Dart

"Dart" 

18 x 24 inches, oil on canvas

$1500

Click to buy

A new one, which is actually an older one, reworked. I'm glad I took the risk to experiment with altering it. Here's the before and after:

Halved Plum

 "Halved Plum"

9 x 12 inches, oil on canvas on panel

$350

Available Here

I painted this one with a slightly wacky limited palette: cadmium orange, alizarin crimson, and phthalo green! 

If you're wondering how on earth that works, perhaps you'd like to join me for an "Oil Painting Boot Camp" workshop and find out! My next one is in beautiful Tubac, Arizona, December 6-8th, and registration just opened! More info here. 

 

Yellow Heels with Knife

 "Yellow Heels with Knife"

16 x 16 inches, oil on canvas

Available Here

Here are some details:

Sluiced

"Sluiced"

8 x 10 inches, oil on canvas

$250

Sold

This was day five of my seven paintings in seven days. After two days of painting tulips, my thought was, "I'm going to keep it simple today." You can see how that worked out for me!

Papaya

 "Papaya"

10 x 10 inches, oil on canvas

$350

Click to buy

My first-ever papaya painting! It was so worth it to spend the $5 on this beauty, to get to delve into all those peachy oranges. I love the subtle contrast with the pink of the napkin.  

Here's my palette for this one: split-primary with bonus yellow ochre. 

You can click on the image to see it bigger, and read the color names on the tubes.

Sketch to finish - I ended up going for more papaya and less knife: 

 Thanks for reading!

Blue Diamond

"Blue Diamond"

12 x 16 inches, oil on canvas

$500

Click to buy

I've been getting a lot of questions about my Tarot series paintings - mostly, are there more of them? For now, no - there are only the three. But who knows what this weekend will bring in the studio?

I really want to insert a pun here about whatever's 'in the cards,' but nothing's coming to me. Stay tuned!

"Knife and Nectarine," And, of course, the Eclipse!

"Knife and Nectarine"

9 x 12 inches, oil on canvas

$250

Click to buy

My latest piece from Still Life Open Studio. Our next session will be September 7th, at Whiteaker Printmakers in Eugene. All are welcome! 

In today's news, I just watched the eclipse! We had 99% totality here in Eugene, and it was pretty cool. And now I can't stop seeing the ring of light around this dark purple plate as the 1% sliver of sunlight peeking around the shadow of the moon. Art does change the way we see the world - and vice versa!

Plum Parade - Now It's a Series!

 "Plum Parade"

approx. 8 x 11 inches, oil on Arches oil paper

Sold

Here it is, the one that made it a series. And my third one-dollar auction of the week! You can see the first two here and here.

All three plum paintings, in chronological order. Which is your favorite?

Left to right: "The Red Snake," "The Red Knife," and "Plum Parade," each approx. 8x11 inches.

The Red Knife - Another One-Dollar Auction!

"The Red Knife"

approx 8 x 11 inches, oil on Arches oil paper

One-Dollar Auction!
Sold

Here is the second in my plums-and-strawberries series. It officially went from a "thing I'm doing" to a "series" when I painted the third installment this morning. Hopefully you'll be seeing that one soon - it still needs its highlights touched up.

Lemon Pie

 "Lemon Pie"

12 x 16 inches, oil on canvas

Sold

Why does time always seem to speed up at the end of the month? I at least attempted to slow down this week by spending some time with this lemon cream pie. If you want to find out what happened to the missing slice, tune in tomorrow!

More Tea!

 "Green Tea with Lemons"

10 x 10 inches, oil on canvas

Sold
 

A second stab at my still life from yesterday. I just shuffled the players around a bit! 

I made a pencil sketch for this painting - which can be seen here. AND! I recorded almost all of this painting-in-progress on time-lapse video, and strung the clips together into a 4.5 minute segment. Watch it here, on YouTube.

....And have some more tea!

Grapefruit In Four, and A Bit About Underpaintings

 

 "Grapefruit in Four"

8 x 8 inches, oil on canvas

$150

Available here

Here's a work-in-progress shot, including a view of the setup:

You can see a lot of my underpainting here - I start with a dull orange wet-tone on the canvas, then add darks and pull out lights, laying in my composition first with the dull orange mixture, then adding alizarin crimson and dioxazine purple for the darkest darks. 

 

A Garlic Braid and a BIG Discount Code.

 "Garlic Braid with Knife"

9 x 12 inches, oil on canvas

Sold

You can guess what became of this beautiful braid of garlic during the melee of Thanksgiving dinner preparation. I'm glad I got it on canvas before it went into my mashed potatoes!

I'm in full-on show-gear-up mode, which obviously requires lots of hyphenation in addition to tedious tasks like varnishing and (*groan*) finding things. I'm always thinking of my beloved Etsy shop, though, and am offering a killer (if-I-do-say-so-myself) discount to you all, this most online-shopped of weekends.

25% off with the code BLACKFRIDAY! Use it today, use it tomorrow, and use it on Monday. Because I'm too busy to create a new coupon code just for Cyber Monday, yeah, busy finding things and then hyphenating them.

Feelin' Peachy

"Peachy Keen"

8 x 6 inches, oil on canvas

Sold

I'm blogging to you from a super-cute vacation cottage in Bend, Oregon! We're here with friends who also have a little one, so the kids are in heaven. Hot tub heaven. And, as you can see below, blue sky and huge clouds heaven! 

Man it's nice here. I'm going to stretch my plein air legs while everyone else stretches their real legs, hiking at Smith Rock this afternoon. Keep an eye on Facebook for pictures!

Random Roundup: What a Week!

 

"The Florist"

 9 x 12"

oil on canvas

click to buy

Here's my portrait from yesterday morning's open studio. I was going to wipe it before I even left the Art Center, but was dissuaded by the gentle encouragement of my painting friends. After bringing it home and letting it hang out in my kitchen for a bit, I realized that that red shirt kept catching my eye as I breezed past. And I have to admit I'm drawn to the strange dynamic between his dignified face and those flowers....

My start was terrible. I believe this goes in the category of "I was stupid to share it," but hey, it's the Random Roundup. No shame.

 

In other news(papers), The Gallery at the Watershed was written up in our local daily this week, and the photo they published was yours truly, making this painting last week. It was entirely coincidental that I was there when the photographer arrived, and I might even call it fortuitous, if I had been identified in the photo they ran in their paper, online, and on Facebook. Go to your grave gracefully, print journalism. 

(Here's a link to the article, really a very nice writeup of an exciting addition to our local art scene.)

source

 My workshop got off to a great start this past Monday. I'm loving my new crop of students, and their enthusiasm. Here is one of my demos from the day - in case you haven't already seen it on Facebook, it's up for auction on Daily Paintworks, starting at $1.

 "Garlic and Butter Knife"

approx. 6 x 8 inches, oil on Arches oil paper

click to bid 

Well, that's all the news that's random this week. I'll be painting live once again at The Gallery at the Watershed tonight from 7-10 pm. I'd love it if you came by to say hello, but please, no pictures. ☺

My first crowd-sourced title, and an (awesome) palette infographic

 

"Orange in Hiding"

8 x 8"

oil on canvas

$200

click to buy

Have I told you how much I love my new phone? I took every single picture in this post with my new iPhone 5. I can't believe how much more I'm able to share, having a good camera on my person at all times. It's incredible to me, and I hope you are enjoying it, too!

I discovered another huge perk of modern-photo-technology-slash-social-media today when I could not think of a title for this painting. I mean, come on: I put together all these excellent progress illustrations, I painted the darn thing - I've got to get creative with the title too?! I may be 50/50 when it comes to left vs. right brain, but my left side was out of the office today. Long story long, my Facebook crew hooked it up! "Orange in Hiding." Thanks!

 

The colors I began with. Click to see it bigger - I made a new palette out of plywood, which I have no idea if I like yet. When I make up my mind, I will do a full post about it. 

 A progression. The real take-away here is that I begin my drawing in paint using the same color I toned the canvas with, and as I get happier with the drawing I firm it up with progressively darker colors. Easier than erasing!

I'm running out to figure night....so, breathlessly, signing off!

45-30-15: Cardio for your painting hand!

 

9 x 6"

oil on paper

45 minutes

 6 x 6"

oil on canvas

30 minutes

5 x 5"

oil on canvas

15 minutes

Today I did a test run of a painting exercise I read about recently. It's pretty straightforward - three quick paintings, done in 45, 30, and 15 minute time increments. I cheated and made my surface smaller each time too. It's so interesting to see how the paintings loosen up as the times decrease. Although it's rough, the third, 15 minute painting is by far the most successful.

Do you think you'd enjoy doing an exercise like this? If you decide to try it, send me a link!

"After the Cut" still life oil painting orignal art fruit orange knife

  

12 x 12"

oil on canvas

$325

Available via The Gallery at the Watershed

I finally mustered up the energy to finish slicing this orange, but in the process I knocked the vase over and voila! A composition was born. Ok, that's a lie. It takes me forever to set up these still lives...

Here's a work-in-progress shot. I actually painted this over an unsuccessful figure painting, which I sanded down and painted with a wash of orange/blue before I began. When I draw out my composition, I start with a very light color - just a shade darker than my tonal wash. Then I firm it up and make corrections using alizarin crimson, and add splashes of purple to the darkest darks.

 

 It's kind of a series now. Too bad I'm out of 12 x 12" canvases. I'll have to get some more on Sunday when I take down my show at Oregon Art Supply. Oh yeah...you've all been by to see that, right? Because I'm taking it down on Sunday. I almost forgot Glad I remembered that one. Sunday!

"Cutting In" still life original oil painting on canvas orange knife plate

  

12 x 12"

oil on canvas

$200

click to buy

I was cutting into this orange to paint it in pieces, and I got lazy made an artistic spur-of-the-moment decision to try it this way. My favorite part - the juice:

Because of some Blogger-wierdness, the top of the painting is getting slightly cropped. I promise, the edge of the vase does not touch the edge of the canvas. It's close, though! :) Here's a shot of this painting in progress.

I'm rushing out the door to get to figure painting night - Gabriella is coming with me, so my Facebook updates might be extra fun tonight!

"Citrus Offering" still life oil painting fruit bowl oranges fine art and a Facebook giveaway

  

6 x 6"

oil on canvas

click to bid

I decided on a double dose of life-painting this week, and I'm glad I did. The Art Center where I paint figures on Tuesday nights has a clothed-model session on Thursday mornings, which I'm going to attend more regularly this year, as per my vaguely new-years-ish resolutions. When I was in school, my secret dream was to be a portrait painter, and I know if I want to get serious about it, I have to work work work!

If you follow me on Facebook, you've seen this morning's pictures already, and if you don't, now is the time to start! When I reach 425 followers, I'll be giving away a 12x12" print of my painting "Lilacs" to one randomly selected 'like-er.' I'm only 11 away! It's easy to tell your friends, just visit this link and click 'Share.' *Thanks!*