Wildflowers

6x6 acrylic on panel

sold

Here I just splashed the Phthalo Blue around abstractly, and then kind of designed a subject to fit it... beautiful :)

#912

Blue Marble

6x6 acrylic on canvasboard

sold

Ok, now it's new stuff! This is a study for a larger painting I'm doing, absolutely gorgeous so far, but I need to make sure I've got one marble right that is majorly tricky.... the solution? Do it entirely in transparent layers of Phthalo Blue! It's one of those pigments that is unremarkable when mixed with white, but when glazed.... and it contrasts great with the dense brushy sort of background I gave it, too :)

#911

White Anenomes II

5x7 acrylic on panel

nfs

Um.... I was wrong. I was flipping through some old dailies, and this one was so intriguing I just had to bring it out for another go. Isn't the light just wonderful?

#910

Evening Coffee

6x6 acrylic on canvasboard

sold

This might be the last of my repaintings for a little while.... we'll see. I definitely want to have some raw egg dailies to take to the Festival for the Eno (provided they don't get snapped up off of Etsy, of course, that would be just as lovely), so I need to tackle that soon. I can't wait! I'm planning on setting up Thursaday night, so it is coming up very soon.

#909

Red Apple and Shadow

6x8 acrylic on canvasboard

sold

Didn't the colors come out wild on this one? Happy! It's more work with the loose/splashy/painterly backgrounds and the wonderful rounded colorful subject.... and in this case, the thin dark glaze for a shadow that really helps bring it together. That's why I love this daily painting thing- you just learn so darn much :)

And just a reminder- the Festival for the Eno is coming up! Friday, Saturday, and Sunday in Durham, North Carolina. Great music, beautiful artwork, lots of awesome junk food- what more could you ask for for the Fourth of July weekend?

#908

Golden Pear VII

6x8 acrylic on canvasboard

sold

Continuing with the reworking, and still really enjoying it :) And realizing that, yet again, my post will show up as being tomorrow when for me it is still today, what with it being 1:30 and all.... Baby Girl is such a night owl! Speaking of, she just turned a huge cardboard box full of markers upside down on her head.... gotta go!

#907

Lemon on Blue

6x8 acrylic on canvasboard

sold

Fun :) I really enjoyed painting this one the first time but it felt a little.... flat. So I went through the whole thing again, layered the colors and played with the texture and added more dimension to the lemon, and I love the result!

#906

Highway at Night

6x8 acrylic on canvasboard

collection of Natasha Marcuard

This on is way, way out of my comfort zone, but I enjoyed it thoroughly. This one, that it. The one I did before, which should never, ever be posted, I layered color over black and it just turned out ugly and chalky. This one it's very thin washes of color, and then blacks and blues and purples went over it, and it comes out all fun and glowy :)

#905

Summer Peach IV

6x6 acrylic on canvasboard

nfs

I realized I hadn't done any peaches this summer, and that's practically tradition at this point :) I'm so proud of the way I treated the background! Loose, plenty of interest, but it doesn't detract from the subject or refuse to "read" as background...

#904

Tricolor Marble

6x6 acrylic on canvasboard

nfs

Pretty, pretty marble. It's a subject I love anyways, but I really had fun playing up the feeling of light in this one :D

#903

Single Iris

6x6 acrylic on canvasboard

sold

Continuing with the looser, drippy, splashy backgrounds, obviously, and also continuing with the strong shadow pattern. The idea..... I know I've seen other artists do a flower or bouquet in a vase all small on the canvas like this, and I like the feeling that it gives. I mean, it's probably just a site-size thing to some extent, but there's something very fragile about the end result, and something very much like you're looking into the artists studio, more so that when you really zoom in on the subject.

#902

Skeleton Key

6x8 acrylic on canvasboard

sold

I have decided that the single most important factor in making an image feel really three dimensional is to have a strong shadow pattern. I know- it surprised me too! But this one just jumps right off the canvas, it's the darndest thing, and I don't know if it's too tricky or gimmicky or whatever, something I should feel bad or inauthentic for using, or what. I guess no more than for following any other compositional rule :)

#901

Pink Carnations

6x8 acrylic on canvasboard

sold

Dude. Post number 900.

So I'm painting some pretty flowers to celebrate! And let me tell you, carnations are monsters to paint.... but after several tries I finally got so I really love how these turned out :)

You may have noticed that the background is different, too. I've been thinking off and on for a while that my backgrounds sometimes fall flat, I just wasn't sure how best to change that. But the color wash pieces inspired me, and so I painted the background all fun and drippy, flat enough to recede but not so flat that it feels uninteresting, you know? And I really like it!

Happy Friday, everyone!

#900

Full Moon on the Pond

6x6 acrylic on canvasboard

nfs

Ok, last view of the pond for a while, I promise, I just couldn't resist this one :) All about the halo, and the reflections.

#899

Breaking Through

6x8 acrylic on canvasboard

sold

The same pond, the same palette, different light situation :)

Sun Over the Pond

6"x8" acrylic on canvas board

sold

This limited palette thing is kind of fun! I mean, it's not a permanent thing- I love being able to dig through just piles of paint tubes to find the most perfect, most exciting colors for a subject- but still.... it inteesting, something I learn a lot on. Especially with a subject like this, one I find challenging anyways.

White Calla

6x8 acrylic on canvasboard

I got some callas at the farmers market this past weekend, and they have been keeping me company in the studio. This afternoon, just before the clouds rolled in, the light was just right and this one flower had almost a religious feeling to it.

I worked with the same primaries-only palette, mostly in thin washes of soft greys, with the bright whites added at the very end with my fingers for added impact :)

#896

Iron Mountain Marble

6x6 acrylic on canvasboard

Same restrictions as yesterday, but today's subject is a beatiful marble made by Iron Mountain Glass- somehow or another they vaporize precious metals, in this case gold and some silver, and capture them in the glass. It's a really unearthly beauty that I've tried to capture.

#895

Red Trees Reflections

6x6 acrylic on canvasboard

Trying something a little different- I'm limited to the three primaries, white, and black. Looking for color harmonies, and trying to learn how best to utilize liquid retarder- to make the paints dry more slowly- and glazing medium. Should be fun! This one.... almost abstract, but still, a nice atmosphere.

#894

Red Tulip

6x6 acrylic on canvasboard

And color washes again! The reds came out really amazing, and I splashed water back into some of the washes as the were drying for that fun texture :)

Winding River

6x6 acrylic on canvasboard

With this one, well, I was reading an article in International Artist, an old issue, saying that different colors of the same value, when you put the together it creates a sort of shimmer effect, and that this was especially effective towards the horizon in landscapes. So I tried it, and what do you know... :)

#892

Bottle and Magnifying Glass

6x8 acrylic on canvasboard

Fun! The bottle is actually from Naomi, it used to contain her gripe water, and the magnifying glass.... well, you know how much I love glass. Anything shiny or see throughy, and I'm all over it :)

#891

Blue Heels

6x8 mixed media on canvasboard

This was inspired by one of the bridesmaids- we actually went to the beach for my cousin's wedding. It was beautiful :) I tried to show some motion, letting the colors wander with the skirt, and I really like how it turned out!

#890

Bait Fish

6x8 mixed media on canvasboard

You know, I think this is the first time I've ever tried to portray a fish? It was an interesting challenge... something I'd like to explore further.

#889

Little Motorboat

6x6 mixed media on canvasboard

I love how the colors came out in the foreground. Forewater? Just a loose mingling of blue and yellow.

#888

Strawberry Cupcake

6x8 mixed media on canvasboard

Wanted to try something a little looser, more colorful, and a beach weekend seemed like a good weekend to try something different, anyways :) Besides, going out of town can lead to some really scrumptious and paintable desserts....

#887

The Littlest Teapot II

6x6 acrylic on canvasboard

I love this little thing. There's something so very cheerful about it, that kind of upturned roundness...

At any rate. We're going out of town for the weekend, to the beach for my cousin's wedding, so I'll be back Monday with pretty new pictures :) Hope everyone has a wonderful June weekend!

#886

Red Pear on Tabletop

6x6 acrylic on canvasboard

Back to my beloved red pears :)

#885

Summer Roses

6x6 acrylic on canvasboard

Weirdly enough (because what initially attracted me was the shadow) Ithink my favorite part on this one is the vase- the glow of it really came through :)

Red Tomato III

6x6 acrylic on canvasboard

The red stands out something fierce against that super-neutral background, huh? And playing up the one-sided reflected lights really, really makes it seem much more rounded, much more touchable.... I'm so glad I'm able to eat tomatoes again!

#883