Misinterpreted

"His remarks have been misinterpreted."

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A Change in the Weather

Another small study... these are turning out to be a fun way to warm up! Happy Tuesday. :-)

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In the Garden

"I come to the garden alone, while the dew is still on the roses..." - C. Austin Miles

Well, I'm not sure if I like the outcome of this painting, but as David Bayle and Ted Orland say in their book Art & fear: "...vision is always ahead of execution...". I think, above all, the mood was essential to capture in this piece. This was painted in acrylic on an 18"x24" canvas.

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Good Morning Gladiola

Gladiolas are one of my favourite flowers! This is a quick small study at 6"x6".
I enjoy the subtle tonal variations you can get within just one flower's colour, especially when lit from behind.

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Bright and Sunny

Painted all in one afternoon on location at Stow Lake these pieces were an absorbing study of bright light and sunny color. First, sold.

Go on Anyway

"Do not let the fact that things are not made for you, that conditions are not as they should be, stop you. Go on anyway. Everything depends on those who go on anyway." - Robert Henri

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Even Shorter Sketches

It's great to warm up for the Fall with some short sketches (as I try to remember how to draw the figure). These are two minutes each in a blue Prismacolor pencil.

Short Sketches

Yellow Hibiscus

One of my favourite tropical flowers in an unconventional side view. Happy 50th Birthday Hawaii!

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Audacious Alpaca

First Alpaca I've ever met. He was pretty cheeky!

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Birds of a Feather

I feel like I've done lots of birds recently... but these guys were just begging to get their portraits done. How could I resist?!

Among the Branches

A personal project related to the following quote: "The birds of the air nest by the waters; they sing among the branches." Psalm 104:12 NIV

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Orange Peaches

Well, this was really fun to paint. I'm increasingly torn between tight realism and playful abstraction... I hope this piece successfully marries the two. And here's part of the underdrawing and a close up for your enjoyment:



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The Owl

Another complicated still life. I love this owl and hope you do too! I think he's trying to process all the books he just read...

Summertime and a Cup of Tea

One of my most favourite painters is the woman impressionist Mary Cassatt.

My mom has a print of this painting which I've adored since childhood. It is called "Summertime". I enjoy the work because of the beautiful reflective quality of the water that echoes the mood of the ladies in the boat. I enjoy the textural brushwork, the repetition of the birds with variation in their style, the graphic nature of the boat coming into the frame, as well as the distance created by fuzzy trees at the shoreline and the more indistinct ducks. I also love how there is created the sense of strong outdoor light with a shadow under the younger girls hat. There is a real sense of the moment in this painting which I think makes it fresh even over a hundred years since it was created.



Another painting of hers which I saw in exhibit here in San Francisco last year, is "The Cup of Tea 2". Again I love the textural brushstrokes that get smaller in detail and more dainty as you look closer at the tea cup and her fingers placed so precisely. I love the sense of depth you get with the gestural flowers and the atmospheric brushwork beyond. I also enjoy her use of unexpected colors, like the strong red on the edges of her dress and at the edge of her nose. It's interesting even how the blues in the flowers behind are echoed in the blues on her glove. This piece utilizes the concept of overlapping in a small space to obtain depth. The edge of the chair is in front of the woman who is in front of the flower stand.

A New Creation

This piece was inspired by Hawaii and the beach... and maybe a butterfly stopped by?

This is also the first painting I completed solely with the new Winsor & Newton Artists' Acrylics. I was impressed first with the buttery consistency of the paint which reminds me of working with oils. Also as it has a slower drying time I was able to blend it more like I would with oils. Formerly to make the paint flow I would add more water, and I'm told this breaks down the pigment's tinting strength. With this painting I used less water as the paint itself flowed nicely.

The colors do seem pretty vivid though I still want to check out the darkness of the final painting as compared to the out of the tube hue. And although the paint dries slower than other acrylic brands I found within about a half hour of my final brush stroke the whole painting was dry. (I didn't use a hair dryer and I don't paint that thick).

Overall I was quite pleased and hope my local art stores will begin to carry this brand!

Self Portrait with Flower

One of the most meddlesome things about using acrylic is that it dries darker than when you first paint it, as the binder used in the paint shifts from white to transparent. This is an exercise I assigned myself to help see the subtle color shifts.

And this is part of my palette:



I just got some new Winsor & Newton Artists' Acrylics which claim to be brilliantly colored and not to shift darker as they dry, as they use a transparent binder. I'm looking forward to trying them out with my next few paintings... we'll see what happens!

Color Play

How many colors can you include in one still life? This was a fun exercise...

Hibiscus

Another still life... the reds were hard to control, but I had fun trying. Also, more texture play.

I love the hibiscus!

Aqua and Ochre

Working with a lighter tonal key and messing with textural effects.

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