Brenden

"Brenden"

16" x 20"

Oil on Canvas

I took a photo of Brenden after football practice one night. The field lighting was fantastic and I shot a few pics of both him and my son. I've posted the original image with the background loosely blocked out in Photoshop below.

Original Photo

12:11 Pear and Back Again

Pear and Back Again

4" x 6"

Oil on Canvas

A while ago I did a few pears and they are always a favorite of mine. Having painted several apples last week, I changed it up and went back to pears.

#39 - Quick Pomegranate

#39 - Quick Pomegranate

8" x 8"

Oil on Canvas

After the success of quickly and more to the point, not micro-stressing, painting a pomegranate in half an hour the other day, I thought I would try a few more with an eye on the clock and a no-worry, whatever happens happens attitude. The next few paintings are the results of this.

#20 - Sunset

#20 - Sunset

10" x 8"
Oil on Masonite
Available

Woo hoo! #20!

I know I'm still not quite where I need to be for 2011, but I am getting there and I haven't quit yet! So many times I would get in over my head with a project and quit, but I'm sticking this one out. I am loving oils and just painting in general. I am also discovering so much about where I want to go with a style. I'm not there yet, but I see potential!

I have to get so much credit and thanks for this painting to James Joslyn. He is a photographer friend of my boyfriend's who happened to post a gorgeous photo of tulips on his facebook page one day. I asked if I could paint it and he sent me a whole cd of incredible images to paint from! So thank you Jimmy! Thank you thank you thank you!

The picture of this sunset was on the disc he sent. It doesn't do it justice, but for a quick painting, I like parts of it pretty well.

#18 - Hey Ladies!

"Hey Ladies!"

8" x 10"

Oil on Masonite

Meet Jack. My 2-year-old nephew. He's one of the cutest kids I've ever met. He had me wrapped the first time I saw him and the first time he said my name (before just about anyone else's, heh heh!) he assured his place in my "I will always have candy for you" Auntie soul. Even if he does blame me for just about everything. The danger of a kid being able to say your name, I guess.

Who made this mess? Dawn did.
Who ate that cookie? Dawn did.
Who stomped the flowers? Yep. Dawn did.

Oh the stories I could tell. And he's only two. Recently, Jack went to the beach for a week. Before going, some of us made sure that he knew some handy phrases for the beach. A kid this cute attracts the women, for sure. By the time he left, we had taught him "Heyyy Ladies!", "How you doin?" and "Can I have your digits?"

This was the first time I've ever painted on Masonite board. I had always known it was an option. One of my very favorite fantasy artists, Larry Elmore, whom I have admired all my life has for the longest time worked on Masonite. I had no idea how much I would love it! Why did I wait so long? It was just fantastic. Extremely smooth. The paint laid down like a dream. The only thing that I have to say is that after a bit, if your paint starts to dry and you go back to re-work, you can lift the paint that is already down right off of the surface. So, watch out for that!

Here are some work-in-progress pics!

#17 - Fleur de Stripes

Fleur de Stripes

8" x 8"
Oil on Canvas Board
Available

Even with as many Fleur de Lis paintings as there are out there, it is still one of my favorite shapes/symbols. But how to make it different? Change up the background. Here is my attempt not only to paint another FdL, but to peek around the corner to more illustrative design elements. I whipped the background together first on the computer to make sure I got the stripes even, printed it out, and traced it onto the canvas. Then I added the FdL. It started out with a black and white striped edge, but that looked weird, so I painted over it.

#16 - Yellow. Peppers.

Yellow Peppers

18" x 18"

SOLD

I wasn't so much painting as I was working with yellow. I think it turned out fairly successful and is one of my favorite works to date!

Prints!

"212"
24" x 18" Giclée print
$75

Several people have asked if I will be making prints of the "212" red door painting. I am thrilled to say YES! They will be 24" x 18" have a small white border for framing and will be signed and dated by moi.

The first prints will roll off the presses in about 1-1/2 weeks. Email me to reserve yours today!

#8 - Class Pear 1

Pear 1
10" x 14"
Available

You may remember this one. It was a class project. It's finished now, so I'm counting it. I really like how the gold in the pear turned out.

The other pear will be posted shortly. I am glazing it and have another 2 layers to go. Also in the works are a blue rose and a cottage painting that I think I'm really going to like. AND prints of the red door are in process too! Lots going on.

#7 - 212

212

18" x 24" Oil on Canvas

Wow. It's March already. That means that I should have a total of 16 paintings done and posted by...yesterday. I'm now posting #7, so I'm 9 behind. I'm perfectly ok with this. Here's why. You know how many paintings I completed in 2010? Zero. So I'm way ahead of the game in some respects. I'm also working full time, being a single-mom to an active teenager AND training for a half-marathon. Am I giving up on the 100 paintings? Not a chance. I WILL complete them all. While I paint larger scale works for class, I will be working on a smaller scale at home. 8" x 8" and 6" x 6" size canvases and whatnot.

So above is my newest painting. Again, forgive me, I took this picture with my phone. I will replace it when I have a better picture so you can see the detail. I have to toot my own horn a little bit with this one. I love it. I mean I looooooove it. It was truly a work of love for me. I love the door, I love the fact that the door is crooked as all get-out. I love the red wall. I love how many reds it took to actually make up that wall. And I love that I was able to portray brick without actually painting each individual brick. Apparently, that's pretty tough to do, or so I'm told. I'm glad no one told me that before I started. This painting will be in the "Louisville Women's Club No-Jury Art Show" beginning on March 16.

I want to give a special thank you, you are the best, I want to shake your hand shout-out to Aunt Owwee from Flickr. She is the person who snapped the fantastic picture of this amazing scene and then placed it on Flickr with enough rights freedom for people like me to use it as inspiration for adaptation. Here is the original photo. She had a lot of lovely pictures posted. Thanks Owwee!

Next up? Large scale - Another doorway. This one is one that I shot while at West Baden resort in Indiana. Small scale - I want to work on a few more roses. They were so much fun.

Class Update

I am loving my oil painting class. It is a complete switch from acrylics. I have to think and paint in a completely different manner. It's a challenge, but I am really enjoying myself.

The first class was pretty basic. We painting a color wheel and a color grid chart. We didn't use brushes, we used q-tips. We all felt very kindergarten. In a good way! I need to snap pics of my grid and wheel and post them. I'll try to remember to do that tonight. Class #2 was still a review of the basics. We had a demo about the different types of brushes and how to grid your base drawing. Then we painted a black and white pear. The point was to learn how to mix shades and tints. She had us grid off a photo of a pear, draw it upside down so that our mind break the connection with "pear" and we could just draw what we saw. We will be glazing this in a couple of weeks. Here t'is: (Sorry for the crappy photo - phone camera)

Class #3 was last night and we graduated to a color pear! She wanted to teach us shading with compliments (complements?) And here it is:

Next week we have been asked to bring in samples of subjects that interest us. That should be when the real fun begins. I wonder what I will come up with!

Store's Open!

Just in case any of you big spenders want a piece of the story, my Esty shop is now open!
Check it out!

#5 - Rose Study #1

Rose Study #1
8" x 8" - Oil on Canvas
SOLD

So technically, this is the last painting for January since I painted this yesterday, but February is here and I need to get a move on. The lead out. Truckin'. I'm behind. 5 paintings a month just isn't going to cut it. I had planned on completing 2 a week. I need to whip out 3 more just to catch up. I still have plenty of year left, so I'm not really worried.

What IS worrying me is my inability to decide what to paint. I have a weird form of painter's block. I have in my mind the type of paintings I want to create, but I'm not convinced that I'm "good enough" yet to take on the subject, so I'm trying to paint various subjects in order to learn the building blocks of how to handle oils. I have to trust that my style will come. How I picked the rose - I called my mother:

"Hi Mom, what's your favorite flower?"
"Why?"
"I need something to paint."
"Paint a rooster"
"I don't want to paint a rooster, I want to paint a flower."
"Why don't you want to paint a rooster? You could sell that. I have a friend that collects roosters"
"I just don't. Do you have a favorite flower?"
"My favorite right now are those...(no idea what she said here. It sounded scientific.)...they are like bunches of little orchids."
"Hmm. I don't know what those are"

So. She gets a rose!

With the rose, my goal was to mix the correct values, tints and shades on my palette as accurately as possible so that I could use a few strokes as possible on the canvas. With acrylics I did much of my mixing directly on the canvas and that worked for me. I can't do that with oils. Everything turns to mud. And when you aren't actually trying to paint mud, that's not a good thing. I think I came out somewhat successful. I will probably do several of these to really get the hang of it. AND I painted this on my brand new beautiful wooden easel that my sweetie bought me for our 1 year dating anniversary. Isn't he awesome?

#4 - Let Me In

8" x 8" - Acrylic on Canvas Board
Purchase

Let me in! - One apple wants to hop in the pan with the other but it's not going to happen. Apples can be mean.

I'm really going to need to get some help with photography. Again, this one looks so much better in person! My little camera just isn't cutting it. I have several friends who are excellent photographers...maybe one of them can give me some tips. I need a lightbox for sure!

#3 Yellow Tomatoes

8" x 8" - Acrylic on canvas board
Purchase

Here is painting #3. I am really happy with how this one turned out! In Kroger this morning, I saw several beautiful bunches of yellow tomatoes and just had to buy some for today's painting. This may be the beginning of a series. I had a lot of fun with mixing colors on these.

Sidenote - I painted this during the UK football bowl game and I am glad I was distracted because we had the stuffing beaten out of us.

There is a point with all of my projects that I get a little discouraged, am convinced that it's all going to be crap and want to quit. I've learned over the years that if I just power through that moment, that it all turns out well in the end and sometimes it turns out much better than I would have ever expected. Now, when I reach that point I get a little excited because I know things are about to get very interesting.