Blue Sky Vine, Original Oil Painting 5x7 Floral Art on Canvas

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It's the middle of winter and this vine is blooming like crazy in my yard. Of course, it's hot one day and cold the next here in Florida, so it's confused like the rest of us. This was one of my 20-minute paintings, but I saw its possibilities and went back to it and refined it. 

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Onion, 5x7 Oil on Board, Still Life Daily Painting

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Sometimes the simplest things are my favorites. I like the brushstrokes and the colors in this little painting.

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The Gaze, 6x6 Acrylic

PURCHASE

I've been painting a large floral painting that is quite detailed, so to loosen up a bit I did this little experiment. I used black and white acrylic over poured acrylic to get this effect. The poured acrylic was completely dry (which takes days) before I painted over it.

Today I got an email requesting the following custom order:  "A hand painting of steve Jobs that shows the white apple logo and says think different, and also it has to say in memory of Steve Jobs February 24, 1955- October 5 2011, I want the painting to be no more than $50, size 6x6."
Say WHAT? All that, in miniature, for $50? With lettering, yet! Wow. How insulting. 

Coincidentally, this morning I ran across this quote by an artist:

"I always wanted to live in poverty and be maligned and devalued by society and the business world. I succeeded beyond my wildest dreams." 

Oconee Sunset, 8x6 Oil on Canvas

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This was pure luck. I saw a good sunset coming on and rushed to the shore of Lake Oconee, Georgia. This heron posed for me so nicely amid the pink and purple water. This particular sunset went through many stages of unrealistic brilliant colors and reflections.

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Florida Vista, 8x6 Original Oil Painting Landscape

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I always enjoy seeing a bright strip of sunlight streaking dramatically across a scene. This was on the lonely Highway 60 across Florida. Most of Florida is flat as a flitter, whatever a flitter is. The exception is where I grew up, in Polk County. I used to get out of the lake after swimming all day and pedal my bike up a very long hill. Just my luck to have a hill there! 

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Field Flowers, 6x8 Oil on Canvas Panel Floral Daily Painting

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I painted a big happy sunflower on this canvas, then decided I hated it, so I scraped it off. The result was a lovely background that looked like a green field, so I painted these flowers in the field and now I like it. "Scrapers" frequently produce interesting results. I think I'll do more of it. 

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Garlic, 5x7 Oil on Wood Panel, Still Life

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If I wrote a song about my favorite things, garlic would be near the top of the list. It must be my Mediterranean blood. It's healthy too, which I tell myself when eating delicious garlic knots at my favorite Italian restaurant. I like painting garlic and onions, because they are so layered and interesting. 

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Onion, 5x7 Oil on Canvas Still Life

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This was fun. The Elio Camacho workshop inspired us to do 30-minute paintings with our painting group this week; yesterday in my studio I limited my time to ten minutes, and this was one of the paintings I did. I had a piece of canvas that was painted black and had a few spatters on it so I painted on that. I think I will do more food paintings with ten-minute limits. This is such good practice for me to loosen up and have a more spontaneous feel.

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White Hydrangeas, 6x8 Oil on Canvas Panel, Floral Painting

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I had painted this in a different color scheme, and it never appealed to me. Every time I looked at it, something went ick in my head. This was the previous version:

I didn't like the rusty color. I'm just not a rusty person. Creaky, maybe, but not rusty. I decided to give the painting a makeover. I barely touched the flowers themselves, but look how different they appear by changing the colors around them. 

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

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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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Light of Dawn, 6x6 Oil on Canvas, Skyscape Over Ocean, Daily Painting

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When clouds are on the horizon at dawn, the sunrise is always beautiful. It's one of the nice things about living so close to the beach. When I'm photographing a sunrise it always amazes me how fast the light and the colors change. 

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English Roses, 6x6 Oil Painting on Panel

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This is a repeat of an earlier post. I struggled with the photo of this garden painting, because it had a pinkish hue for some reason. It has bothered me ever since, so I took the photo again and finally got a better reproduction of the painting. I don't know why color in some images is harder to capture.

One of the problems with selling paintings online is that not every monitor shows colors the same way. I had a customer complain that her painting had some orange touches in it and she doesn't like orange; however, on my computer the orange is very apparent.  One customer out of hundreds can adversely affect a seller's rating, as this one buyer did for mine, and her comments didn't even match her rating. The lesson I learned from that is that when I am trying to decide between two sellers and one of them has four stars and the other five stars, it doesn't mean a thing. 

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Island Dream, 7x5 Oil Painting on Canvas Panel, Tropical Beach

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Well, here's my idea of torture. I am laid up while healing from knee surgery, and when the TV is on, I hear the same political ads every few minutes. Here in Florida we have newsmen who do fact checks, and they report on the ads that are outright lies or smarmy half-truths. Even after the ads are shown to be untrue, they continue to play, over and over and over. This is how elections are won. Tells the same lies enough, until people believe them. If other products make false claims they can get yanked off the air. If those to whom we entrust leadership make false claims, we elect them. What kind of stupid system is that?

Okay, enough of a rant. My leg looks less and less like a zombie leg and my progress is good. I hope my brain comes back to life soon. Is it a contradiction to say I am concerned about my state of apathy? The only thing I'm not apathetic about is political ads.

Apple Shade, 5x7 Original Oil Painting on Canvas

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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.

Bouquet, 7x5 Oil on Canvas

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If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind? Even though I live in Florida, my yard is so bedraggled right now. A tree is dying of a mysterious disease, my huge frangipani tree has not a leaf on it, but a little cluster of pink blossoms sits at the end of one branch, embarrassed at arriving early to the party. Oh, how I want that TV guy who comes home with you and redoes your whole back yard! I'll be watching for him when I'm at Lowe's! Until then, I'll just paint cheerful flowers and be happy I live in Florida, where the winters are beautiful.

The Lonely Little Frangipani

Rose Bowl, 7x5 Oil Painting

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This was a painting of red bowls. I let it sit on my easel and hated it more each day, though I liked the colors. I finally painted over it completely and used the same color scheme. That's the nice thing about oil paints, they are fixable.

Art restorers frequently find that the old masters had other paintings underneath their masterpieces. There's one thing for sure: the painting underneath is not a masterpiece, or they would not have painted over it. Just let that thing stay hidden under there, complying with the artist's wishes. You would not want to embarrass him by revealing his red bowls or whatever...

Everything's Better With Garlic, 7x5 Oil on Canvas

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I like everything about garlic: the look, the taste, the smell. My grandmother was Italian, yet she cooked very few Italian dishes, and I never saw garlic cloves in our house. When she and my grandfather became pioneers in Florida she became a Southern cook and learned to fry everything. He was from Spain, so I wonder what he thought about that? The other non-traditional thing for an Italian woman was that she didn't like to cook. Bad luck for us.

Are You Lookin' At Me? 6x8 Oil on Canvas

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Pelicans are pretty cute when they are floating in the water, and quite beautiful when flying, but waddling around strips them of their dignity. This guy was at Port Canaveral having a relaxing day, just as my painting group was. 

I just renewed my passport and I must say, the new one is beautiful, with illustrations of America from sea to shining sea. It has wonderful quotations too, like this one:

The cause of freedom is not the cause of a race or a sect, a party or a class--it is the cause of humankind, the very birthright of humanity. - Anna Julia Cooper

Someone call Congress. They are apparently unaware of this. 

I admit I was not familiar with Anna Julia Cooper, so I Googled her (of course) and learned she was born into slavery, but became a prominent African-American author, educator and speaker.

And that's my lesson for today.

Pink Roses, 6x6 Oil Painting on Canvas

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After my fantasy flower that I posted earlier, this small painting is very traditional. It's sentimental enough to be a Valentine's Day gift. I really think that it's easier to paint a rose petal-by-petal than to do a softer, looser version like this. 

Our painting group had a lovely day Monday at Jetty Park at the port. Sometimes it inspires us to change it up a bit and sketch in our journals or take pictures for future paintings. The weather was perfect and exhilarating. Here are a couple of my sketch journal pages. Pelican paintings are in my future.

White Hydrangeas, 6x8 Oil on Canvas

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These flowers always remind me of my grandmother, who could grow anything. She was completely in sync with nature, unbothered by the snake in the garden. She was surrounded by flowers, birds and butterflies. She was like a heroine in a Disney movie, with beautiful things fluttering around her. I really miss being able to get her advice about how to grow a certain plant. I quoted her so often that when I lived in Bermuda, one of my neighbors asked me, "What does your grandmother say about planting this tree?" I replied, "Don't put a ten-dollar plant in a five-dollar hole."

My friend Qiang Huang had a quotable line on his blog the other day: "There is no shortcut in art. You just have to paint more." To all you Daily Painters: Rock On!