Waking

12″x12″ oil on canvas I’ve been weighing thicker and looser oil painting technique against thinner and more exacting.  The former seems to push my color intensity to match the density of the paint. Despite the thick paint, I’ve glazed in places, joining a technique I’ve used only with thin layers, with a near impasto. A wake-up …

Watercolor Wednesday

A bit of gestural nostalgia. Friends strolling in the sun, while amiably catching up.

A Daunting Palette Creature

Another one!  A formidable being, this creature made her presence known and demanded her fifteen minutes of fame!   She’s long gone now, but I won’t forget her anytime soon.

Two Sides

Two variations of K. There are so many ways to portray a subject.  Even when the portrait is figurative, a straight forward depiction of likeness; a literal likeness of an individual, it’s a challenge to decide which aspect of your model you want to highlight or capture.  That said, I’ve been playing with “sets”.  These …

Watercolor Week

This week I’m breaking the form.   For the next seven days  I’ll be posting watercolor sketches while I continue to work on new projects. Not to worry about commenting on each post.  I love hearing from you, but I don’t wish to make a pest of myself.  Hope you find one of the seven …

Watercolor Wednesday

This is a larger watercolor than I usually paint, at 15″ x 22″.  The color is also far more restrained than my usual watercolor experiments.  There is also a touch of acrylic in this mostly watercolor effort. Upon completion with the watercolor paint, I felt a need to lighten areas of the figure but found …

Watercolor Wednesday

Celebration at my house! Our furry family has been through a crisis, but everybody just got a clean bill of health! We couldn’t be happier.

Watercolor Wednesday

Yes, you see a little white watercolor. Couldn’t help myself;)  

Experiments In Oil#3

I LOVE to paint portraits, people, figures, gestures.  In the hands of a skilled and thoughtful artist, Old Master or contemporary, there is no subject more compelling for me  than a portrait.  But, paintings of people can sometimes leave me less than satisfied.  They can sometimes appear to me, too pretty, or too gimmicky, too …

Experiments In Oil #1

I’m without a commission at the moment, so I’ve been pushing into “what if” territory in oil paint.  I’ve played with three paintings, all handled differently.  The subject is the same, though posture and expression vary greatly.  Above is the first.  I applied many more layers of glaze than I normally use, to see if …

Watercolor Wednesday

I’m just an amateur photographer, so sometimes great opportunities for marvelous shots are lost due to my inexperience.  This was the case recently when a spectacular heron modeled for me, but all my shots alas, came out blurry.  A photo disappointment for sure, but grist for some watercolor sketches.  Step 1 and 2 below.

Watercolor Wednesday

Either Give Me A Hand, or Get me outta here!:)  Not sure which. I began with two reference images; a woman in a fancy ball gown and an image of a child cheerfully reaching for something.  I fully expected to use the reference very loosely, as a springboard for a sweet ethereal scene.  But it …

Watercolor Wed.13

Watercolor Landscape my way. I became so frustrated working traditionally with watercolor landscape, that I decided to make the experience mine and make peace with the fact that I don’t have the time/energy/interest in making it work. You can see the progression below including a quick and dirty Photoshop intervention.   Still no masterpiece, but …

Watercolor Wed.12

My friend’s dog Hershey here. Hershey is a good doggie and the paint quickly became form, except for the right ear, which required definition. Alas, I feel back upon opacity.

Watercolor Wed. 3

                                            Watercolor on Strathmore Windpower Watercolor Pad I neglected to leave enough white/light space.   I’ve added a few strokes of opaque white watercolor to regain the white, but now the areas appear gray …

Watercolor Wed.

Watercolor & Sepia ink w/crow quill nib on Strathmore Windpower Watercolor Pad                                                   Attempt #1 It’s no secret that watercolor is not my thing.  It evades me, it makes me crazy.  There …

But I Just Want To Paint!

A very brief artist’s lament: NEVER enough time. Obstacles, everywhere…. hailing down, blocking… ..there’s another.   I make a plan… climb over and…..another. But I just want to paint! 🙂  Really.

New Digital Painting

I’ve played with a single scanned textural element in an other wise all digital painting.  In this case, you guessed it, it’s the mountain. I created it with acrylics on watercolor paper, scanned it and popped it into this digital painting. This “Mountaintop” piece is available as an 11″x 14″ high quality print.

Creative Kids

Were you the kid who  got lost in your paint, glue, and other art materials?   I mean it literally.   Maybe you know a child who sees her own body as an extension of her paper or canvas or sculpture.  While her peers are relatively neat and disciplined about their creative work, this child jumps …

KIds aRT

The title of Callie’s piece is “Tortured Fruit”.   A really fine acrylic painting that beautifully depicts the actual unfortunate fruit.  Callie achieved the realistic effects in this work through a series of acrylic washes.  This is a time-honored technique of the “Old Masters” tweaked for the materials we use in 2011.   I think …

Dragons Lurking?

Peril for me, is the looming threat of painting architecture; my least favorite element to paint.  Photoshop to my rescue.  I’ve inserted a detail of  photo reference into my digital painting to completely avoid painting the building.  I use this trick sparingly but on rare occasions, this fix saves time, energy, and the project. Hope …