Floating Colors

"Floating Colors"

9 x 12 inches, oil on canvas

Available here

I love painting these glass floats! Especially all the crazy things that happen in their cast shadows. This colorful composition, painted under halogen lights in my home studio, is a far cry from the muted, window-lit compositions I came up with when I painted these floats on the coast!

(You can read all about my last painting trip to the coast here.)

My First Pregnant Model

"Radiance"

18 x 14 inches, oil on canvas

Available here

 

 I've wanted to paint a pregnant model ever since I fell in love with Alice Neel's work, back in college. I don't really paint like Neel, but I'm inspired by the frankness with which she sees her subjects - and the fearlessness of her paint handling. She obviously had zero fear of a blank canvas!

I've painted this woman many times, but this is the first time during her pregnancy. It's true what they say - and I witnessed this in myself when I was pregnant - there's a radiance that comes with the territory. I hope I captured just a little of it.

Citrus Morning

 "Citrus Morning"

8 x 8 inches, oil on canvas

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I really enjoyed painting this orange, which was surprisingly red on the inside - more like a grapefruit than your traditional orange. The variety is called "Cara Cara," and it's also surprisingly delicious!

Curvy Company

 "Curvy Company"

8 x 8 inches, oil on canvas

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I crowdsourced this great title on my Facebook page. So fun to see what everyone suggested! 

Green Apples, Pink Plates

"Granny Smith Snack"

8 x 10 inches, oil on canvas

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I love Granny Smith apples. You can keep your weirdly expensive Honeycrisps and your other strange new varieties. My favorite apples to eat (and paint) are these. It's funny, though...growing up in Ohio, and now living in Oregon, apple picking has been an annual tradition - and yet I've never picked Granny Smiths. Where do they come from?

I'm also pleased to report that, though I bought it sometime back in 2014, this is the first time I've managed to (somewhat) successfully paint this pink plate. :)

Teaching in my New Studio

 "Sliced Orange Still Life"

8 x 10 inches, oil on canvas

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I've been teaching my still life workshop in lots of places lately, but not right here in Oregon. That's going to be changing very soon!

My new studio is the perfect size to host a small group of artists, and I'm hoping to do just that April 10-12th. We'll be painting still lives very much like the one I posted today, and doing exercises focused on loosening up our eyes and our painting hands.

Here's all the information.

And here's a shot of my new studio (before I started messing it up!):

Can't make the workshop? I'm also offering private lessons, in 3 hour blocks, for groups of one to three. For more information on that, email me!

Lemon Wedges - A one dollar auction!

"Lemon Wedges"

8 x 8 inches, oil on canvas
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A few weeks ago, I moved into a new studio - and as I'm coming to find out, getting acclimated to working in a new space is a process! Familiar objects take on new characters, colors don't look quite the same. Lighting has to be experimented with. If you're me, that one's an endless process!

This is the first sketch I made in my new space. Since then, there have been several wipers, a truly weird painting (I won't post it, I'm not really even sure who painted it, it looks nothing like my normal work), and at last, more recently, some better stuff. 

Which I'll begin to show you tomorrow!

Come Paint With Me!

"Garlic on a Purple Plate"

8 x 8 inches, oil on canvas

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Here's a painting from last year which I'm pulling out of the vault because it's a perfect example of the type of subjects we paint in my workshop, "Painting the Dynamic Still Life." It's three days of fun and hard work, and I've got sessions coming up in Oklahoma City, San Antonio, Portland, and also at my home studio in Eugene!

You can read about some of my past workshops here, here, and here.