Flowering Quince

"Flowering Quince"

10 x 10 inches, oil on canvas on panel

$400

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February is one of my favorite months to be in Oregon - which I still marvel at, since it was the WORST month of winter where I grew up in the midwest. Things are beginning to bloom everywhere - including this Quince, or Chaenomeles, if you want to get technical about it. ;)

Spring Pinks: a floral still life oil painting

 

 "Spring Pinks"

9 x 12 inches, oil on canvas

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The colors of spring on my street, including a sprig of exuberant purple Azalea. I stayed very loose and suggestive on those purple blossoms - I'll tell you it was my way of keeping the focus inside the composition, but really it was to keep from making myself crazy!

Here's a work-in-progress:

"Fallen Blossom" A floral still life oil painting of red Camellias

 "Fallen Blossom"

12 x 9 inches, oil on canvas

Camellias don't last long as cut flowers - especially if you're constantly fussing and rearranging to get the perfect bouquet for a painting. Luckily, I liked the look of this blossom on the tabletop, and was able to capture it before its petals began to shrivel. I'd love to do a really big still life of Camellias, but I'd have to work fast - a photograph could never do these amazing colors justice - my palette barely can, and I've been using four different reds!

Speckled Eggs and Spring

  

"Quail Eggs"

6 x 6 inches, oil on canvas

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The Asian market strikes again! These little cuties have been sitting in my refrigerator for I-won't-even-tell-you-how-long, but hey - they don't smell yet - and I'm not planning to eat them. Quail-egg-painting procrastination is over now, and I've got another version on the easel as I type.

One thing I'm terribly excited about this week: Spring! I actually saw the first Camellia blossoms of the year yesterday. I'll be out and about with my scissors soon.....

 

I Get Romantic

 

"Springtime Romance" 

9 x 12 inches, oil on canvas

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We've all heard of spring fever - and it's not just for Turkeys! I see this still life as a simple bouquet picked on a walk to the beloved's house - the pink paper a love note scrawled on an index card, read avidly by its intended, pressed quickly to their lips and put face down on the table, to be picked up and read again and again, while gazing abstractedly at the yellow flowers....

Are you feeling spring-like today?

It Was All Yellow

 

 "The Gifts of Spring"

8 x 8 inches, oil on canvas

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As a transplanted Midwesterner, I still have trouble getting my head around the concept of Spring coming in March, but I like it nonetheless. From now until December, I'll be painting off the land - surreptitiously snipping branches, blossoms, and fruit as I go about my daily business and bringing them back to the studio. So, lock up your flowers....or send me your address!

In an effort to save $ last time I was at the art store, I bought Daniel Smith brand Lemon Yellow. I should have known, but my innate thriftiness got the better of me. It's a very weak paint - a much weaker tinter than the Cadmium lemon I ran out of. Hunting for a solution (and not really feeling able to paint daffodils without lemon yellow, maybe a personal problem, I don't know), I found tubes of Azo and Hansa yellow in my box of randoms. The question of just what exactly the deal is with these two colors has been lurking for some time, so I decided to attack it scientifically:

 It seems to me that Hansa is closer to lemon and Azo is just a starving artist's poor man's Cadmium. Sure, I could google it, but that would rob me of my mixing fun. I ended up mixing the Hansa and the wimpy lemon together, and happily proceeded to paint my daffodils.

Wanted to share another gift of Spring I saw today: it's Wild Turkey mating season in my neighborhood. Always an impressive display.