"No One's Home"

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8"x 7" Oil on gessoed card. Available on Ebay. Click on link at top of page to go to my Ebay store.

This is the second in my new garden series and once again this is a view in Kelly's garden. I'm really enjoying this subject matter and find a wealth of inspiration in these intimate settings. I'm drawn to the natural casual style of Kelly's garden and find it more rich in color and textures than formal and pristine landscapes. More to come!

"Garden Reprieve"

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7"x 8" Oil on gessoed card. Available on Ebay. Click on the link at the top of the page to go to my Ebay store.

The third and last "orange" painting is complete and it begins a series of small garden paintings which I'm excited about. Of the many painting surfaces I've tried lately, I really loved this one. I gessoed the surface of a medium weight Strathmore board which is archival grade and easy to cut with a mat knife. I was accustomed to using this board for many mediums in illustration and the gesso seals the surface for oil paint. It produces a similar surface to gessoed masonite but not as slick, providing a slight "tooth" that I prefer. The huge benefit is that I don't have to get out the table saw!! Photographing this surface is less likely to show the shine "dots" that have been giving me such trouble with my canvas paintings. The disadvantage is it's only appropriate for smaller works – maybe up to 9" x 12" unless you want to mount it on a stiffer support.
Thanks to Kelly for letting me enjoy her beautiful and colorful garden. This orange bench is just one of the many whimsical elements she has so creatively spotlighted in her landscape.

"Stage Left"

I was at a friend's home and spotted these yellow and orange roses. They took my breath away so I cut a few to paint. I didn't have a board prepared so I taped some gessoed canvas to a board and began with a quick color sketch.

Upon getting this far I felt that I had a done a poor composition and wondered if I should abandon it. Because I had no permanently fixed boundaries, I was able to acquire some more canvas on the left and top borders by simply moving the tape.

After developing it to this point I took some shots for viewing on screen––this helps me to see any needed changes. I felt that the dark shadow at the top was creating a arch that seemed contrived and somewhat muddy. Although the rose was very close to being this intense in yellow, orange and red, I really wanted it to "pop" out of the picture plane. I decided to tone down the flower to a softer color. ( One note to make about photographing stages: these first three shots were taken at night in my studio and appear warmer in tone. The color of the syrup crock is more accurate in this third shot. The blue is a cornflower blue with lots of violet in it that is not accurately represented in the final shot ).

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This morning I made the final changes to the upper right background and to the rose and took this shot outdoors in the shade. No changes were made below the bottom edge of the flower so you can see quite a difference in color reproduction due to different lighting conditions. Over all this is very close to the final painting except for the crock color. After it dries, it will be mounted to 1/8" thick board cut to the dimensions, 8 3/8"x 6 5/16". I think I see an orange theme developing.......

This painting is available.

Tomatoes in Waiting

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7"x 6" Oil on canvas mounted on board. Available.

This painting was done in one session (alla prima) and was completed in 2.5 hours.
The tomatoes are a redder orange than appearing in this photo. Even in photoshop I couldn't bring the red out to color match the original. Next I'll have to paint a head of lettuce and a cucumber and we'll have a great salad!

Red Onion and Garlic

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6"x 6" oil on canvas mounted on board. Available.

OK, I get it now. Keep it simple and stop at 2 hours. Prep time and sketch took one half hour and I limited the painting to two hours and put the brush down!!!! Oh yeh, make it small and use big brushes too. I must leave it and go on to another day. This is my new strategy for the next month (?) or so.

Lake Como #2 - SOLD

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7"x 9" oil on gessoed board. sold

The three weeks since I've posted new work seems like a year! A multiple of reasons for the long break could be listed, but all I want to say is it's good to be back painting.

This piece, painted from a photo I took in 2006, was painted over several days. I'm using new paint (regular oils instead of the M. Graham oils) new palette of colors, a new self mixed medium, some new brushes and new surface ( the second time to paint on board instead of canvas). I found it very hard to get back into the hang of it all. The time away from the easel combined with the new supplies was intimidating to say the least. I felt like I was starting from scratch and had forgotten how to paint at all. Approaching this painting in baby steps, over three different sessions, was easier than having the pressure of completing it in one sitting. I've been used to working wet into wet, so this was a bit different working over dry paint. I found it very hard to achieve the soft edges without mixing paint for already painted areas to work into the newly painted parts. Due to the new palette I'm really pleased with the color. I've dropped Ultramarine blue and am now using Prussian blue, as well as adding black. Many teachers say never use black, but one of my favorite artists (Daniel Gerhartz) uses black. He never uses black alone, only mixed with other colors. I'll let you know if I can get along without the ultramarine.

"Carnival of the Animals" - NFS

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The last two weeks have been heavy duty spring cleaning duty for my studio and office. That has resulted in both good and bad things. It's so great to be organized again and to have found all the "lost forever" items that cause much stress. I actually found a $50 gift certificate to an art supply store from Christmas of 2000. I moved in 2001 and have been looking for it since then! I also looked at a lot of illustration work filed away in flat storage not seen in ages and brought some out for showing. The bad thing is all this moving of furniture and boxes gave me a bit of neck and shoulder pain keeping me out of the mood to paint. Twice to the chiropractor this week should make me good as new and ready to paint again in the next day or two.

I felt the need to post SOMETHING today and am sharing with you an illustration done in 1992 for Dove Audio in Beverly Hills, California. The CD cover is for "Carnival of the Animals", the well know classical piece by Camille Saint-Saens. The art director for this gave me a rough layout and instructed me to produce the art in the style of the French painter Henri Rousseau (1844-1910). He was a post-impressionist painter in the Naive or Primative manner. His best known paintings depict jungle scenes, even though he never left France or saw a jungle. The artwork was also made into a poster for a live benefits concert to support animal causes. The work is oil on gesso'd illustration board and measures 13"x 9". I can't tell you how many hours this took, but I know I only made about $10 an hour!