Lemon Water and Silver

"Lemon Water and Silver"

9 x 12 inches, oil on panel

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I get asked all the time if I eat the things I paint in my still lifes. The answer is - not always. Sometimes I try to get other people to eat them! But I drank every drop of this lemon water, along with batches made from those lemons lurking in the bowl. A favorite hot weather drink, for sure!

Distance

"Distance"

10 x 10 inches, oil on canvas on panel

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This year has not been what I expected.  If you've been feeling stuck, blocked, sluggish, or lost your creative motivation, know that you're not alone. I'm slowly returning to a semblance of normal - beginning to teach in-person while still teaching online, and planning to spend July and August doing a lot of painting. 

I'm grateful for the beautiful things that have come into my life this year, and for the perspective that all of this change/uncertainty has brought me. Warm wishes to you, thank you for reading.

Golden Spiral

 

 "Golden Spiral"

10 x 16 inches, oil on canvas

$500

Click to buy

Why did I call this one "Golden Spiral?" Because it fits so nicely inside the Fibonacci spiral! You can see another painting on a Golden Mean ratio canvas in my previous post.

 

Slices and Halves

"Slices and Halves"

8 x 13 inches, oil on panel

$350

Click to buy

Kind of a strange canvas size, this 8x13" deal that Masterpiece makes - and strangely wonderful to work on. The reason why isn't a mystery!

13/8 = 1.62, aka the Golden Mean, or Golden Ratio. 

Read more about it, here.

Lemons in Glass - And Videos!

"Lemons in Glass"

8 x 8 inches, oil on canvas

Available through Tvedten Fine Art

This was April's demonstration for my Online Art Mentorship group, talking about painting glass - a subject many of us love to visit and revisit - including me! It was a great session, and I've got the videos to prove it. 

A two-minute time-lapse of the finishing stages: (click the link if you're reading this in your email)

And the longer version. Enjoy!

Lemon Water

 "Lemon Water"

10 x 10 inches, oil on canvas

$350

Click to buy

I had a great week of daily painting. Six 10x10's and an 8x10. Phew! Thank you for joining me!

Here's the preparatory sketch for this one. It was actually done on tan paper, but I liked the look of it converted to black and white. Maybe I will get a gray sketchbook next!

Here's a collage of the week's paintings. These are all available - you can check them out on Etsy. 

A Ribbon Runs Through

"A Ribbon Runs Through"

10 x 10 inches, oil on canvas

OH man, did I have fun with this one. 

Day two of my seven-day painting challenge. Follow them all week on Instagram!

Thanks for looking!

Rapunzel

 "Rapunzel"

10 x 10 inches, oil on canvas

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 I am doing a painting a day this week with my Online Art Mentorship group - and anyone else who wants to participate - over on Instagram. Just seven days, not the more typical 30-day challenge, with a goal of creating some spring studio momentum! 

I love the way I feel when I paint every day. There's a time for being ambitious about painting - working larger, more carefully - and for being more precious about the outcome. It can be a relief to step away from that, and say 'Tomorrow is a new day....and a new painting!' 

What will you create today?

Avocado and Lemon - and My Very First Newsletter!

 "Avocado and Lemon" 

8 x 8 inches, oil on canvas

$250

Click to buy

This is my painting for day two of the 30 in 30 February challenge. It's yesterday's painting. I'm not going to be blogging every single day's painting, because I anticipate that some of them will be less impressive than others, but for now, here ya go! 

...And speaking of impressive! After procrastinating for almost ten years, I just published my very first email newsletter. Check it out here, and click subscribe to be entered into my Blog Anniversary Giveaway. Because, yes, my blog will be TEN YEARS OLD in just a couple of weeks! That feels awesome.

Just subscribe to my email newsletter to be entered to win! It's a teeny tiny pool right now - so share with a friend! Your chances are excellent.

Chunky Lemons

"Chunky Lemons"

8 x 10 inches, oil on canvas

$250

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This painting really stands out from across the room, even though it's only eight inches tall. I have it on a wall with some of my larger, recent works, and it grabs my eye every time!

Over the Moon

 "Over the Moon"

12 x 16 inches, oil on canvas

$500 

Available

I've been making some paintings recently that include Tarot cards. I don't know much about Tarot, but I like the iconography. The meanings of each card are so open ended; I enjoy reading about each one and thinking about how they apply to the imagery in my paintings. The still life comes first, the possible meanings come later. That's always the way it is with me. My paintings aren't narrative - if I try to set up a still life with "meaning," it always falls flat. I approach them with a focus on the formal/visual elements, and the meaning comes as I'm painting - if it comes. Sometimes, a painting really is just about shapes and colors. 

The card in this one is "The Moon." You can read about it here.

Here is the value study for this piece. It's approximately 8x10, oil paint on Arches oil paper:

$100

Three-And-A-Half Lemons

 

"Three-And-A-Half Lemons"

8 x 8 inches, oil on canvas

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 I'm able to bust out these little black-and-white oil sketches so quickly because I keep a pre-mixed value scale palette on hand at all times - in my freezer. Oil paint will develop a dry "skin" after a day or two when left out on the palette, but frozen it will keep for weeks. 

I also find it incredibly helpful in my color work, not to have to start from scratch each time I set out to paint. If the thought of all the preparation involved has ever stopped you from heading into the studio, consider keeping a pre-mixed palette on ice!

 

So many tips and tricks stored (like palettes in a freezer) in the recesses of my brain... I'll be unpacking lots more of them this weekend at my still life painting workshop, here in Eugene. Spaces are still available - click here for info! 

Lighthouse

"Lighthouse"

10 x 10 inches, oil on canvas
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Learning to see a complete spectrum of colors in an arrangement that at first seems to only contain yellow, blue, and white - and showing it to you! Just one tiny part of my answer to the big question: "Why paint?"

Go Green... and Yellow!

 "A Dish of Green Olives"

10 x 10 inches, oil on canvas

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Interrupting my stream of residency paintings to post a piece from one of March's Still Life Open Studio sessions. Is it a coincidence that I'm posting this very green-and-yellow painting on the eve of the big Oregon Ducks final four basketball game (green and yellow being the U of O's school colors)? 

 Yes, it is. 😉

These two daffodils took a turn as daily sketch subjects the next morning, looking fresh and rested, even after their rigorous evening modeling session. The lemons, too. Troopers!

Yellow Path (aka Lemon Pie, the Sequel)

 

 "Yellow Path"

24x12 inches, oil on canvas

$700, framed

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Here it is, the missing slice! 

I enjoyed playing with all the different yellows in this setup - once I got past my freakout over being out of Cadmium Yellow. Seriously, that's like a chef running out of butter! But just like a chef with enough milk and elbow grease, I made my own perfectly suitable substitute using a combo of Indian yellow and Cad yellow pale. No churning required.

 

A warmup sketch. Getting comfortable with those whipped-cream ridges! Eeek!

Lemon Pie

 "Lemon Pie"

12 x 16 inches, oil on canvas

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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!

Avocado Appetizer

"Avocado Appetizer"

12 x 12 inches, oil on canvas

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I'm really doing the yellow thing lately - well, always - and it doesn't get much more gorgeous in the yellow-green department than an avocado!

Work-in-progress:

No video of this one, but if you're interested in my process for beginning a painting, I have a new video on YouTube. Watch it here!

Strangely enough, my last avocado was posted on July 24th....2008!? Exactly 8 years ago? There are no coincidences....

 

Teaching In My PJ's

 

 "Purple Arrow"

8 x 10 inches, oil on canvas

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My new online art mentorship program is off to a great start! It's been a couple of months, and the improvements I'm seeing in my students' work are exciting - plus, I'm loving watching them inspire each other (and me). It's like art school, without having to get dressed. Not that I put too much effort into that back in the art school days....

This piece was a demo for one of my students - I recorded our session, and edited it down from over an hour to about 20 minutes. You'll hear us chatting about various things... some related to this painting, some not. Enjoy!

More Tea!

 "Green Tea with Lemons"

10 x 10 inches, oil on canvas

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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!

Green Tea

 "Green Tea"

10 x 10 inches, oil on canvas

$250

Available here

I drink a lot of tea. Mostly generic black tea with lots of cream and sugar....but it's nice to have these fancy tea bags around for painting! The multi-colored individual packets are a fun element to experiment with in a still life set up. 

Here's my work-in-progress. Remind me to use this painting if I ever need a great example of an analogous color scheme:

And here's the sketch that started me off. More sketches like this can be found on my Pinterest page!

I'm teaching two workshops this month in Eugene. March 12th is a one-day Intro to Oil Painting class, and the weekend of March 19-20th, a 2-day still life workshop for oils or acrylics. I guarantee hard work and lots of fun. I mean, I haven't had a student cry yet..... :)