Strawberries & Sugar

 

Strawberries & Sugar  oil 6x8 inches

Purchase info here. 

This is a sweet little painting that looks SO much better in person!  If you're a painter you'll know that transparent pigments like ultramarine blue and transparent oxide red create a beautiful transparent dark color and make for rich dark backgrounds.  The drawback, however is that they dry glossy and are quite impossible to photograph well.  No matter what I did, I had glare on this painting.  I tried my best to edit the photo to eliminate glare, but it takes the life out of the work.  This is as close as I could get!  If you like it enough to click on the link to purchase, you'll see that I guarantee your satisfaction.  I'm pretty sure you'd love this little gem.   

Fruit On Silver

oil 8x8 inches Purchase info here. A quick and loose painting from November. My, where does the time fly? This weekend I taught a successful workshop to a small but hard-working group. Even experienced painters said they learned new things! I still have a few openings in my February workshop if you'd like to join us. Just email me at karenwernerart@gmail.com The first day of my workshop I teach design principles, lighting considerations, tips for accurate drawing and value. The value of values cannot be overstated! Here are my two quick value study demos.

Citrus Clippings -a still life painting in oil -SOLD

oil 11x14 inches magnify/purchase info While arranging this still life I set the clippers down momentarily right where you see them. I liked the way they looked in the painting, so I included them. Turns out the analogous color scheme needed a few reddish tones. Analogous colors are next to each other on the color wheel: yellow, green and blue. The rusty metal adds a lot, I think. IN OTHER NEWS: Below is the postcard for Evening With The Artists on April 22nd in Redlands. For more information click here.

Winter Arrangement II -a still life painting in oil -SOLD

oil 10x10 inches magnify/purchase info I love having a contrast of textures in my arrangements: the shiny hammered silver versus the pinecone and dried little pomegranates for example. My sister-in-law gave me this plant at Thanksgiving, and the crisp white flowers were a lot of fun to paint. How do you paint something so complicated? First I block in the dark green foliage amid and around the flowers. Then a few warmer, slightly lighter greens within the darks. Next, I painted the shadow sides of the flowers, indicating the petal shapes with brushwork. Then I painted the light, warm sides of the flowers, using brushwork again to convey shape and form. Last, I added a few bright green and yellow-white accents and the yellow orange centers. I'm not sure I'll be able to post again before Christmas, so MERRY CHRISTMAS and a HAPPY belated HANUKKAH to everyone!

Winter Postcard -an oil painting that's a postcard!

oil 5x7 inches not for sale magnify Here's a little micro-view of my previous set up. Painted on one of those inexpensive canvas cardboards. Once dry, I'm going to glue paper to the backside and make it into a postcard. A friend in Arizona made me the cutest tote bag for Christmas. I owe her a special thank you note, and this will be it! We went camping over the weekend. In between rainstorms I got a little plein air practice in. Will post those next. Have a great week, everyone!

Winter Arrangement -SOLD

oil 9x12 inches magnify/purchase This set up was really exciting to me. It has rich warm color, the earthy-ness that I like plus some reflection and sparkle. Hope you like it too.

Silver & Stuff -a still life painting in oil -sold

oil 12x12 inches magnify/purchase Maybe I'm weird. I like my silver tarnished and my wine with pretty labels. And I love it when red, pink and orange come together. ADDITIONALLY, I'm really happy to be part of this show!!! (But that's not weird at all!) Opening soon!

Still Life With Hammered Silver -sold

oil 9x12 inches magnify/purchase I painted this soon after attending Qiang Huang's workshop, but I'm just now just getting around to posting it. I admired an arrangement I saw at a friend's house. She had made it solely with dried Japanese iris pods. She insisted I take some home, so that's what you see sticking out and all around. I like the assortment of textures in this piece. It has an earthy feel in spite of the saturated fruit color. UPCOMING EVENTS: SATURDAY, MAY 3 Chino Arts Festival 10:00-4:00 at Chino Civic Center. Mostly music and dance performances, but I will have a demonstration booth with a small amount of work on display. SUNDAY, MAY 18TH BALBOA ART WALK 9:00-5:00 Over 100 artists and 4 musical groups along the seawall on the island. More info later on my exact location.

Fall Still Life

oil 9x12 inches Click for purchase info and magnifier I love the colors of Fall. For this painting I grabbed a pumpkin off our front porch, and some leaves from our neighbor's yard. The 1920's silver water pitcher was a great find at a flea market. I left it tarnished, cause that's the way I like it! This is actually the second painting I did from the subject. On the first go-around I did not take my own advice that design is the most important thing, and if the design drawn on your canvas doesn't look good, no amount of excellent painting will improve it. Lesson learned (again!) The more I paint, the more need to learn...and re-learn.

Studied Tangerine

oil 8x8 inches click for purchase information I bought fifty shades of gray fabric for drapery. Not really. Just seven or eight. Exploring different color schemes on gray, I have found that the gray is hardly noticed in the overall look of the work. It also allows me to adjust the gray to my liking. For "Emily and Madeline" I leaned it toward taupe. Here it's pretty much gray, and you'll see in the next post I leaned it toward green. I think I've finally solved my problem with backgrounds. I don't mean the gray, but rather reversing my process. Painting them first as a loose warm up really works for me. I get them out of the way, have a "support" for my objects, and can manipulate edges as I go.

Sparkle & Shine Freesias

oil on canvas panel 8x8 inches

not for sale

I got the idea for this painting when I noticed a jar of freesias that had ended up next to an old silver pitcher on my kitchen counter. I upgraded the jar to a small vase in keeping with the formal looking pitcher. The black gives it high contrast and drama. I painted slowly and had a blast.

Cherries On Silver -sold

oil on canvas panel 6x6 inches
click here to bid
I cooked up this painting in my kitchen. Really, there's fabulous lighting in the kitchen, plus a huge window. I felt energetic and ready to tackle reflections on silver. The cherry on the left has an upturned stem. Can you see it? Getting that to read right was tricky. I tried not to overwork the silver plate...not sure I succeeded. There's thalo blue in the lightest parts of the silver...so yummy with the dark red, that's my favorite aspect of this one.

Pear In Silver-sold

oil on canvas panel 6x6 inches
click here to bid
This was a tricky one, but lots of fun. The silver mirrored just about everything in the immediate vicinity, including light coming through windowblinds, me and the back of my easel. Simplifying the reflections into large shapes helped maintain the pear as the focal point.

Silver With Green Grapes -sold

oil on canvas panel 6x6 inches
click here to bid
Wanting to paint green and violet again, I placed the grapes and silver baby cup on a lavender cloth. I toned my canvas with yellow-green (you can see peeking through slightly). The undertone grayed the lavender which worked nicely with the silver. The cup had a "bump" around it which reflected my orange shirt and painting arm. I'm really happy with this one.