Sunny In Blue -SOLD

 

Sunny In Blue   Original oil painting 8x8 inches

This painting is custom framed and currently available at Vanessa Rothe Fine Art, 418 Ocean Ave.  Laguna Beach, CA.  Open Fridays and Saturdays, and by appointment.  949-280-1555

Kristen's Mum

oil 8 1/2 X12 inches Purchase info here. At my May Advanced Workshop (Glass & Flowers) one of my workshop participants brought this mum specifically to see me paint it. A flower like this (white mum) is challenging, but everything boils down to painting the shapes you see, working from the large shapes first, progressing to the small. At the same time, I paint the darks first, mid values next, and the lightest lights last. It's important to have practiced with your chosen brush enough that you know exactly what shapes you can make with each stroke. Another consideration is temperature. Warms come forward and cools recede. Therefore, I first painted the cools in the depths of the flower and warmer as I go, building up to the warm lightest lights finally. So in a nutshell: think large to small, dark to light, and cool to warm. This process works for lots of things. I hope this helps someone out there! I appreciate your comments. This painting is on loose canvas. It will need to be mounted on board before framing. It is priced accordingly, and shipping is FREE! FOR MY MOST CURRENT PAINT HAPPENINGS PLEASE FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM: karenwernerart

Vanilla Ribbon

oil 12x12 inches Purchase info here.

S For Sunflowers

oil 12x9 inches Purchase info here. Target has these ready-to-paint sunflower arrangements!

Thankful

oil 10x8 inches Click to purchase. I painted this one after getting my turkey in the oven on Thanksgiving morning. I had lots of flowers leftover from an Advanced Workshop in November, so my granddaughter Emily and I had fun making arrangements. She made this one that became part of our centerpiece on Thanksgiving. IN OTHER NEWS: "PAINT THE LIVELY STILL LIFE" Workshops are coming up on February 10-11 and March 3-4. Location: my studio in Upland, CA. Email me for more information and to register.

Petals-a-Plenty

oil 12x9 Click to purchase. Happy New Year!

Roses In A Blue Vase -and THE BALBOA ART WALK

oil 10x8 inches magnify/purchase info In February I set out to practice painting roses. This is the end result of several practice sessions. Below are my out of order but numbered practice studies.

IN OTHER NEWS: The BALBOA ART WALK was amazing again! Perfect weather, music, great visitors to talk with, and sales!

Collector Joan Stipe made one of the first purchases, "Cinnamon Stop."

Jo Beth Prudhomme from Coast Magazine gave my booth an "Award of Excellence." A sincere thank you to everyone who visited, commented on my work and purchased paintings. You made my day!

Flower Happy II

oil 8x8 inches not for sale magnify I have a lot of catching up to do. This one was painted in early February.

Violet Vase Floral -SOLD

oil 12x12 inches magnify/purchase info The final piece in the January Strada Easel Challenge. I finished this piece fairly late in the evening of the 31st, placed it on the floor of my studio and added all the others. I took the picture below and posted both on Facebook by midnight as the challenge required. I had a great sense of accomplishment. Was I glad it was over? Nope! I can honestly say I never got tired of painting.

Big Sun & Little Blues

oil 6x6 inches click for purchase information and magnifier I managed to squeeze one more sunflower painting in before they started looking sickly. This one is similar to Sunflower With Twig, but with more focus on the center, and the small ones a cornflower blue. A nice combo with the warm yellows. I have it under my drying lamp, so if anybody wants it for a Christmas gift, you'd have it in plenty of time!

Sunflower & Blossoms -sold

oil 6x12 inches click for purchase information and magnifier Same subject, wide format version.

Sunflower & Twig -SOLD

oil 6x6 inches click for purchase information and magnifier Purple, and hanging over the fence it was. Perfect with a yellow, yellow sunflower. I snipped it off and made this cheerful painting. Wouldn't it look great hanging on your wall? It doesn't even have to match the couch.

Fall Bouquet -SOLD

oil 12x9 inches click for more accurate color and magnify feature Another painting from the same grocery store bunch. I loved working with all the subtle variations of greens. Greens can be tricky. I don't use any tube greens. I mix all my greens with combinations of ultramarine blue, cad yellow medium, and cad yellow light. For a brighter green I use thalo blue instead. But I almost always add cad red light. Somebody told me once, "Every good green has some red in it." I think it's true. Of course sometimes a careful touch of T white is needed.

Floral Bowl 2 -sold

oil 8x8 inches Click to purchase Still posting work from my time at the fair, I got some flowers at the grocery store knowing I'd be able to paint from those for a few days. "Paint 'em 'till they die", I say. Where are the pomegranates? Elizabeth thought I was sick of painting them and tossed them out! Maybe she was sick of watching me paint them! Just kidding. So a little break in the pom action. Good thing I had the flowers, and my series continued after Dawn brought more pomegranates.

In Progress

oil 20x16 I've been working on this larger piece and thought I'd show the progression as of today. I'm a bit embarrassed to admit I've been painting only small paintings for three years. I knew I needed to start painting larger, and seeing the Edgar Payne exhibit at PMCA on Saturday gave me the kick in the pants I needed. Bigger brushes and bigger piles of paint feels SOOO good!!!

The arrangement is backed by an olive drab drape, which I will use for value and shape but alter the color a bit in my painting. That jug is not part of the painting, it's just to weight the front of my platform because the vase is so heavy. I toned the canvas with alizarin and cad yellow.

I started with the flowers first because they'll move and die. I did have to wipe out one whole section of alstromerias because they got overworked. I like to do flowers almost like Chinese brush painting, just a few strokes. All these shots were taken with my beloved iPhone. :-)

Loved painting all the subtle colors in the vase. Maybe the sides aren't perfectly matching, but i think I can adjust when I paint the background.

Early on I decided to place the vase slightly off center which necessitated another object for balance. Grapes seemed perfect. Not wanting to go to the store right then, I grabbed some fake grapes I had laying around, a bit concerned that they'd look fake in the painting. I think not. After painting them, I sprayed them with water so I could see where the highlights would be. So glad I've painted lots of real grapes. It helped.

Yellow Rose

oil 8x8 inches click here to bid I started this floral at the art festival last Saturday and just now finished it. In between I battled exhaustion, discouragement (not from the painting) and later, food poisoning. Started with a fresh bouquet and finished almost a week later with a smelly-watered half dead subject. Still not feeling up to par, but I hope my painting is lively anyway. It started out that way anyway! A sincere thank you to a few kind friends who stopped by my booth at the festival. Your interest and support means A LOT.

Heads-Up Sunflowers -sold

oil 8x8 inches
private collection La Quinta, California

Sometimes it's difficult to find sunflowers that are not drooping their heads. I picked these up at the same farmer's market where I got the tomatillos. Turns out the orange one had been dyed, as the water in the vase turned pink. Pretty, but kinda unnatural. I was going for drama with the dark brown drapery. Let me tell you, there is a lot of paint on this panel! Laying it on thick in the focal areas was a lot of fun. For once I was "painting like a rich person" as they say.

Festival Daisies-sold

What a beautiful day on the City Hall lawn in Chino! We enjoyed great music and temps in the 80's with some exciting gusts of wind in the afternoon. I painted this potted daisy grabbed from my back patio, some good friends came by and I sold several small oils. What can get better than this? You can see my set up in the snapshot below.

Framed oils, baskets of oils, and a pile of loose watercolors added up to about 150 paintings. My hubby and I are tired from the shlepping of stuff! Just like traveling, I bring too much stuff!

oil on canvas panel 6x6 inches

click here to bid

Roses SOLD

watercolor on Arches 11x15 inches

Here's something I painted last year. While visiting our son and his family in Idaho, I took some pictures of their beautiful roses out front. Three of those photos were references for this painting. Next week we'll head out for another visit...I can't wait to see them! (The family, not the roses!)

Freesia And Cherries

oil on canvas panel 8x6 inches
click here to bid
This is a black depression glass sugar bowl I found at a junk mart. It turned out to be quite powerful in the painting despite the cherries and flowers. Looking at it now, it could be a teacher, hands on hips telling all those little scattered cherries to "Line up!"