Tea & Lemon -sold

oil on canvas panel 6x6 inches

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Here's my submission to the "paint your favorite mug" challenge on Daily Paintworks. I have several favorites, but this one with the flattened sides is unusual. The flower makes it fit right in with all the yellow and blue I've been painting lately.

Cherry Cups

oil on canvas panel 6x6 inches

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The Daily Paintworks Challenge for this week is about balance. The entries so far are towers of cups and other objects. Since I only used two cups, I hope this still qualifies. My aim here is more about dominance than balance: dominantly neutral color with a pop of saturated red, dominantly curvy shapes with a few straight lines. Barely spared from the wipe-off in the beginning, the reflective whites and shiny surfaces made it a challenging exercise in values...come to think of it, just about every painting is an exercise in values!

Blue Mugs

It's amazing to me how quickly I get "rusty" after not painting much. It only takes a few days of other activities to make me lose my momentum and start fussing when I do paint. Here's an example! I do like the backlit quality and the yellow with blue. The mug on the right is one of my favorites.

oil on canvas panel 6x8 inches

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Not So White- DPW Challenge

oil on canvas panel 6x6 inches

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The Daily Paintworks challenge this week is to paint a white object sitting on patterned fabric with the resulting reflected color. In addition, no earth colors may be used...just the primaries and white. I learned I could mix yellow ochre easily, but I did miss burnt umber for making a quick rich black. The challenge, while about reflected color poses another challenge: draw the pattern receding in space so the object appears sitting on a horizontal plane.

Spring Demo

oil on canvas panel 8x8 inches

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While they seemed friendly enough, Associated Artists made me paint as fast as I could, and in the dark! (See below photo for proof.) Since they were so mean, :-) I spent this morning trying to rescue my painting. In case you were there, no, there were no blueberries in the painting when I started. I forgot them when I set up my still life...probably because nobody offered me any cookies! Photo below is by my friend Mary Jo, who managed to get me (8 feet tall now, apparently), my set up and the gigantic screen all in one shot. Whew!

Quality Edge

oil on canvas panel 6x6 inches
The next in my series of practicing whites. While painting I consider my edge quality, hard or soft, and this is one of my Cutco knives...so the title plays with both those ideas. I liked the crisp contrast of whites with the dark handle and shadows. This painting is available at Vander Molen Fine Art, Arcadia, CA

The Big Apple -sold

oil on canvas panel 6x6 inches
Sorry I went off the radar for a few days... I was running Camp Gramma for three of my adorable grandchildren. I hope to get back to painting today. Above is the first painting in my series on whites done a few weeks ago.

Mug With Grapes -sold

oil on canvas panel 6x6 inches

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My intent here was to use a more subdued green surface with the same holiday grapes. This mug, created by Claremont ceramic artist Crispin Gonzales has several colors of glaze that went with the grapes very nicely. I'm quite happy with the color scheme and loose brushwork.

Tangerine Mug

oil on canvas panel 6x6 inches

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This one was barely spared from the wipe off. The tangled and dried leaves were difficult...their shape and form being not the norm. Anyway, I liked the mug so I did what I tell my watercolor students to do--just keep going.