Lone Gazania-sold

oil on canvas panel 8x6 inches

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Enough already with the pumkins and squash. Must...paint...flower. In my backyard this was the only one I could find. Even my geraniums are taking a break. This is my favorite of the gazania varieties.

Plein Air At Amy's Farm SOLD

oil on canvas panel 12x9 inches

Just around the corner from us some long time friends own and run "Amy's Farm". They offer field trip farm experiences for young children and grow organic vegetables. This morning it was just too beautiful to paint inside, so I headed over to the farm. In the garden, the light was hitting the tops of fence boards, planted rows, and that lone discarded pumpkin...so I turned it into a painting. (The painting is better than the photo!) Turns out I had painted the compost pile! Farmer Randy liked it and bought it as a birthday gift for someone who lives and works on the farm, and rightfully so. She adds goat manure to the compost pile all the time. Thank you to Amy's Farm for welcoming kids, teachers, families and artists.

Window Sill Pumpkin SOLD

oil on canvas panel 6x6 inches

Duane Keiser (credited with having started the Daily Painting movement), does a lot of beautiful window sill paintings. Here's my first...from my front room window. I rather liked painting in my not-so-formal living room. It turned out to be a great exercise in values...the white that isn't really white. I wiped out the first and started over, then just barely spared this one from the wipe. I think I'm done with pumpkins!

Fall Quartet -sold

oil on canvas panel 8x8 inches

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Just two days of painting little tiny candies on little tiny canvases got me a bit itchy and twitchy, so here are some bigger shapes. Sometimes I configure my set up with a small color wheel in my hand and for this one I did. I wanted to experiment with an analogous color scheme, and here you have it. Red, orange, yellow and yellow green are all next to each other on the color wheel. Where the focal point is I have no clue! Your eye kinda roams around enjoying the saturated color and shine...(a least I hope your eye enjoys!)

Candy, Caramel, Apple -sold

oil on canvas panel 4x6 inches
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Similar to yesterday's, but with caramels added...my husband's idea. They were hard to pull off. Maybe his best idea was to eat the caramels.

Candy, Apple SOLD

oil on canvas panel 4x6 inches

This was my first painting on canvas this small. It was lots of fun, especially the candy corn coming in and out of shadow. The apple is a braeburn and it really was this bright red.

I have good news! The Tustin Art Walk and Plein Air Contest was a great event. Very well organized, and the visitors were plenty, nice and friendly. I sold a few paintings which is always helpful! The best news is I received a Third Place award for my painting "Warm Inside"!!! This is my first time competing with other plein air painters (35). On top of that, the painting was purchased on the spot! With the week of rain and all the excitement I neglected to take a good photo of the painting. (Go to my post on Oct. 20th to see the lousy photo!) I really enjoyed painting outside and hope to do much more of it in the future.

Tustin "Storybook House"

oil on canvas panel 9x12 inches
not for sale
It was cloudy skies over Tustin again today. When I started the above painting there was no sunlight except what was diffused through thick clouds. I used colors only from the cool side of my palette. I edited out the hedge because it lacked the organic quality of the rest of the foliage. I started at 11:00 am and took the picture below at 2:30 when I finished, so you can see the sun had started to come out by then. What a charming little "storybook house." Kinda reminds me of pea soup...I could have used some, it was a little chilly! I'd like to come back and paint it again on a sunny day.

Pumpkins, Squash & Wheat-sold

oil on canvas panel 8x8 inches
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Fall decor is so festive and makes for great painting subjects. This painting is from a few days ago---a dark rainy day I spent all cozy inside with my paint and brushes, happy as can be! The color caught my eye of course, as did the shiny spots and varying sizes. With all round shapes I needed line so I added the stalk of wheat which really gave me a challenge. I wanted to indicate the pattern of grains but not be fussy about it. Though I wiped out the wheat three times, the final result is just what I had in mind. The deep dark greens in the back squash were so fun....thalo green and alizarin...what a rich powerful combo! Tomorrow I'm off to Tustin Plein Air again. Yipee!

Under Gray Skies

"Warm Inside"
oil on canvas panel 9x12 inches
Awarded Third Place, Tustin Plein Air Contest, October 23, 2010
SOLD
Chances of rain today: 60%. I decided to go on the other 40% for no rain, but just in case I set up right under the open hatchback of my car with my painting umbrella up too. Not a drop fell! With very gray skies, the warmly lit interior of this little "oldest building" in Tustin made for a nice subject. The photo of my painting is terrible. It seems that gray skies gray down everything...even paintings I try to photograph outside. On a sunny day, I'll get a good shot and post it later. I had a great time painting and talking to the few people who stopped by.

Pueblos

oil on canvas panel 16x20 inches

A few years ago Hubby and I visited Sedona and Santa Fe. Somewhere along the road this awesome scene said "Paint me, paint me, paint me!" We pulled into a turnout and took lots of photos. There was so much there already: repetition of shapes, contrast of warm and cool colors, light and shadow...patterns! I thought about leaving out the poles and pipes, but I like verticals for stability. I've "finished" it several times, but this is the final finish. It will be included in my upcoming month long exhibit at the Fontana Steelworkers Auditorium. More info on that later.

I'm framing and packing up for the Old Town Tustin Art Walk and Plein Air Competition. I'll be painting on the streets this Wednesday and Friday, then on Saturday will be selling my work. If you're within driving distance, I hope you'll come out and say hi. There are 35 plein air painters competing! Wish me luck!

Father, Daughter

oil on canvas panel 8x6 inches

not for sale

The pendelum has swung from the silly (yesterday) to the sentimental. My dad was an accomplished sign painter. He could letter beautifully with brush and enamel in any style on "show cards", cars, trucks, boats and billboards...you name it. For the most part, a lost art now. This is one of his mahl sticks, complete with enamel blotches and years of grime from his talented hands. I love to run my hands along the grime. I miss him. When I started college, he took my Grumbacher brushes to his shop and cut the ends off so they would fit in my paint box. The coating is peeling off, so I don't use them, but I've painted them several times now. I kept the composition very simple here to maintain the importance of the objects.

Cactus Monster

watercolor on Arches paper 10x14 inches
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Every Tuesday night I get to paint with some artist friends. Yay! It's a good opportunity for me to play with watercolor...nothing serious, just mess around. I get a kick out of making cactus needles with masking fluid and have done a few prickley paintings this way. Some pretty pink pricklies are previously posted. (Couldn't resist.) This one appeared as a monster.

Old Glory 2 SOLD

oil on 8x8 inch gallery wrapped canvas
Carrying the design around the sides was a lot of fun and adds a lot to the painting. I couldn't get a photo of that because handling it while all sides were wet was very tricky. Next week I'll participate in the Old Town Tustin Art Walk and Plein Air Competition. This painting will be included it my work for sale...if it's dry enough!

Flag In Progress

Flag painting in progress on my easel
I took the photo right where I paint...in my "not-so-formal" dining room next to a sunny window. My second painting session was of necessity a short one, but tomorrow I'll have more time. I'm working section by section bringing it up to a near finished level as I go. This allows me to manipulate edges and blend while the paint is still wet.

In Progress

Painting "Old Glory" (see my Sept. 18th post) was so enjoyable for me, I've begun another flag painting. This one, 8x8 inches is on gallery wrap canvas with the design carried around to the sides. I'm going to take my time. So far the canvas being a bit rougher than what I normally use lends itself well to keeping the flag's cotton texture an important part of the painting. My ground is burnt umber.


This is the result of my first painting session. I'll keep posting as it progresses, and hope everybody finds it interesting and informative.

Pear With Black Grapes SOLD

oil on canvas panel 6x6 inches

This is the last in my pear series...at least for now. In my previous painting, "Just Fruit", the values are all pretty close, so I wanted to try a light surface with those lovely purply black grapes to punch up the contrast of light and dark...so here we have a loosely cruciform composition involving complementaries yellow and purple. I may make some changes to the pear, but I'm happy with the grapes.

Just Fruit-sold

oil on canvas panel 6x6 inches
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What would happen if the brightly colored fruit alone were placed on a neutral earthy surface? Here it is. I added the "Black Grapes" for dots and lines. They are interesting little gems: so dark purple they look black. Sometimes you see deep crimson glowing in them. I especially like how the grapes and reclining pear turned out.

Pear Fancy -sold

oil on canvas panel 6x6 inches
SOLD
The delicate color shifts in a pear are beautiful. My goal in continuing practice with pears is to be able to suggest the varied colors and still show the three dimensional form...like you could reach out and pick it up. I think I'm making progress. The teal blue and terra cotta colors in the fluted bowl seemed like a refreshingly different color scheme. The multiple highlights on the very shiny glaze give it sparkle.

Bottled Hibiscus SOLD

oil on canvas panel 6x6 inches

This pretty little recycled glass bottle came from a shop in Yosemite. You can't see much of it here, but it's sure to show up again in future paintings. This painting was interrupted about half way through by ...UGH...a dentist appointment! I had to finish after dark which left none of that nice sunshine needed to photograph it. This is my lame excuse for not posting yesterday. Blame it on the dentist...or any of the five (count 'em) health related appointments I've had in the last 48 hours. Getting older is the pits, but I can still paint! Can't complain.

On The Edge-sold

oil on canvas panel 6x6 inches

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There's something soothing about green. In this painting I used two different green fields to break up the negative space. The fruits all seem to be following the line between the two greens and heading toward the knife, hence the title. I'm finding that in painting pears, I have to make the bottom shadow side darker than it appears in life in order to sit that pear down firmly in my painting.

Pottery Pear

oil on canvas panel 6x6 inches
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Here I've pared the pear (!) with more earthy colors. I'm a big fan of amber yellow and this is one of my favorite hand made bowls. The scalloped pattern adds interesting little tiny shapes amid the large shapes. I really liked the glow of reflected light up onto the bottom shadow side of the pear, but in trying to get that I had to carefully keep the value dark enough to read "shadow side." I'm quite happy with this one and it's cousin: Tomato & Clay, posted Sept. 16th.

Peach Pit Pear

oil on canvas panel 6x6 inches
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Here I pared orange with blue (a bit bluer in person), and then added the yellow green surface to tie in with the pear... then some peach color in the pear. My tone is cad red light, orangier for the colors in the peach. Most times my photos look exactly like the painting, sometimes not. This time not! Augh! If anybody has any picture taking advice, I'm all ears!