Still Life of Egg and Japanese Lanterns

"Egg with Japanese Lanterns"

Oil on Linen Board, 8" x 6"

Eggs are nature's wonder. They're the perfect food, have a wonderful shape, come in many colors, and flavors, if you count chocolate. And...they're wonderful to paint. They glow from within.  I have a farmer girl for one of my students and she brings me fresh eggs. This one had a very slight green cast to it that intrigued me. I kind of hung on to it for future paintings. It has its own little spot in the fridge.  It would probably be dreadful to eat by now, but it's still lovely to paint. The Japanese Lanterns were a gift from a good friend. Thank you, Anne!

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Oil Painting of Mountains

Alpine Morning

8" x 6", Oil on Linen Board

I painted this mountain landscape from Hurricane Ridge this past summer. It was mid morning when I started and nearly noon when I finished but I think I captured the earlier moment in this little plein air painting.

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Plein Air Painting of Estuary

"Morning at Salt Creek"
Oil on Linen Boad, 8" x 10"

This Plein Air painting of Salt Creek Estuary was painted on the beautiful Olympic Peninsula. We have it all - from soaring mountains and placid lakes to roaring waterfalls and ocean beaches. I painted this small painting on a summer morning when the air was cool. It heated up quickly and I finished in just under two hours before the sun reached my easel. 

The blues appear quite intense on my screen but are in reality more subdued.

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Oil Painting of Green Teapot and Mandarin Oranges

"Tea and Mandarins"Oil on Linen mounted on Board, 8" x 6"

SOLD

I've been doing some small alla prima paintings to post on Daily Paintworks and this little piece is my latest. The crystalline glaze teapot was a gift many years ago and has remained my favorite over the years. I love it's shape and the way it holds light very softly. I've painted it in a dozen different ways in both alla prima and a very polished high realism.

Oil Painting of Begonias in Cool Light

"In Cool Light"6" x 8", Oil on Linen, Board Mounted

White Begonias are fun to paint. There are so many petals on them. White has its own itinerant challenges in that the shadows become vague and difficult to read. However, that gives the artist a little more license. As every color on the canvas is relative to every other, this might apply to any subject. But white invites you to tint in subtle way. I found yellow, pink and violet tones in these which made the cold of the white in north light, just a hint warmer and the shadows, just a note cooler. I want to try them again, but change the relationships a bit. Hmm. Blue shadows? That would be different for me.

In case you haven't noticed, ahem.  I've been doing a bit of alla prima work. Quite different from my more polished work, this white begonia floral, was done wet in wet in a single sitting. 

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Oil Painting of Roses in a Copper Cup

"A Fine Day for Roses"

6" x 8", Oil on Linen Mounted on Linen

One of the reasons I enjoy painting florals is because of the challenge. They're elusive, delicate and subtle. All very difficult qualities to attain in a painting. Also their edges always intrigue me. Not all the edges should be painted as if they are important. Some should fade into the background while others should be sharp and come forward. The key words here are "as if", because all edges are important. They all add to the whole picture. So while one petal may not appear as important as its neighbor, it's quality adds to the delivery of the whole painting. Hmm. Did you get that?


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"Poor Man's Silver"
Oil on Oil Primed Linen, Mounted on Board

This one seemed to sit on my easel forever. In my determination to rise to a challenge, I placed the bowl in the rear against the back wall of my set up. But the problem arose when I had to move the set up in order to prepare the studio for teaching. Normally everything is taped down, but this bowl just didn't want to stay put and kept rolling around and shifting it's angle. I finally gave up trying to get it over time and just repainted it in one long sitting. Phew. Done.

I was happy with the background on this one as I experimented more with broken color placing warm against cool to create the atmosphere I was after. I entered it in this year's OPA National Competition along with "Tea for One". Oh well. What's $45.00? You gotta keep trying, right?

Tin Teapot with Eggs

"Tea for One" Oil on Linen Mounted on Board, 11" x 14"

My friend Anne, routed out her lovely kitchen looking for pieces that I could add to still life and I settled on this little tin teapot.  One of my students is a farmer and has been bringing me these wonderful brown eggs. Actually, of late, they are many different colors, but these just happened to be creamed coffee color and so that's what ended up in the painting. Some days, I decide which ones I'll eat by how many I have left of a certain color.

I'm happy with this piece. I find that since I left the atelier, I have internalized my teacher's voice. Drives me crazy. But it also keeps me honest with myself. I don't settle anymore. And if it's not my best effort, it doesn't leave the easel. Hope you like it too.

Floral Still Life, Oil on Paper Mounted on Board

"Asian Influence"Oil on paper mounted on panel

I've been heavily involved heading up a local event here in Port Angeles for the last five months. The event, "Paint the Peninsula", was a plein air competition which lasted five days and included a barbecue kickoff, a wonderful cocktail party at Camaraderie Winery and a Gala black tie event and show, all culminating in a Quick Draw competition and mini festival. That, in turn, was followed by a three day workshop offered by Ned Mueller, our judge. It was grueling as I not only helped to run and coordinate the event, but hosted two house guests and participated as well. Twenty years ago, this wouldn't have been a problem. Currently with a fresh back injury, it was like running two marathons back to back. I'm done. Stick a fork in me. 

Anyway, with all this work on my plate (no pun intended), this weekend was the first time in a few months I've actually had to get in my studio, turn out the overhead lights and just paint. No phone ringing, no other work to do and no students. Just me and the set up and the quiet. This photo doesn't begin to capture the light in the painting. It has a bit more contrast in this photo too than is in the painting which I've tried to fix on Photoshop, but then I lose other stuff. Darn. The camera is still new to me and I'm a poor student of photography. Well, I'm going to have to cave and take some lessons. I did better with my Canon, but the Nikon is a little trickier. 

I work under north light from a large cathedral style window which brings in soft, cool light. It's more noticeable when you see it live, but there's some broken orangey color in the background peeking through that helps to give the painting an airy feeling. Still working toward achieving that special quality of light that evokes a soft moodiness.  I'm coming more and more to the point where I copy less of what I see and add more to the painting of what it needs. I'd like to get to that place with portraits as well. All good things in their time. 

Female Nude, Charcoal

Short Pose


We had a new model today for short pose. Beautiful girl with great lines. 

Oil Painting of Reclining Nude

"Awakened"

18" x 12", Oil on Paper

I've been painting small nudes lately. I think there's an intimacy about them that you can't get with larger paintings. Also the the size allows me to do more of them and experiment with abstracted backgrounds. Abstraction is something I'm deeply interested in. Don't get me wrong - I'm very much entrenched in representational work and have no intention of changing that. But any artist who has trained, knows that a good abstract design lies at the heart of every successful painting. For a long time I've been scribbling in sketch books ideas that I have for combining these two genre's. Yes, I know there are other artists out there who have done this quite successfully. There probably isn't anything new under the sun and I'm not out to reinvent the wheel. But I have to go where my muse leads or my work will get stale. 

I think the exploration of  new horizons is a call that many artists hear but don't follow out of fear of losing sales. What I've found is that when I paint something I love, others love it too. So. Onward into the new frontier. Er, somewhat. I think you'll still see a lot of my traditional stuff here as I continue to forge new paths. As it goes with many experiments, sometimes the lab blows up.

A Measure of Success

"Just a Little Tin"

Oil on Board, 5" x 7"

Well, this was fun.  This started out to be a small exercise in value and temperature - my favorite subject for exploration, and ended up taking more than a few hours to get right. Still, it was a lot of fun and the results were worth it. What's really surprising to a lot of my students, though, is that it took me as long as it did. They've seen me whip out larger pieces in half the time. But these days I'm taking a bit more time with my work in tweaking things.

I think the lesson here is that we are our own worst or hardest critic. I'd like to think that I'm learning to be a hard critic of my own work. Sure I can find a lot wrong with my work, but more importantly, I'm better able to answer the question; "did I achieved what I was after?" Starting a painting without a concept in mind is a lot like taking a road trip without a map. Sure, you may get to a lot of interesting places, but you won't necessarily get anywhere you started out wanting to go. So these days, before sitting down to paint even a small thing like this little ditty, I try to have a clear goal in mind. That way, I can answer the question, "was the trip worth the goal?" If I've actually learned what I was after to find out, then even if the painting is a dud, I've been a success. 

Oil Painting of Tin and Pewter

"On the Edge", Oil on Board, 9" x 12"

Not having a clue what I wanted to paint the other day, but knowing I needed to paint, I grabbed these items off the shelf and plopped them down on my still life shadow box. Sometimes when I'm in that place between inspiration and the need to just push some paint around, I'll try to make the most of my time by giving myself just an exercise to do. Something with a goal in mind that will focus my attention and give me a lesson at the same time. 

I knew I wanted to do something that wasn't high contrast but that was in cool light and would challenge me with subtle temperature shifts. The background of my wood shadow box is painted a kind of Naples Yellow Light and generally I drape fabric or colored paper over it. But this time I decided to try something with just the creamy yellow background. Yellow can be a challenge when it becomes shadow because it can go in a couple of different directions -  from orangy to brown and often green. Finding the right relationships can be a challenge so I was pleased when this worked out. Pulling the yellow into the pewter and tin pieces brought the painting together. This is easy when there are reflective objects present as they'll do this anyway. I liked the negative space formed by the balanced tin cup and the lost edges too.  How do you like the brushed surface of the pitcher?

Still Life, Red Cherry Pitcher

"The Cherry Pitcher"Oil on Linen




 

I purchased this pitcher mainly because I liked it's color and wanted to challenge myself to paint it. Red is a particularly difficult color to do well. Too much background color in it and it looks dull or muddy, too much Naples Yellow or White on the lit side leads to pasty looking pink. Although it's not so much the exact color/temperature that gets you there, it's the color/temperature relationship. Either color used in isolation will look off. It's when they're juxtaposed to each other that they come alive and it all sings. I was happy overall with the way this painting turned out, I felt my edges were working for me and the shadows on the lace were just right. What do you think?

 





Male Nude Study

A Study of  Carlton

I run a life drawing group on Mondays at my studio. I have about seven loyal friends and students who enjoy this time with me.

Carlton is one of my favorite models and I particularly enjoyed this pose because of the warm and cool contrasts.

For the past few months, I worked strictly in graphite to get back in practice but since we have switched to longer poses I'm back into paint. I'm a bit out of practice with painting directly from the model as I haven't done it since last June when I was in atelier, but I hope to whip these out a bit faster and more accurately as I get back in the swing of things. 

Still Life of Chocolate Pot

"The Chocolate Pot"
Oil on Linen on Board

I recently assisted a student in setting up a still life for a graphite drawing she will be working on. I liked the set up and decided it would be a good exercise for me to work on. 

I've just finished a five month project for a client and was eager to get back into painting smaller projects of my choice. This was a good one to get started on. It's monochromatic appearance and subtle half tones appealed to me. I'm still playing with how to crop it. 

Practice and all that Jazz

Here's a little portrait I did for practice the other day. Her name is Bridgette. She's a friend and former student and has perfect bone structure. I enjoy doing these little portraits because I can get them done quickly. I took a break from a very large project I've been working on for five months. Haven't gotten much else done but I'm almost finished and it will be good to get back to smaller projects that are more speedily completed.

"Bridgette"

Vanitas

Having been so busy getting ready for my next big project, I didn't have enough time to get anything substantial out. I wanted to keep my hand in the paint, so to speak though. So I put together this little red painting. I wanted to see how warm I could get and still have the cool vase not pop too much. Also a friend had a really cool skull and I wanted to paint it. It all seemed to go together so I had a little fun for a couple of days. I like the symbolism in a Vanitas - life and death - the eternal circle. The white flowers also represent beauty, the skull - the transience of life and the candle snuffer - well, that seems pretty obvious. The colors on my screen are a bit saturated and that doesn't surprise me as reds don't always translate well on the screen. The vase appears a bit blue here too and is, in fact, a little turquoise. I seem to have hit the limits of my Photoshop abilities in working with this one to get the color to read right. 

Some health issues have kept me from the studio on a regular basis. I hope to be in the "pink" soon and my next project is "Sleeping Beauty".  I plan on documenting the entire process of the painting here on this site as well as my teaching blog. Should be fun so stay tuned. 

"Red Riding Hood"
Oil on Paper and Board

Yes, you've seen a smaller version of this one already. But this is the actual painting while the other was the color study. I love allegorical paintings. This is the first of a series I plan on doing. The next one is already in the works and I'm as excited as a kid with a new toy. It's so cool to get my creative freedom back after three years of study. It's not that I felt restricted while at Georgetown Atelier. My teacher, Tenaya Sims gave us an enormous amount of freedom. But there is something about the intensive environment and academic climate in an Atelier that seemed to hold me back. Perhaps it was my self conscious fear of failure or making mistakes. Everything felt stiff and stilted. It feels now though as if I am finally doing the work I'd always wanted to do. I still feel daunted by some tasks and many aspects of painting classically, but overall, I'm more confident and my drawing and rendering skills have improved measurably even since graduation. I want to jump up and click my heals!

A Day at Hurricane Ridge

We've had some of the best weather this summer on the Peninsula than we've had in three years. I recently spent the day up on Hurricane Ridge with some friends painting. It's just a stone's throw from where I live.  The weather was perfect and aside from the birds that were roosting on my easel (and even my hand!), we had only a couple of deer for company. It brought to mind what Kevin Macpherson said: "Just think...this is your job. How cool is that?"