Gail Niebrugge's Blog
The saws, drills, glue, muddy boots, and worker chaos are all gone, instead I have beautiful new granite kitchen counters, stainless steel sink with a fancy faucet. I love this. New counters in the master bath as well. We spent the rest of the day vacuuming, shaking out rugs, cleaning up plaster dust and wood [...]
I’m thinking I’m not going to be able to cook dinner in the kitchen tonight, new counter tops being installed! Since my studio is in my home, I find it very hard to work while workers are running in and out using big drills, saws, and the like. Hopefully the job will be finished tomorrow [...]
Alaska comes alive during the holidays with tiny colorful lights everywhere. Our long days of darkness are enhanced by outdoor lights. This is a photo of the studio/residence at 9:00AM, December 2, the upstairs studio lights have been on for hours where I am hard at work. The shortest day (solstice) is a few weeks [...]
Sometimes it seems that everything I touch is screwed up, and this week is no exception. Sometimes I feel like a prisoner to recorded telephone messages. My website shopping cart is down and after two days of work it is not restored. I’m loosing sales and customers, this is distressing. I thought I was staying [...]
Last week when making our mosaic concrete stepping stones we ended up with an excess of wet cement. Not ones to let a valuable resource go to waste the group gathered some giant rhubarb leaves, placed them on piles of rounded sand and began shoveling cement over them. Shown above are neighbors Mary Mystrom shoveling [...]
Gathered in the hangar waiting to un-mold our fabulous mosaic stepping stone creations, left to right; Bob Niebrugge, Lois Munford, John Mues, Jack Simpson, Dennis & Carol Eby, Joann Collins with visiting brother on her left, me, Sue Mues, taking the photo Mary Mystrom, missing; Sonya Falconer, Kathy and Lindie Sage. Our first attempts will [...]
Inspired by the recent garden tours a few of us decided to make mosaic stepping stones to decorate our own gardens. To begin we researched “How to Make Mosaic Stepping Stones” on the internet where several teaching videos and step-by-step instructions gave us enough confidence to try. We gathered a bunch of tiles, glass beads, [...]
While doing physical therapy for my shoulder in the studio one morning I had the pleasure to watch the entire progress of a stunning red dawn, from the first delicate hues of pink to the peak where fire-like crimson dominated the southern horizon covering most of the south/east, south, and south/west sky. Finally, nearly and [...]
My daily routine during shoulder rehabilitation is shockingly different from the one I’ve followed for over 40 years as a self-employed artist. Before shoulder surgery I used to get up around 6:00AM and go to the gym for 45minutes of cardio and 30 minutes of weights, then be at work in my home office by [...]
I’m not used to being idle, of not being in complete control of my activities and work, and having to depend on others for the simplest of tasks. I’ve been blessed throughout my life with good health and resourcefulness during periods of injury. The rotator cuff surgery last week on my dominant arm is testing [...]
After the fresh snowfall Saturday we decorated a few trees in the yard and every time I see them they make me happy. It is so nice to break up the long dark Alaska nights with sparkling outdoor lights. I won’t be able to do much more decorating this holiday season and unable to paint [...]
Years ago when I bought this plant it was sold as a Christmas Cactus but it bloomed at Thanksgiving and again at Easter, never at Christmas. I recently learned it is a Thanksgiving Cactus. It is a gorgeous, showy plant that thrives on neglect. A perfect plant for me. I’ve always managed to kill every [...]
I am ever so thankful that we were able to drive home after the show with the loaded cargo trailer before the ice rain paralyzed traffic. Monday morning I stepped out the door to fetch the newspaper and nearly fell, the driveway surface was as slick as if it had been smoothed with a zamboni. [...]
After a summer of rain in Alaska’s Matanuska valley we’ve had a beautiful, unseasonably warm fall. Very few nights have dipped below 32º and daytime temperatures have been in the high 40′s to low 50′s. The lawns are still green, Trumpeter swan and ducks feed freely along the shoreline of the unfrozen lake, and fishermen [...]
September in Alaska brings crisp nights and warm days with long, gorgeous sunsets. The cloud cover has hidden our view of the blazing evening sky a high percent of the time last summer, but if you watch patiently sometimes just before dark the clouds will part a bit and reveal the beauty of the very [...]
Bob makes a killer vegetable pizza on the outdoor grill. Tons of sauteed fresh veges with lots of mozzarella cheese heated to melting on the Bar-B-Que, one of my favorite dinners. Try it sometime. Good for you and tastes good too! A plate almost too pretty to consume. Gail Niebrugge, Alaska artist
Years ago another artist gave me this wonderful brush holder, and I’ve been using it ever since for my valuable watercolor brushes. It is made out of a soft, screen fabric. The top flap folds down over the brushes and the mesh folder can be rolled up and tied with the red shoe string. The [...]
We had fun embroidering the barren lilac tree with multi-colored lights and creating tiny white sparkles on several spruce trees in the front yard at Niebrugge Studio. It was beginning to look a lot like Christmas, stealing a line from a song! There is something wonderful about lighting up the darkness of winter in Alaska [...]
Gail Niebrugge (Knee-brew-ghe) born and raised in California has pursued art since childhood, winning a poster contest on the Johnny Jet television show at the age of twelve. Gail began her career as an illustrator for the US Navy and Marines in San Diego, and later established the Instructional Media Center for the Grossmont High School District in La Mesa, California. The Niebrugge family fell in love with Alaska while on vacation in 1976 and never returned home, instead they established a residence and studio in the remote interior settlement of Copper Center where the artist painted … [Read More...]
Wikipedia defines pointillism as; "a style of painting in which small distinct points of primary colors create the impression of a wide selection of secondary and intermediate colors." It goes on to say that the mind and the eye mix the color spots into a full range of tones and that it is closely related to Divisionism. Divisionism was practiced by Georges Seurat during the Neo-Impressionism period. He broke his color into basic elements and painted very small and regular dots. His dots are carefully placed as to not touch each other, so the white under painted canvas shows around all of the dots. I call my painting technique pointillism, but technically it is incorrect according to Wikipedia. The difference between my technique and true pointillism is that I use … [Read More...]