Homage

Painted as a commission for a friend, this painting was inspired by an photo she liked in a catalogue, plus my love for florals and intense colors.  The homage is to all lovers of flowers, but mostly to my father, who taught me at an early age to love them in my garden and home.

Oil on gallery wrapped canvas, 36 x 36 inches

Flower on Fire

Here's another painting done more or less in the style I learned at a workshop last year with Vie Dunn-Harr.  I started it late last summer, but got stalled fairly quickly.  I picked up my oil paints again a month ago when I took a workshop with Carol Marine, and decided to finish this when I got home.  I didn't spend much time on it the second time around, and it was very liberating to finally finish it.

The genesis was an abstract created from a Paul Gauguin painting, then overlaid with a playful rendition of a stunning red flower I photographed about 5 years ago at a roadside rest in New Mexico.

Oil on gallery-wrapped canvas, 20x16

Pewter and Glass, Orange and Eggs

Last day of Carol Marine's workshop, she let us select our set up and paint from that, with no specific exercise other than to apply the lessons learned that week.  Since Carol does metal and glass so well, I decided to use both in my still life so I could avail myself of her teaching expertise here.  I'm not totally convinced the little glass  votive reads right, but I'm happy with the pewter pitcher, including its dimple on the side that makes the orange's reflection even more distorted.  A fun painting to do!

Oil on Ampersand board, 8x8 inches

Monochrome in Reds

I started with a much more complicated composition, then realized the error of my ways and removed two items.  The exercise was to create a composition in either a complementary color scheme or an analogous color scheme.  I chose the analogous, with the complementary color for accent.  I like the bold graphic of the fabric, which I've used in a previous painting (see Tomatoes in Talavera, posted 10/10/09), behind the organic flower shapes and the sensual little bowl.

Oil, 8x8 inches

Green Pear, Blue Bowl

The attempt in this painting exercise in Carol's workshop was to lay down strokes of color, mixed ONLY on the palette, later laying other strokes over or next to them to soften edges and visually blend colors.  It's harder than it looks, for someone who likes to blend and fuss with her strokes as much as I do.  My values still leave a lot to be desired.  I really liked the result here, however!

Oil, 6x6 on linen

Bad Day at Black Rock

Mid-week at Carol Marine's workshop:  Had about 15 minutes to do each apple, and Carol promised that we would get better and better as we progressed.  I went backwards.  Struggled with color mixing, values, and time.  For the second background color, I mixed with thalo blue instead of ultramarine blue, and was pretty pleased with the lovely resulting deep teal color... until Carol came along and made me wipe it off because thalo bleeds into everything.  Running out of time now, I decided to use the wiped-down thalo color, then hated everything against it.  Carol's right when she says your instincts will help in choosing colors.  Finally scrubbed neutral over the hateful thalo background in the last apple, then wrote the word 'Apple' in frustration and gave up.  I need remedial workshop in values and color mixing.  Maybe in drawing, too.

Sorry, Carol, I did try.  I plan to cover up these apples and do something fabulous instead!

Oil, 8x8 each

Value Studies

 Value Study 1, above

 Value Study 2, above

Value Study 3, above
On the second day at Carol Marine's workshop, she talked and did a demo about values and how they should never be equal in a painting, and then gave us our first exercise for the week.  We were to set up a still life, determine what portion (most, less, or least, or the "pop," as Carol called it) each of the three main values (dark, mid-tone, light) were, and then paint it accordingly, having about 15 minutes per study.  For my first study, the jar, the main value was mid-tone, less was dark, and the pop was light.  In the second study, the bowl with fork and spoon, the main value was dark, less was the mid-tone, and the pop was still the light areas.  For the last study, the more abstracted view of a cup, the main value was mid-tone, less was the light cup, and the pop was the shadow and a bit of the inside of the cup.  What do you think, do they read correctly?  Overall, it was an interesting exercise, but my squinting muscles in my eyes got REALLY tired!

I Know I Can Move This, I Just Know I Can

Many of you know of Carol Marine, the Bastrop artist whose home burned in the terrible fires last summer, and who subsequently moved with her husband and son to Oregon, where it is green and rains a lot!  She still does her workshops all over the U.S., luckily for me.  I took one of Carol's fantastic workshops a couple of weeks ago, and have been trying to find time and sunny days to photograph the results to show you.  This was the first painting I did, the first day, and I probably like it the best because it has an animal in it.  The little ebony elephant has been a studio friend for years, and I'm happy to have finally painted it.  Carol let us pick our set-up, whatever we wanted, no exercise other than just flexing rusty (in my case) painting muscles.  The painting is on 1/8-inch Ampersand board, a new surface for me.

I had signed up for this workshop more than a year in advance after eyeballing her workshops for two years.  It was definitely worth the wait!  Carol is fun, hugely talented, and very sharing with her knowledge and experience.  I gained a lot of tips that I can apply painting in either oil or pastel.  Best of all, it was so much fun with her that I got kick-started back into painting.  Yippee!

I'll post more of the results of our exercises soon.  She was not nearly as lenient after the first day, and I have the painting mishaps to prove it!  :-)  Stay tuned...

Oil, 6x6

Third Place in Still Life/Other at Austin Pastel Society Annual Juried Exhibition

This just in: my fun painting, Listen to the Night Birds, was accepted into the Austin Pastel Society's annual juried exhibition, juried by renowned Oregon artist, Dawn Emerson, and received from Dawn a Third Place in Still Life/Other.  Dawn herself often paints in such a loose, colorful, linear, non-specific manner.  Apparently, my painting struck some sort of nerve with the society, since it is not the more serious, realistic  type of painting usually seen in their prestigious shows.  I understand that APS is planning to "tighten up" its entry specifications because of this award.  Interesting....

Hibiscus Blossom for Sale

Here's another small 5x5 gallery-wrapped oil painting that I'm posting to my auction site on Daily Paintworks.  $25  minimum bid, plus $10 S&H in the US.  If you would like to bid on this painting, click here:

Daily Paintworks

Or you can:

Pecan Street Festival for Sale

Please bear with me as I try to get my auction stuff to work. The business of art is HARD, and I am not very computer-saavy!!!

This is another painting I'm reposting as I am putting it up for auction on my Daily Paintworks site. I saw this person at the Pecan Street Festival in Austin a few years ago, very intent on the art displayed on the outside of a tent. The painting was fun to do and came together rather quickly.

It's a 10x8-inch oil on canvas board. Minimum bid is $80, plus $10 S&H in the US.

If you'd like to bid, please go to: Daily Paintworks.

Or you can:

Cactus Blossom For Sale

Cactus Blossom, image size 5x5, oil on 1.5-inch gallery wrapped canvas, painted on sides

$25 minimum bid, plus $10 S&H within United States

Click here to bid

Or click here to buy now:

I am attempting to set up an auction site for my work on Daily Paintworks, and this is the first sale item. I apologize if something does not work yet, but will keep at it.