5-Day Challenge: Costa's Hummingbird 5x7 Oil on Panel

Many thanks to my friend Tom Gottfried for sending me beautiful hummingbird pictures. He is quite a photographer, and cultivates flowers in his yard that attract hummingbirds. The results are stunning.

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5-Day Challenge, Day 3: Beach Day, 7x5 Oil on Panel

Before I began this, my third 20-minute painting, I couldn't resist drawing a cartoon about the experience of doing a painting in such a short amount of time.

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5-Day Challenge, 20-Minute Painting, Day 2: Old Florida, 5x7 Oil on Panel

This reminds me of my younger days in Central Florida. It was always an adventure to look for wildlife, and snakes or gators gave us bragging rights. We used to pick Rosary Peas, bright red beans with a black spot, and use them for peashooters. I now know they are poisonous and we could have killed ourselves with those things!

I primed my board with red, which I brushed on and wiped off. I like it for landscapes because it gives all that green some spark.

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5-Day Challenge, 20-Minute Painting, Ho-Hummingbird 5x7 Oil on Panel

The artist Mary Gilkerson periodically conducts a 5-Day Challenge on her website, https://marygilkerson.com, and today is the first day. We have 20 minutes to complete a painting. This is an incredibly useful lesson and comes at a time when we are all stuck at home, so no excuse not to do it. This is my first painting, oil on panel, and the urge to correct is strong, but I am sticking with the flat 20 minutes, and what you see is what you get. It takes a lot for me not to nitpick.

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Onions, 7x5 Oil Painting on Canvas Panel Still Life

 $75

The Challenge for this month for the Pieces of 8 group is to paint a painting in 50 strokes. I've been enjoying that exercise. Below is my 50-stroke painting of these onions, smudges and all. I decided to refine it to a finished painting. Which one do you like best? I think the 50-stroke one is more exciting. 

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Paradise, Oil on Canvas 7x5 Florida Painting

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This is my second painting of this spot. This is a small 7" by 5" painting of North Captiva Island, a place that is as good as being in the Bahamas. No cars, just golf carts, and gorgeous scenery. No bridge to the island, either. Life there runs on Island Time. Ahhhh.....

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The Boring Photo Challenge, 7x5 Small Daily Painting

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I painted this little oil painting in response to a challenge on the website DailyPaintworks.com. The challenge was to paint from a boring photo. That is a really good thing to practice, because I have lots of boring photos; however, I used the one they posted. I began with a black background, which helped add a bit more drama. Below is the boring photo.

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Royal Terns, 7x5 Original Oil Daily Painting on Canvas Panel Beach Art

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I love these birds with their cute little hairdos. I have jumped right from the mountains to the seashore in this blog, having returned home after almost three weeks in North Carolina. The contrast is drastic, but I love both places. Each is beautiful in its own way.

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Lake Junaluska Original Oil Plein Air Painting 5x7 on Canvas Panel

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This beautiful spot is near Waynesville, North Carolina, and it was such a pleasure to sit and paint there. There is a rose walk on one side that is planted with a huge variety of roses--an exotic sight for a Floridian. It was my idea of a perfect morning.

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Hello Kitty, 7x5 Original Oil Painting Animal Portrait of Cat

This is my daughter Suzanne's cat, an imperious creature, as you can see. This cat bit me once, but I have a very forgiving nature and honored it with a portrait anyway. Also, I happened to take a dramatic photo that I couldn't resist painting. By the way, the cat's actual name is Hello Kitty.

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Queen of Genoa, Small Oil Painting on Canvas Panel of Woman in Italian Cafe 5x7

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This was one of the funniest days of my trip to Europe with my sister. We got off a train in Genoa, Italy at the wrong stop. We thought we had lots of time so were lollygagging outside the station and had lunch at this woman's cafe. She never stopped moving; she was cooking, serving, taking money, and talking the whole time.

When we got back to the station we found out we were in the wrong place and had to dash to a train to go to the right station to make our connection to France. On the plus side, I got the picture that inspired this little painting. 

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Water House II, Original Oil on Canvas Seascape North Captiva Island Florida

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When we stayed on beautiful North Captiva Island, Florida, we passed this scene every day. I don't know why this house is in the water, but I like it. We kayaked from across the bay to here one day, and I got pictures of the other side and painted it also (below).

Water House (Sold)

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Oil Painting "Rough Surf" Seascape, Small Daily Painting Original Art

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This was my second painting from our group's plein air day at the beach, a tiny 5x7-inch seascape. We meet a lot of nice people when we are painting on location. One group had just ridden 30 miles on bicycles, and it was only 10 a.m! People like that make me feel like a slug, but when given a choice between painting and exercise, painting usually wins out. If there is a creative fire within you it won't be quenched by pushups.

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Window on the Beach, Oil Painting, 7x5 Florida Seascape

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My painting group gathered at the beach on a beautiful Florida day last week and did some plein air painting. That is always an invigorating experience, and I was happy with my little picture. In picking my spot I noticed how vivid the water looked when viewed through the sea grape window. When I walked to the crossover and looked at the beach with nothing framing it, it didn't seem nearly as saturated with color. I'm sure my friend Qiang Huang could explain this to me in technical terms because he knows everything about optics and about art.

My cartoon today is one I did for a T-Shirt. It's called "The Pleininator" and features a hat with a brush holder, paper tower holder, citronella candle, cup holder, and viewfinder. My inspiration was when I painted in a cow pasture with weeds, bugs, and extreme thirst.

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Cardinal, 7x5 Original Oil on Panel, Bird Painting

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I don't have a thing to say about this painting, except that I squeezed this in while busy with a lot of other exciting things. I finished a huge illustration job, then published my children's book, Dibble the Dragon. Now I am working on illustrations for someone else's children's book. I'm also spending time traveling, gardening and studying Italian. Life is good. La Dolce Vita!

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Red Grapes, 5x7 Still Life Oil on Panel

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This Spring weather just makes me want to be outside. I think it's time for some plein air painting. We don't have a very extreme "change of season" here in Florida, but my yard certainly comes to life. I have one Frangipani tree with leaves and no blooms, and a huge one with blooms and no leaves. Very odd. 

Been thinking of new challenges for the Pieces of 8 painting group. How about ten-minute plein air paintings? That sounds hard. Just what we need!

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Yellow Posies, 5x7 Oil on Panel, Floral Still Life

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During a previous meeting of the Pieces of 8 painting group I challenged everyone to do a painting in 30 minutes. This week I challenged them to do one in only ten minutes. We put flowers, fruit, and an onion on a table and we each painted one object in ten minutes. Then we turned the table so we each had a different vantage point and did it again. We did five paintings this way, and it was wonderful practice in so many ways. This was my first painting, and my best one.

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Light of Dawn II, 7x5 Small Seascape Oil Painting, Sunrise Over Ocean

$89, Purchase Here

It's amazing how you can cross busy Highway A1A and leave the chaos behind just by walking on the crossover to the beach. It's like a curtain comes down behind you and you are in a new world. It's peaceful (usually), and there are waves, and birds, and beautiful light. I get the same feeling when I walk from a busy road into the woods. It is so quiet and peaceful. We are so used to noise in our daily lives that we don't even realize how jarring it really is.

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Wanderer, 5x7 Abstract Collage on Paper, Matted to 8x10

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This abstract is made of watercolor paint and torn textured paper, affixed to watercolor paper. It is matted in an 8x10 mat, below.

My abstracts are few and far between, but, like Zentangles, they are very relaxing and fun to do. Right now I am working on a seascape that has some problems to be worked out. Sometimes the emotional side of art gets in the way of the technical side and I have to step away, analyze, and think for a while. In nature, the sky may be beautiful, the waves impressive, and the water a brilliant color, but if I can't make it all hang together in harmony, I haven't got a painting. So...back to my thinking.

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Jefferson Memorial, 7x5 Oil on Canvas Panel

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I love nocturnal paintings because they are dramatic. Daily painter Karin Jurick used to have challenges on her blog, and I painted this in response to one of her challenges. Another nocturnal painting I like a lot is below, Nighttime at the Loveless Cafe. Any trip we take to Nashville includes a trip to the Loveless Cafe, which is a famous restaurant attached to a 50s motel. We went there one night and spent considerable time waiting to get in, so I had plenty of opportunity to take photos and paint and name the painting in my head.

$95, Click to Buy

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