SMALL PAINTINGS IN OIL
sold I did a fair amount of this in my day - cramming. I hope this gal's memory has more long-term stamina than mine - honestly I can't remember anything that I ever crammed for!
Click Here to Bid What I have realized about these faces is - to get them super accurate (I mean, to get them to actually look not only like a human being but like a SPECIFIC one) is hard, especially with my loose style. I found I was getting tighter and tighter and not enjoying the process much at all. So when I did this one and the one I posted a few days ago, I gave myself permission to do whatever! I decided the photos were just a starting point, and I could run wild with my brush strokes. What followed was much fun for me! And I love the result and that's all that matters. To answer a common question, no I don't do portrait commissions. Sorry. In fact, I don't take commissions at all anymore. If you've done them yourself you know they are no fun, and I consider myself very lucky that I can afford to turn them down. If you are looking for a portrait artist, my friend Susan Carlin is super-fabulous. Check out her blog too.
Click Here to Bid (12x12in. - starts at $1!!) I did a smaller version of this last year that sold (at a workshop in France, which is where I took the reference photos) before I even got a chance to post it. But I loved the image, so I did this 12x12 version when I got home. I was REALLY happy with it, so I held onto it for a while. But again moving has made me rethink everything! So here's another go at the $1 auction. Woo!
old s During my recent workshop in San Francisco my kids and I ran across a huge park riddled with young people just "hanging out." It was difficult to get good pictures of them without being totally conspicuous, but this one was off in the land of her book, and a perfect target. Bam - gotcha!
SMALL PAINTINGS IN OIL
SMALL PAINTINGS IN OIL
Click Here to Bid (8x8in. - starts at $100) Do you know what they say about black socks (which are suddenly ... in?)? Black socks, they never get dirty The longer you wear them, the stronger they get Sometimes, I think I should wash them But something keeps telling me, no, no, not yet. This was a camp song I learned in girlscouts many, many years ago.
SMALL PAINTINGS IN OIL
sold Goodbye again. I am off tomorrow early, back to Texas for another workshop. So far I've been posting paintings I did before the holidays, but when I get back from this workshop I am raring to paint again!
sold. (8x8in.) This is a scene from New York City. These gals were just coming out of the construction tunnel, getting a good view of the skyline. I imagine they were in town for the weekend, a bit of shopping, a bit of partying. Just like Sex in the City! Except where's the fourth girl? They're probably meeting her in a cool bar somewhere.
You’ll often hear artists say that a key way of improving in your art is to fill miles of canvas. Plein Air Convention & Expo (PACE) faculty member Carol Marine agrees — in fact, she wrote the book on it.
Click Here to Bid (8x8in. - starts at $100) I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to make this one work. I had to remove a few awkward people in the background (and their shadows), and another weird shadow near the front, but it finally came together. The finishing touch was the white zipper on his jacket. I debated about putting it in, but when I did it was so right.
SMALL PAINTINGS IN OIL
SMALL PAINTINGS IN OIL
sold This lady was so cool. Someday I'll do a larger painting of her so I can show the funky round (gold) glasses she was wearing. They just didn't work on this small format.
Click Here to Bid I did this series of paintings before my advanced workshop last week in order to bone up on some of the more difficult still life subjects. This one is a combination of white, metal and glass. And it was hard, let me tell you.
Click Here to Bid (8x8in. - OIL - starts at $100) An old scene from Germany. There was some sort of political thing going on with balloons everywhere. A few were floating in the background, but they didn't read well when I painted them. So I took them out because I figured ... there was plenty going on without them!
sold This is from another photo in San Francisco (so was yesterday's, fyi). I thought the light was so cool I sort of parked myself against the wall of the building and took tons of pictures, waiting for the people to be just right. This scene had a lot of subtly different darks, and historically I've always been terrible at mixing them. When I'm mixing subtly different lights and mids I mix them close to each other on my palette to compare, but somehow that never occurred to me with darks. Doh! So I did that this time and feel I managed them a lot better. Who'da thunk!?
