Merry Christmas!

"Christmas in Blue"

8 x 8 inches, oil on canvas

Sold

Wishing you all a beautiful holiday! Thanks for all of your kindness and support this year. 

 Love, 

Sarah

The Rose Gold Ornament

"The Rose Gold Ornament"

8 x 8 inches, oil on canvas

$250

Sold

The words "Rose Gold" always feel so good together in my mouth.

Persimmons and Christmas Ornaments

"Persimmons and Christmas Ornaments"

10 x 10 inches, oil on canvas

$350

Click to buy

I love December. It's so comforting to be in the studio when it's dark and rainy out, painting some shiny bright things.

Blue and Gold, a new Ornament Painting, with a Video!

 "Blue and Gold"

8 x 8 inches, oil on canvas

Sold

The stages of this piece. Isn't it funny how GREEN the gold ornament looked before the rest of the painting got filled in? I admit it, green is my secret weapon for creating the illusion of gold. 

Here's a quick time-lapse video of the underpainting coming together - I love these things! No matter how long you let the camera run, the resulting video is always 30 seconds. So, I have absolutely no idea how long this part took. 😉

I get a LOT of questions about materials - what paint, brushes, etc I use. For this part, the underpainting shown in the video, I'm using a #2 round taklon brush by Connoisseur. The canvas is toned with a mixture of red, yellow, and blue - an orange dulled with its complement. And, as always, the brand is M. Graham. To provide a quick answer to questions about materials, I've compiled a list of products I use on Amazon - you can check that out here!

Golden Loops

 "Golden Loops"

12 x 12 inches, oil on canvas

Sold

My first ornament painting of the year! With this shiny gold ribbon thrown in as a bonus. I love the  texture and movement that ribbon brings to a still life - and the eye workout!

Here's how my paintings begin - as compositions seen through a viewfinder.
Looking through an aperture that's the same format (square, rectagle - horizontal or vertical) as my canvas helps me decide where to place the objects in a painting. Using this tool takes SO much of the guesswork out of my process, but taking photos through a viewfinder? Definitely a next-level challenge. I'm working on it!

All That Glitters

"All That Glitters"

10 x 10 inches, oil on canvas

$250

Click to buy

This painting makes me really happy. Hope it brightens your day! 

Here's a time-lapse video of me painting it. If you're an email subscriber, you may need to click on this link to check it out.

Unfurled

 

 "Unfurled" 

10 x 10 inches, oil on canvas

$250

Click to buy

Still Life Open Studio, Holiday Edition, was a bit smaller than it might have been due to some seriously yucky weather, but those who braved the icy rain got to witness firsthand my wretched excess when it comes to ornament still life setup.  Even I had trouble deciding which of the half-dozen paintings I was seeing in the objects on the table to bring to life on canvas. But this curling ribbon kept snagging my eye - and here it is! 

*

Collectors! Don't miss this opportunity to browse my paintings, new and old - come find out what I mean when i say serious end-of-the-year deals. Saturday and Sunday, 11-7, at Whitprint:

Circle Of Light

"Circle of Light"

8 x 8 inches, oil on canvas

$200

Sold

One fun thing about painting Christmas balls: there's a tiny self-portrait inside each one of them! You can see it especially in the dark purple one. 

I could make a list (and check it twice): there are probably a dozen things I love about painting ornaments. This has been kind of a big year for them already, considering that I only painted ONE last year.....

I can feel it coming on, the annual stock-taking that accompanies this season. It's like a holiday for my inner statistician. How many paintings did I make this year? How many blog posts did I write? How many new Instagram followers? Blog subscribers?

Depending on how you feel about statistics, comparison, and self-judgement, either something to look forward to, or a situation requiring immediate distraction. I suggest shopping! Specifically, at the WhitPrint Holiday Show and Sale - next weekend, December 10-11th. I will be there, showing my newest (as in November's) paintings, and with a huge table covered in bargain basement holiday deals.

Persimmons and Purple Ornaments

 

 "Persimmons and Purple Ornaments"

12 x 12 inches, oil on canvas

$350

Click to buy

Here's how my palette looked when I finished this painting - you can tell I painted the persimmons first, followed by the ornaments, ground color, and cast shadows. Or, at least I can tell. Because all the bright clean oranges are mixed over - they would have been found in the Northwest quadrant earlier on.....kind of like me, up here in the PNW. Except my mixed oranges were located more towards Utah and Nevada. 

 

And here's even more evidence that I painted those orange persimmons before anything else...my work-in-progress! 

Flaming Leaves

 

 "Flaming Leaves"

10 x 10 inches, oil on canvas

$250

Available Here

What brilliant timing - the day before the huge art supply trade show at the U of O, a friend offered me persimmons from her tree - making the question of what to paint for my demo an absolute no-brainer! I love that.

The show was a blast - and a whirlwind. Two days of painting, talking, and junking out on the latest and best in art supplies. I came home with a bunch of new things to try. Because who doesn't need more art stuff? No one!

 

Royal Reds, and A Show Announcement

 

 "Royal Reds"

14 x 18 inches, oil on canvas

$500

Click to buy

Painting Christmas ornaments before Thanksgiving.... that's like Starbucks busting out the pumpkin spice lattes in August! Which they do. In my defense, these pomegranates were just crying out for some sparkly holiday cheer - I love the little dots of light reflecting into the shadow on the lower pom - so fun to paint!

This palette was a red bonanza - I had Cad red light, Cadmium red, Quinacridone red, and Alizarin Crimson up there. Dioxazine Purple, too. Yum.

This painting, and 14 others, is on display at Out on a Limb Gallery here in Eugene this month. The opening reception is tonight, during the First Friday artwalk! Starting at 5:30. Hope you can attend. And read this lovely write-up on our town's newest arts publication: The Eugene Review!

Christmas Passed

 "Merry and Bright"

8 x 8 inches, oil on canvas

Sold

I'm just a little bit late for Christmas with this one, but hey - your tree is still up, right? I figured I had until New Years before this would be really inappropriate.  And I didn't want to miss my annual opportunity to pull out the fun paint tubes - Pthalo Turquoise, Quinacridone Rose....

I say it a LOT: you can create the illusion of almost any color using a limited palette. Case in point: the golden egg yolks seen here, painted using only Yellow Ocher - a very dull, earthy yellow. But to really nail the intense colors of these ornaments, special pigments are required.

Here's a work-in-progress, at the halfway point:

And! Also too late for Christmas (I could give you my list of excuses, but Nah...) I made my Calendar for 2016! One of the best things about making these is that throughout the year, I'll randomly get a message like, "Hi! July's painting is just lovely!" And I'll have five long seconds of having NO idea what you're talking about.

Click to view and/or purchase - Thanks!

Wrapping and Rolling

 

"Wrapping and Rolling"

8 x 8 inches, oil on canvas

Special Christmas Price! 

$100

Sold

Merry Christmas! Wow, I really squeaked this one in under the wire - my one and only ornament painting for 2014! Last year there were two, in 2012 there were four...

You can see a time-lapse video of this painting being created HERE. Enjoy!

And have a great holiday.

Looking Back and Looking Forward

 "Christmas Clementines"

12 x 12 inches, oil on canvas

click to buy

I love the combination of oranges, cranberries, and gold. It's a combo I've been wanting to revisit since I first tried it two years ago. Time flies!

(...And speaking of...)

 Hanging day for my show at The Gallery at the Watershed is one week from tomorrow! Please do plan to join me for the opening reception on Friday December 20th, at 7 pm.

Snowed In

"Christmas Cuties"

10 x 10 x 1.5 inches, oil on cradled birch panel

click to buy

Santa's elves threw up all over my living room over Thanksgiving weekend, and mother nature followed up with a whopper of a Pacific Northwest snow storm in the wee hours of this morning. There must be ten inches out there as I type! Good thing I've got plenty of these little oranges (and toilet paper, don't worry) stockpiled: I don't think I'll be going anywhere for the next day or two!

I grew up in Ohio, where this kind of snow would be just another winter day, ho hum. In Eugene, Oregon it's Armageddon. They don't do snowplows or salt on the roads here, so when the white stuff happens, we just stay home. 

And I'm not complaining! So many gorgeous ornaments to paint. Thank you, little elves!

 

"Suzanne's Daisies" A top-secret Christmas commission!

16 x 20"

oil on canvas

Sold

Merry Christmas! I am blogging to you from the warmth and sunshine of my in-laws' place in Florida. Our orgy of giving is complete, and since a certain lucky friend of mine also received her gifts today, I can now share this painting with you. Back in July, when these daisies were blooming in their garden, her husband commissioned this piece - and then, somehow, he had the willpower to wait five months before giving it to her! Now, they will have daisies all year long, and you can, too, since my preparatory sketch is up for auction:

"(sketch for) Suzanne's Daisies"

5 x 7"

oil on canvas

Sold

I'm already excited for all that's to come in 2013 - but hey, it's still Christmas Day, so, from my family to yours - Happy Holidays! 

"Jewel Toned Ornaments" Christmas painting xmas art oil painting holiday decor gift for the artlover

 

8 x 8"

oil on canvas

Sold

I had a fantastic time last night! Our excellent local art store invited me to show some work and paint in their store during the First Friday Artwalk. Today's painting was my trial run. I painted the very same ornaments in a slightly different configuration for the live demo, and the painting (which I finished in just under three hours) is on view at Oregon Art Supply.

 I want to say a huge thanks to Rebecca and Robin at Oregon Art Supply, for hosting me, and to the M. Graham paint company and their awesome sales rep Dan for coming out! M. Graham is my paint of choice, and they're also an Oregon company, so it was great to meet a member of their team and find out even more about their products.

"The Red Christmas Ornament" festive holiday decor still life oil painting and, of course, persimmons

 

6 x 8"

oil on canvas

$100

click to buy

Will these persimmons ever rot? If I hadn't risked life and limb to pick them myself, I'd be starting to suspect they were plastic by now. If you've been reading this blog awhile, you might have the impression that I live on a farm, with my home-grown grapes, plums, and sunflowers. I don't! My mother happens to have an extremely productive yard/garden, which she inherited from the previous owner. Persimmons are the last fruit of the year....

"Decorating by Candlelight" Christmas ornament oil painting holiday xmas art gift

 

6 x 6"

oil on canvas

$100

click to buy

While "Decorating by Candlelight" doesn't necessarily sound like a fire-marshall-approved activity, I've certainly begun my holiday decorating. Basically, I pull a huge plastic bin of ornaments out of my garage and dump them all over my studio. Then my daughter comes in and helps distribute them in totally random locations throughout the house. Like under her bed, and in the cat food bowls. Ah, Christmas!

Because Zazzle always has killer deals this time of year, I ordered myself some calendars. I'll have them for sale at my Oregon Art Supply show and painting demo next Friday, and it's also good to have some last-minute gifts on hand, right?

more pictures here

   I'm really happy with the quality of the printing, and the shipping couldn't have been faster. It reminds me of a joke we used to tell about a chinese-delivery place growing up: you hang up the phone and the doorbell rings!

"Persimmon and Christmas Ornaments" not my most original painting title to date, but hey.

 

6 x 8"

oil on canvas

Sold

December is right around the corner, which sounds kind of depressing right this moment, but on the bright side, another First Friday Artwalk will soon be upon us! I'll be all over it, with a show of new paintings at Oregon Art Supply, where I will also be painting live in the store all evening. In addition, I'll have several pieces in Eugene Storefront Art Project's winter invitational at 224 E. 11th. Plus, I have my usual great stuff at Imagine Gallery, and if after all that, you still don't think I run this town, why not stop by Noli Italian Cafe for dinner? The pasta is spectacular. And I have 15 pieces on display.

Don't say I didn't give you advance notice: make plans now to come downtown next Friday evening!