Flower Stand

This idea came from the Daily Paintworks site. They post painting challenges and I liked this one so I gave it a try - this challenge came from Carol Marine, one of my favorite artists.

Lots of fun to paint!

Flower Stand
12x12 Acrylic on Canvas

Painting White

It's been almost a month since I posted. I've been pretty busy painting, looking for a job, (hire me! paint supplies running low) working on a new web site that will include a blog (stay tuned) and getting ready for my son's high school graduation this Friday. I'll try not to cry on the big day.

Here's a painting I did after I painted the other white pottery still life. It is my wedding china that I think I've used twice, so I'm happy it has found new life as a model. I liked the challenge of finding the colors in white that you don't see unless you pay attention, and I wanted to try a white background as well.

Wedding China
Acrylic on 8x10 Canvas

Glass Shaker

Wanted to try painting glass - I did it once before when I first started. It was a salt shaker and my first "good" painting.

This is a cheese shaker I think. I've had it in my cabinet for years and I don't think I've ever used it for anything. It finally found a purpose.

Cheese Shaker
Acrylic on 6x6 Gallery Wrapped Canvas

More Reflections

This is the same pitcher (which I think is really a coffee carafe) that I mentioned a few posts ago - the one I painted a long time ago and inspired me to do a series of reflection paintings.

This painting went through a lot of iterations because I couldn't figure out what was wrong with it - I ended up simplifying the background significantly - it had lots of shadows and folded cloth and it was too busy. You would think that the lemons and the reflections would be the hardest part, but I had more trouble with the background.

I've been averaging a painting every day or two for a while now - it's a fantastic feeling!

Pitcher and Lemons
9x12 Acrylic on Canvas

Self-Portrait re (over?) worked

I attempted to get rid of the chipmunk cheek, which I did, but in the process I overworked it a bit. As I mentioned in an earlier post, acrylic dries darker than it is when you first apply it, so I find it very difficult to match the color and correct tone. I couldn't do it on this painting, so I had to adjust all the color on the face. But it is a good exercise, because I need to figure out how to do that.

I like the before best, stuffed cheek and all, what about you?

Self-portrait w/o chipmunk cheek

Self-Portrait

My first painted self-portrait. I have done a couple of drawings, one of which made me look 80, hopefully this doesn't.

Self-portrait
Acrylic 9x12 panel

 

Reflections 2

I wanted to try painting white objects as well as reflections and it was a lot of fun. The ultimate challenge would be white objects on a white background. Maybe later.

Next up - can't decide between another reflection themed painting or attempting my first self-portrait (in a painting).

Reflections 2
Acrylic on 8x8 Canvas

Reflections

I only painted two paintings before I got my studio. One was a still life that included a vintage chrome drink pitcher. The painting wasn't very good but I really liked doing the reflections on the pitcher. That was 18 years ago, but I kept it - probably to remind myself that art is important in my life and so, after 14 years, I finally started painting. 

I was looking it at the other day and it inspired me to try a series of paintings with reflections. Here's the first one - another vintage item, but this is a little individual serving teapot:

Reflections 1
acrylic on 6x9 linen panel

Lemons and a Lime

New fruit. Happy with many things about this painting - the cloth, the lime and the lemon on the left.

Acrylic is becoming my friend.

Lemons and a Lime
6x8 acrylic on panel

My Buddy Billy

I was laid off in the fall. Besides losing my job, my income and a lot of confidence, the thing that really bugged me was that I was freaking crazily self-involved. My solution? Get a second dog.

It's hard to focus on yourself when you are housebreaking a 10 week old puppy in a snowstorm in December at 2AM. 

This is a portrait of Billie, the fantastic dog I adopted from Sterling Animal Shelter. She's the second dog that I've adopted from there, the first was Sammy, almost 9.5 years ago. She is also a wonderful dog, but Billie is something special. Sweet, attentive, loving and affectionate. Only negative so far is she manages to find and roll on every dead thing in the yard/woods/pond.

Billie

Grey Pear

I painted this last week and I'm really pleased with it. I like the palette, more muted than I usually use. I didn't paint much this past week because I had a visit from my wonderful old friend Timmy. It was fun and relaxing - we spent 3.5 days catching up, laughing, watching movies, walking the dogs and then seeing my son's play.

It's really amazing how your oldest friends are your best friends, and how - no matter the mistakes, no matter the amount of time that passes - the love is always there.

Grey Pear
6x8 acrylic on panel

Bowl of Fruit 1

Lots of glare on this photo but as good as the iPhone camera is - it's not perfect. Not loving this one, I really struggled with the paint - acrylic colors change when they dry! So irritating. At one point this painting was very dark, and each time I thought that I had lightened it up it would dry and be drab again. So then I decided to just exaggerate the colors to get the brightness and light that I like in my paintings, but then it got overworked. Oh well, try try again.

The colors aren't quite as vivid as this photo. The two things I like are the pear on the right and the tomato on the left attached to the vine. I like the bowl too. The orange on the left looks like it's losing air :).

Bowl of Fruit 1
9x12 acrylic on canvas

Beware the Pit

Since I said I would post everything, even the weird - here is a painting I did a couple of weeks ago. It's a creepy painting that I did the week before the horrible Boston bombing and the insane, and scary, aftermath.

Beware the Pit
Acrylic on 9x12 canvas

Crosshatch Mac

This is the latest acrylic. Getting the hang of it - I like painting in layers. I don't have the patience to do it with oils - you have to wait a day between layers because they take so long to dry.

Crosshatch Mac
Acrylic on 8x8 canvas

Two Greens and a Red

So it's fruit again. But fruit is the old reliable that I go to when I need to figure out the paint so there will be more coming (lucky you!)

Two Greens and a Red
6x6 acrylic on panel

Boston You're My Home

Sad day in Boston. My thoughts are with everyone impacted by today's craziness. So cruel and so evil.

Is 22 months too long between blog posts?

Well well, here I am. I feel as though I have stepped out of a cloud and back to crisp, bright blue clarity. Cerulean blue.

It's been a long time. Lots of things have happened - got a new job, worked many hours and had a hard time separating work from life which didn't leave time for art.  I did have time for my son, of course. He probably would have preferred if I had backed off a bit because he's a senior in high school - which makes me an awkward annoyance with a wallet.

After not painting for well over a year - almost two -  I started again a couple of weeks ago. I have kept my studio this whole time, but rarely went and when I did I just sort of puttered around. I was completely and totally blocked.

I still struggle to get to the studio, but I started painting at home with acrylics.  Painting with acrylics is completely different than painting with oils and I'm learning all over again. I'm going to post one of them, even though it's kind of embarrassing, but the whole point of this blog - and my art - was to focus on THE PROCESS, not the end result.

I lost sight of that.

Shapes and Colors
11x14
Acrylic

My focus right now is to learn what I can do with acrylic paint and reveal the shapes and colors (hence the title) rather than the subject matter. That's hard for me to do because I'm the most literal artist in the world (poetry is usually a mystery to me.) With oils I can goop it on and move the paint around and things blend and overlap and do wonderful things. Acrylic dries very fast so no gooping and moving unless it happens in 5 minutes; instead I've been doing many thin thin layers of paint. I'd like to get to a where my acrylic paintings are less literal and more painterly.