Posts Tagged: green
Six and a half
Six and a Half
6″ x 6″ (15 x 15 cm) – oil on gessobord
It seems that every realist painter worth his or her salt paints eggs at some point. It is almost like a rite of passage. Can I or can I not?!… I noticed this phenomena some time ago and knew that I too would have to paint eggs sometime.
And now I have. It was damned hard, just as expected. They have to be perfect, I discovered, and curve perfectly in the light or they will not look like real eggs – and that’s the whole point!
Eggs are an excellent assessment of one’s current skill as a realist painter. I know I will paint eggs again in the future – to see my progress if nothing else.
What I Drew Last Summer
What I Drew Last Summer
8″ x 8″ (20 x 20 cm) – oil on gessobord – commission
This was one of those very rare paintings that practically painted itself. It happens sometimes, not too often, and I wonder what is the reason for this. This is the second painting that did this: I am working on it… mixing and painting…, and suddenly it informs me – I think I am done, thanks! 🙂
I absolutely love my patron for whom this is painted. C.B. contacted me through my online gallery and basically said some variation of the following: I like your style, why won’t you paint something you like and I will buy it. I nearly fainted – the best art patron in the world!
Painting this was smooth and logical and presented very few problems. I did have a little bit of a fuss with strawberries – I did not nail the color right away, and the texture was a challenge. It was an interesting problem to paint graphite and pen drawing in oil. I had fun with that.
The only difficulty I had was coming up with a title. Polling family members yielded several possibles, none of which had a WOW factor. I did a crowd-sourcing thing on Facebook (again), and what a great idea it was – I got a dozen excellent titles. Combining ideas from 3 or 4 different people I came up with this – What I Drew Last Summer.
And here’s the sketch that got painted in this composition. I drew this in cafe Metropolis while drinking tea and sketching with my friend Don Colley.
Latest Gossip
Latest Gossip
6″ x 6″ (15 x 15 cm) oil on gessobord panel
SOLD
Some thought that I gave up painting… I don’t blame them! I’ve been posting sketch after sketch for months… but I’ve been painting too. Remember after “Unwrapping” I promised myself to avoid painting crinkled paper unless it is a commission? Well, I could not stay away – crinkled paper is addictive. I must be a glutton for punishment… It took this long and was a major pain.
This little painting had the longest “ugly” stage I can remember. Until three days ago it looked like the best candidate for recycling bin I’ve ever seen. I am not sure why I did not give up. My daughter says that I go through this with every painting. I think she is right, it is always a pain, uncertainty, major self-doubt, anxiety and confusion. I hear from my artists friends, writers friends, musician friends that it is the same for them too. So much for happy bohemian life style. I hope you like the painting though.
O Sole Mio
O Sole Mio
6″ x 6″ (15 x 15 cm) oil on gessobord panel
SOLD
Remember how it sounded when Pavarotti sang it? It is hard to come up with something sounding sweeter than that. And of course pear shapes invoke certain associations. Anyway, pears are so easy to anthropomorphize… they are so much like us. I have no trouble imagining them serenading each other or singing a duet.
Of course, painting a music score is a lot less sweet. It’s pretty much a pain in … wherever. In oil while keeping perspective… I hope I did it correctly. If you can read music and see a mistake – don’t tell me, I don’t want to know!
Waiting for Adam
Waiting for Adam
8″ x 10″ (20 x 25 cm) oil on gessobord panel
SOLD
Just apples to try a different technique. And a tongue in a cheek joke as an afterthought. Coming up with a title was harder than painting it. As sure as god made little apples… an apple a day… All of this was so trite that I was very tempted to title this Untitled. Every self respecting artist has something called Untitled. But then my husband came up with A Garden of Eve, and I loved it, and of course took it a step further.