PearTree Designs

07/10/2025

Mirrors, clocks, picture-in-picture frames, and hand crafted jewelry. That’s what I’ll be selling at the 2025 Hudson River Arts & Crafts Festival!

The mirrors and frames here are in various stages of completion, and I’ll be adding a few more in time for the event, but this should give you a gist.

The last time I did something like this was over 25 years ago, and I’m pretty excited.

Hope you can come if you’re in the area. After the event they’ll be available on my online and Etsy shops!

07/07/2025

This morning I packed up and dropped off this just-sold painting to UPS and I miss it already. It was one of the first I’d painted last year for my solo “Painting Within” exhibit, and even though I sold most of the other work from that show, I’d become rather attached to this one. I feel a little sad that it’s gone. 🌷🖼️

It was sold via to someone I’ve never met in Florida, and I’m flattered that she liked the work of a complete stranger enough to buy it.

I’ll be making this available to order as a print because I’ll be ordering one for myself!

(There’s a progress video in slide 2 which I’d never shared here. It was nice to see it again! 😌)

07/06/2025

This is one of many reasons DOGE was a FAILURE.

The U.S. has compromised its ability to predict and anticipate weather with deep staffing cuts, former head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Rick Spinrad said on Saturday (July 5), as authorities in Texas continued to report a rise in the state's flooding death toll following h...

07/04/2025

Here’s my nearly finished ‘The Lavender Pickers.” It’s oil on 24” x 32” basswood panel, and I am leaving it to lie a little before adding the final subtle layers of shadow and shine.

The last slide shows the original photo that inspired this painting. I took it of my now former student on the senior class trip to this past May.

I love the abstract painting in that photo but thought a landscape with a road or path would work better with my style, as well as with my ongoing theme of interactive painting within painting.

After playing around with several photos, I found a painting by mid 19th century French artist Joséphine Bowes, called ‘A Corn Field near Calais” which worked with the composition. Changing the light to sunset colors was an easy decision. Changing the corn field to a lavender field was the next, unplanned choice.

The original interactive element was supposed to involve a shadow but it didn’t work. I’m not even sure how I got the idea of adding lavender in the fields and the woman walking with it in her basket but I think it provides a pretty good narrative. The photo was totally unplanned and completely candid, so this whole painting was quite a journey!

07/02/2025

Creating new storage space in my studio also meant reorganization…and rediscovering of old work—including a sketch book of figure drawing from college days.

Creating new storage space in my studio also meant reorganization and rediscovering of old work—including a sketch book of figure drawing from college days.

These are just a few that were in that sketchbook. I had some great art teachers in my school days who hired talented and diverse models for our classes. I love that we had a variety of ages, ethnicities, and body types

As is pretty standard, the models first gave us 5 minute action poses so we could warm up with quick sketches, then 10 minute poses, and eventually 20-30 minute poses. I think some of my best sketches were done during those quick, 5-minute warm ups! But I truly enjoyed the longer poses, which allowed me to add tone and weight, and sometimes, include portraits.

It was on my to-do list sign up for figure drawing studio time this year, before even finding these. I need to get on that!

06/25/2025

This painting needed its own post. I painted my daughter as Madame X in my 2023 holiday card and learned a lot about the work while researching it (it’s too much to write about here but it caused quite the scandal: Google it for a good story!).

I learned even more after this exhibit, including that Sargent started painting the replica of it in slide 4, and that he drew numerous sketches of Madame X to properly capture her beauty before he painted his masterpiece. It’s fascination stuff.

06/25/2025

I’ve always loved the work of John Singer Sargent but after seeing this extensive and comprehensive exhibit yesterday I am completely besotted.

Seeing his colors and brush strokes up close, and the way he captured the subtle emotions of the people he painted made me even more aware of what a true master of the art of painting he was.

I included only a few closeups here — he conveyed texture and surface exquisitely—the glint of metal and the sheen of silk, just incredible. (Note the painted nails of the woman in white.)

06/21/2025

Today was the soft opening of , where my painting ‘The Tulips Perished too Soon,” is included in their “In Bloom” art exhibit.

There were so many lovely pieces in this show, and in the shop that’s in the gallery. The show is up all summer. The gallery is in a place called Yellow Monkey Village Cross River, and is every bit as charming as it sounds! 🌷🌼🪻🌹🌸🌺🌻💐

06/18/2025

I just unearthed this earlier today while cleaning and packing up my classroom for the summer.

Oil on 48” x 8 stretched canvas, I painted it in school, so probably at least 35 years ago. I brought to school a few years ago to show my AP art students that a good concept might not translate well to the physical work. I never even signed this back then because I considered it an art fail.

This would work better as an agamograph, but I didn’t even know they existed back then. This is worth revisiting. I’m sure I could convey this more effectively!

06/12/2025

A few students and I (including my daughter, who was my freshman student at the time) painted this mural just a couple of days short of 6 years ago (before I had this account) so I never shared it here. It’s a much needed feel-good post for me, so I’m sharing it now.

We painted this over a couple of days, and it was a great teaching—and learning experience. One that I’d love to repeat! spaziante_art