And the final selections are…

Here they are!   The paintings that got the most votes and will now be the Coffee Cups card set are:  

#2, “Coffee for Two”; #4, “Blue Cup on Yellow Table”;  #5, “Chromatic Cups”; and # 6, “Cups and Book”

As for the two winners of the Coffee Cups Cards sets, congratulations to you both, Stacy McCullough and Caroline Leygue!

In the meantime, you can now order a set of these cards, or of any of the other three sets at the special pre-release price of $22.00 per pack (normally $24.00).  Tax and shipping will be added to the final charge.  This price is good until July 15, 2010.

You can view the other three sets of cards, “Poppies”, “Architecture” and “Blossoms“,  on my website, just go to:  http://www.rosoffartworks.com/_content/_notecards/index.htm

How to Order? Use the Comment button below to tell me how many of which sets you want, and I’ll follow up with you to complete your orders.

My great thanks to all the 300+  of you who visited my blog during this selection process.  Wow!  And with all these visits the blog has now had over 10,000 visits!  So thank you again!

You get to vote! Until tomorrow, June 29, 2010, at Noon PDT

And you could receive one of this new sets of the cards for your vote!

I am about to print a new set of my notecards, and I want to hear from you.  Above are six images of my coffee cup series of paintings, with numbers below them.  You can be a part of the selection process by choosing the four you think would make the best set to reproduce as the new set of notecards.  I want your input!

How? Simply use the COMMENT link below, and send me the numbers of the images you think would make the best set of four cards.  Please just vote once!

The voting starts now, and ends at noon tomorrow, June 29, 2010.

SPECIAL PRIZE:  When the votes are tallied, the names of two of the voters who picked the final four winning images will be drawn from a hat to receive a set of the cards.

Questions? Use the Comment button below, and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible!  And your email address remains private!

Thanks for participating!

Poppy Pods

“Oriental Poppy Pods” ©Jill Rosoff 2010, 8 1/2″ x 5 1/2″, $55.00

My sister Jenny’s garden is a treasure trove of subjects for me to paint.  This year she let her Oriental Poppies reseed, so the petals fell away and the pods grew.  When I saw them, I fell for them: their shapes, their color, their construction–the little flares around the base where the pod meets the stem.  Here’s the first painting of them of probably many to come.

Up the Elbe River from Wittenburg

“New Mown Field” ©Jill Rosoff 2010, 5 1/2 ” x 8 1/2 “, $65.00

This piece is the first in a series of small paintings I have coming from my trip with my mother up the Elbe River in Germany in April this year.  After a few days in Berlin, then were transferred to Magdeburg where we boarded our river ship, and spent 7 days cruising the Elbe up to Melnick in the Czech Republic.  And then we were in delicious Prague for a few days before coming home.  I’d been to both these cities in ’78, before the fall of the Iron Curtain and the Berlin Wall.  So it was wonderful seeing them now, out from under the thumb of the Soviet regime and in full bloom.

In between Berlin and Prague we discovered the landscape of the Elbe River.  This painting is of the flatlands south of Wittenburg.  I was drawn to the striping in the field—the hay had just been mowed.

The unexpected and wonderful realization I had on this trip was the peace of being on the river, this natural, pre-automotive highway.  We were away from asphalt, traffic, gas stations, billboards, and noise, and saw the countryside from the water’s point of view.  It was great!  It took us seven days to cruise what would typically have been a four hour drive.  It was peaceful, quiet, and calming, and lovely just to watch the fields and towns and bridges and ferries and castles and animals as we floated by.  More soon.

Pale Pink Tulips

“Light Pink Tulips” ©Jill Rosoff 2010, 17 1/2″ x 6″, SOLD

I saw this bunch of pale, pale pink tulips in the container with all of the other bunches of tulips:  red, yellow, pink, orange, lavender.  In comparison, these were almost white, and only when I picked them up and looked at them did I notice just the hint of the pale pink at the edges, and delicate pink lines in the little ribs of the petals, as if the color had drained into the crevices.  I visualized the painting in a heartbeat.  It was one of those paintings that just popped out and onto the paper, almost as if I had nothing to do with it.  Magic.

More on Apples

“Apples and Pears”, ©Jill Rosoff 2010, 6″ x 24″, sold

What is it about apples?  Red ones, green ones, the Big Apple, apple pie, the Beatles record company, and oh yes, that little computer company. Apples are a core (!)  symbol in American iconography.  I’ve been cracking up thinking of all sorts of apple references.  Mostly songs titles and lyrics have come to mind, like:  God didn’t make little Green Apples (which triggers SO many questions, like, who did?!)  You are the Apple of my Eye, One Bad one doesn’t Spoil the Whole bunch, In Apple Blossom Time, Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree (with anyone else but me), Lemon Tree (ok ok!)  Of course, bananas have the Banana Boat song…uh oh!  Dey-oh!

I’ve always liked painting them, whole, red, green, a couple of just the core with the rest of it eaten away.  And their shapes are little different from variety to variety, they’re pretty wonderful.  The ones that narrow down at the bottom are particularly sensual, with their little bumps on their bottoms.  Its the colors too, different greens, different reds, and especially the ones that have more than one color or the color is highly textured or variegated.  Like any good model, it gives me lots to play around with.