behold, one day I was browsing through some magazines and there it was, that very scene!  Eureka!  I don’t recall the name of the magazine,  or any information where that scene was of,  just that, there it was, my chosen scene to paint.
I loved the colors, and I just knew in my heart that somewhere, sometime in my life I might have seen that very scene myself where ever it was, some kind of old California landscape.

To Touch A Bird

One day I was in the Secret Garden at Summers Past Farm, where I go to paint. It is a very pleasant place to visit if you like country gardens and relaxing places. They have a herb garden and a lavender field and all kinds of things that give you a nice retreat area to get a way from it all.

So, back to the Secret Garden. There is a birdbath in there and I found a darling little girl trying to touch the bird statue that was in that birdbath. I asked her mom if I could take her picture. In my heart I said to myself,”God, I want to have a cute little grand-daughter some day.” Well, a year later, I got one, and she is a blonde, named Hannah, who just turned 13 this month!  Boy, is she ever a cutie!  Not only that, she’s very smart too.
I did a large oil painting of this little girl by the birdbath, and then later did a watercolor of it. How odd it is, this birdbath has never looked as nice as when I captured it that day.  It has been covered with lush geraniums since then and I never saw a cute little girl in that garden like I did the day I got the photo taken. I forgot to ask that mother what her little girl’s name was, so was not able to contact her to show her this painting.

In this photo you can’t see the girl’s face, that’s because I can’t find the very photo that I painted from, but you get the idea here.  I have been painting at Summers Past Farm for over 10 years now.  They sell my cards and paintings in their gift shop. What a privilege I have, I will tell you more in the following stories.

Remembering a Relative

The name of this painting is “Relatives” and the actual truth in this story is not just one relative that I am mentioning here because she just passed away recently. Janie Kelly, my sister in law, will be missed, but I have her in this painting. She is holding the umbrella for my other relatives and then two of them are coming from their car in this scene.

The event of this scene was the day of my dad’s funeral. So the title of this story should be about relatives, and not just a relative.

This scene made a nice composition for a painting and I rarely do paintings of people, but I like the shapes in this painting because the curve of the umbrella was repeated in the curve of the sidewalk and then echoed in the purse Janie is holding. The shape of the sidewalk leads right into what the focus of this painting is.  The colors in this painting were all harmonized to make a pleasing atmosphere.  One of my favorite painters, Eric Wiegardt said, “Art is what something could be rather than what it is.”  This was a sad day, but I made it into something warm and interesting.

I am going to miss Janie especially because she lived near me and the other relatives live in Missouri.  This painting is an oil on canvas and is 16 x 20 inches, and is for sale.  If  it doesn’t sell then it will look charming in the ladies’ room at our church.

By the way, Janie was married to my brother, Jim.  He was killed at age 37 several years ago.  One thing nice about funerals is that you get to see all your friends from long ago and some of the relatives, too.

Found Triangles

Do you see all the triangles in this painting?  It was rather unique how I came across them and I’m not one to draw out those type of structures, but when I looked at this photo of Myra Brandt who used to work with my husband, I thought this would make a good subject for a painting.  I entered this painting in a show and the judge knocked it, but, each judge sees things differently.

It was fun to capture all the detail in this simple photograph which was taken at a company picnic many years ago, probably in the early 1980’s.  It is an oil painting, 16 x 20 canvas.  Of course, the photograph is old and not as colorful, but you can see where I am coming from with the subject. I have learned not to buy art books that want to teach you something, and then show you how a painting was painted, but never give a reference of what the artist was looking at to make that painting.  I like to see how they were seeing and know what they were looking at.  That way you can see what was eliminated from the scene,  or what was emphasised in the painting.

Still Life that Moves

A long time ago, someone gave me this beautiful gloxinia plant and I decided to do a painting of it. I set it out on the patio in good lighting and used a painting knife to paint it onto a 16 x 20 inch masonite board. I thought this was a very simple painting to do and I knew I had a good part of that week to do this painting each morning. I discovered  something: live plants can move!!!   Oh dear, each day I noticed it was changing, not dying!  The main flower turned half way around just over night, and then one of the leaves started to turn to another direction. I know plants move, but I expected that simple flower plant to just sit still even though you actually can’t see it move, but, it did!  I think of this painting because my sister in law, Janie bought it and she just passed away.  I will miss her and remember how beautiful that painting looked in her guest bathroom where it gets good lighting. That was a still life that moved, but I wonder, would it be classified as a floral or a still life?

Not There Anymore!

This seems to happen to me a lot of times… I’ll see something that I want to paint, and then it vanishes and isn’t there anymore. I took a picture of these mail boxes when I used to live in the Mt. Helix area. When I actually got ready to make a painting of them drove back to see them one more time and they were gone! They had been replaced with more modern, up-dated mail boxes with locks which was nothing interesting to paint.
Old mail boxes have always intrequed me with so much weathering and character to report from them. This photograph is not a very good composition, and I never did care to really make a painting from it. One thing for sure, I have learned that as an artist, I  see and sense so much more when I am actually viewing the real thing.

Another Black and White

Way back in the 1980’s I took a class from Marie Wordell and she had a live model for us to do one day. The model was wearing a very colorful costume. It was a Spanish costume, so you can imagine how many colors it had and a colorful head scarf besides.

 Oh no! I forgot my palette, but had a tube of black watercolor paint in my basket of equipment. (my gear). Well, it was a matter of painting the essence of what I was seeing and not have to try to report every color on the model and I felt that I did the best job in class of all the students.

This painting sold, and the owner moved to the east coast and I never got a photo of it. The owner was kind enough to send me a photo and so here it is, and as you can see, it is not correctly taken, but better than nothing. I don’t even know the name of the model, and I don’t have a picture of her in class to compare how well I got a likeness of her, but that didn’t matter.  It was more fun just doing what watercolor does, and as one of my mentors, Edgar Whitney would say, “Watercolor is a beautiful lie!”  In other words, you don’t have to tell the truth and report all the facts, just let the watercolor do what it likes to do.  I love the way watercolor behaves.  It is a lot of fun once you become acquainted with its character.