Crossed Bottle

oil 8x6 inches Some of my students mentioned that they wanted to see me paint glass. On the second day, with about 45 minutes left in the workshop, I borrowed this and placed it on the floor. Light from the open garage door shone through and added interesting highlights. My students had worked hard and tolerated the warm temperatures, so just watching me paint was a relaxing conclusion for us all. And why on earth did I not take pictures?!! I guess I was too busy trying to cram a lot of content into two days. Next June I'll transform my garage again, make a few changes to the schedule and remember to take pictures!

Quick Fruit Demo -sold

oil 6x6 inches click for purchase information Last week I taught an introductory oil workshop for my watercolor students. We had a lot of fun. It's hard to describe their excitement when they saw how you can wipe off what you don't like and repaint! This is the first of two demos. I tried to keep it really simple.

Still Life With Blue Pot

oil 8x10 not for sale at this time I found this little blue pot at my favorite local thrift store. Here I've placed a lot of circular objects in a circle. The squirrel mop brush was badly needed for a linear element. One of these days I'll put some water in that pot and do a splashy watercolor with that brush. You may notice the high key of this painting in contrast with my previous few. I had to lighten things up. All that dark muted paint was making me glum! The splashy watercolor might be a good fix too. For those of you following my Arches oil paper saga, here's my last entry: I gessoed this paper ahead of time, and the paint didn't soak in. Still, the texture was smooth in a fuzzy kind of way, not smooth like Gessobord. I decided I'll stick with canvas, linen and Gessobord. Arches oil paper might be great for collage work. It's tough. As for my finished paintings, I varnished one today and luckily the color came back up. All of them might go on sale at a later date after I figure out how to mount them on board. Any suggestions?

Geraniums & Glass

oil 10x8 inches not for sale at this time Finally, here's the first piece I did on Arches oil paper. Pictured below is how it looked before I wiped out the drapery several times. The paper took a beating and held up well. Still, the paint seems to die into the paper. After four paintings, going back to canvas sounds pretty good.

Unfinished stage. I masked the edges with tape before painting. Makes a nice "matted" look.

Nectarine With Jar

oil 6x6 inches not for sale at this time Next painting in my adventure with Arches oil paper. I'm happy to have found this grayed brown, almost like a dark taupe. The neutrality of it gives the painting an earthy feel. I used transparent red oxide, ultramarine blue and some cad yellow medium. It's amazing the variety of neutrals you can get with these.

Nectarine Between

oil 6x6 inches not for sale at this time Third painting on Arches Oil Paper. May be for sale at a later date.

Flowers & Fruit

oil 9x12 inches not for sale at this time I've been trying some new things. This is the second of four pieces (so far) painted on Arches Oil Paper, a relatively new product. No priming needed. You paint directly on the paper. Like everything, it has its advantages and disadvantages, which I will discuss further down if you're interested. Also with this piece, I'm entertaining some suggestions made to me recently: more muted color, and a varied color scheme rather than one dominating color. I felt like I really stuck my neck out trying new stuff on a new substrate, but what the heck. I won't post the first because it's hideous, but might be worth reworking later. I would love to hear some feedback on what you think of this one. About Arches Oil Paper: ADVANTAGES: ready to go, easy to store, tear any size, smooth surface, first washes sink in without dripping, subsequent layers sit on top, dries much faster, sinking in forced me to use more paint, can be varnished. DISADVANTAGES: no canvas texture, paint really sinks in, dries to very dull opaque, dries faster, harder to manipulate edges. For framing, I'm pretty sure it needs to be mounted on board. So I'm thinking, why not paint on canvas mounted on board already??? Still, it's good to try new stuff.

Ridge Sketch

oil 9x12 inches click for purchase information This scene was right behind our campsite. I liked the tree trunks in shadow, light behind them and particularly the blanket of pine needles. I've been super busy since we got back, but have managed a few paintings. I am trying out the new "Arches Oil Paper" and will let you know what I think in my next post.

Solid Oak, Idyllwild

oil 12x9 inches click for purchase information This is the second piece I did while camping in Idyllwild. Backlit scenes often appeal to me. While painting, a campground employee came by in his golf cart and jokingly said, "That looks pretty good! I can hardly see the numbers!" I laughed and told him, "That's because the numbers are on the tree." He replied, "Oh, that's how they do it these days?" Yeah.