Saturday, May 31, 2014

Sea Vista, 11x14 Oil Painting on Canvas


The ocean is exhilarating, and right now people are flocking to the beach in the exultation of Spring. Our water has been a gorgeous color lately, and worthy of painting. 

I worked overly hard on this one; it took me a while to be satisfied with my results. There is danger in that, because sometimes you pass the point where you should have stopped. I ended up layering mixes of color and Liquin until I was satisfied with the results.

Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Rose, 5x4 Original OIl Painting


Everyone is painting roses nowadays. I guess Spring has brought lots of blooms to people's yards, but as you can see from my previous post, mine are pretty tropical. I would like to grow roses in Florida, so if anyone can recommend a variety that works here I'd appreciate it. I would like red or yellow, though. I don't think I can take any more pink in my yard (see my previous post).



Sunday, May 25, 2014

Pretty in Pink, 6x6 Oil on Canvas Panel Wildlife Painting

SOLD

This was a commission to do flamingos, and I always enjoy using my favorite color. Lately I feel surrounded by pink; as I drove up to my house the other day it struck me just how much pink is going on in my front yard. I have a very large frangipani tree and clumps of pink lilies blooming; it looks like the wedding scene in "Steel Magnolias." 


Thursday, May 22, 2014

Apple Shade, 5x7 Original Oil Painting on Canvas


This is an appropriate painting for the last week of school. One last apple for the teacher. I like the drama of the deep shadow. This painting looks even brighter in person, so to speak, and is dramatic in its simplicity.


Saturday, May 17, 2014

The Kayakers, 16x20 Original Oil Painting on Canvas

Paddling a kayak on the Olympic Peninsula
SOLD

This is a completed commission. I took a few photos as I went along, and put them together as a very brief little slideshow. Check it out on Facebook. In retrospect I wish I had cropped the photos; I had some misguided idea that it would look very much "in progress" if a little of the easel showed. 

On to the next commission, then on Monday I am challenging my painting group Pieces of 8 to do a painting in only 37 minutes. The idea came from Robert Genn, who did this exercise in his workshops. It is an agonizing exercise, and I hope we will all still be friends after it's over! 

Carmen

Wednesday, May 14, 2014

Castaway Point, 6x8 Oil on Canvas Panel, Plein Air Painting

$99, Click to Purchase
My painting group, Pieces of 8, is doing weekly challenges and the challenge for this week was to paint en plein air, using four tubes of paint only. We were at a beautiful spot called Castaway Point, and there were so many lovely views. It is surprising how many colors can be made with three colors and white. Makes me wonder why I have so many different colors in my paint box. I do notice that my painting is a bit softer than usual, and I am not sure if it was because of the paint colors, the bright sunshine, or my canvas being in the shade. 

Sunday, May 11, 2014

The Kayakers in Progress


When I get a minute to myself, I will finish this painting and put the steps together as a slide show. This has been an impossibly busy time for me, what with appointmentsPenWomenLuncheonpaintingdemoPiecesof8meetingMothersDayhousechoresetc! It all runs together.

A perfect Mother's Day gift would be: drop me in a shady spot by the river with my painting equipment and come back in three hours. So, for our May 12 Pieces of 8 Challenge, that's what we are going to do. And with only four tubes of paint. This will be followed by lunch and a nap. Plein air painting is exhausting in a very good way.

Thursday, May 8, 2014

The Kayakers, 16x20 Oil on Canvas So Far


I am working on a commission, doing a larger painting of my small work The Kayakers, and I thought I would post the beginning of the painting. When Grandma Moses was asked about her process and how she painted, she responded "I paint down. I start at the top and paint down." As for me, sometimes I sort of "paint down" if it's a landscape, but in this case I started with the principal subject and I'm painting out. 

Since I have painted this subject before, I know what I am aiming for and I know the colors, values and so on, so I concentrated my energy on the most important part of the painting first. Below is the 6x6-inch original small painting of the happy kayakers. It's a square format, but the large one will be a rectangular format and, of course, more detailed.

$99 Click to Purchase


Sunday, May 4, 2014

Texas Bluebonnets, 8x10 Oil on Canvas

NFS

Van Gogh would have liked these flowers. They are pretty ornate, with little white dots all over them, so the big decision is: how much detail? I may go back and put a bit of blue in the sky, even though there wasn't any, just so the painting doesn't seem quite so divided into three parts. 

Carmen