Yellow Heels with Knife

 "Yellow Heels with Knife"

16 x 16 inches, oil on canvas

Available Here

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Red Heads

"Red Heads"

10 x 10 inches, oil on canvas

$350

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I copy the details on these dolls pretty carefully - except the faces. It's fun to play with their little expressions, and shows me once again how small changes in a portrait can really affect the overall mood I capture!

Seeking Sunlight

"Seeking Sunlight"

12 x 12 inches, oil on canvas

$400

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This is the season for Black-Eyed-Susans - they are everywhere! So, it's no surprise that a dive into my painting archive turns up several paintings of this lovely flower, from this week in history.

Here is my first one, from August 2008:

 "Black-Eyed-Susan" 5x7" oil on canvas panel, 2008

I am still fond of this painting! I lost the vase in a wax-spilling accident a couple of years ago. It's quite remarkable, the relationships I develop with my still life objects, living with them and painting them over and over for years. I could show you half a dozen paintings of that vase, and now there won't be any more.

This green beauty is a recent gift from a friend. I wonder how many times I'll paint it in years to come?

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!

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!

Hope

"Hope"

9 x 12 inches, oil on canvas

$350

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I thought I would counter yesterday's sorrow with some of the antidote. A quietly sunny spring painting. 

The Tarot card in this piece is also a hopeful one - the Ten of Cups, symbolizing emotional fulfillment. Not sure how it works when it's sideways - I'll leave that to the experts! :)

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!

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!

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!

Apricots, Fake Milk, and Art Mentorship

 "Apricots and Milk"

10 x 10 inches, oil on canvas

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A very good example of a complementary color scheme: yellow-orange and blue-violet. Limiting the range of colors within your painting is a great way to keep it simple and harmonious - and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with using a limited palette (though if you're looking for color harmony, there's no easier way to find it than to use one). 

For me, setting up a still life is an exercise in color mixing - before I even take my palette out of the freezer. (What, you don't keep your palette in the freezer? You actually have food in there?) 

Speaking of food....in the interest of full disclosure, I admit that this is not real milk. I gave up eating dairy products four months ago, so almond milk is the model here. I never knew changing my diet would have such a profound impact on all aspects of my life! Ha.

Before I end this post, I will sneak in an announcement: I've begun offering online art mentorships, and I'm pretty excited about it! More information here. :)

Saying Goodbye to a Model

 

 "Yellow Becca"

14 x 18 inches, oil on canvas

Available here

Becca is a great model, who I've painted many times. In fact, I counted - and I've painted her 21 times over the past five years!

 

Here are my some of my favorites:

 It's an incredible experience to paint someone multiple times - as they age, as you age....as your style changes, as they get more and more tattoos.... :)

Becca is moving away from Eugene, so this may be the last time I get to paint her - at least for a while. 

Thank you, Becca! 

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..... :)

My Favorite Pair of Complements

 "Lemons on Purple"

8 x 8" oil on canvas

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One of my favorite workshop exercises is painting an all-white still life using NO white paint. Instead, we mix a chromatic scale from yellow to purple and paint with that. It works! And it's amazing how much you can do, in a painting, with how little white paint.

I'll be doing that exercise again soon, during my "Mindful Mixing" workshop, here in Eugene, February 20th and 21st. Spaces are still available, and all the info is here.

My painting process of late has included an oil sketch in black and white - but this time, I broke out my no.2 pencil! I do a lot of pencil sketching, actually. And I started a new Pinterest board to showcase my daily drawings!

Golden Delicious

 "Golden Delicious"

12 x 24 inches, oil on canvas

Available at Brackenwood Gallery

Here's a new still life, with some fairly serious - at least for this painter - palette knife action. It's an analogous color scheme, and a transition along the spectrum: blue-green-->green-->yellow-green-->yellow. I did a series like this years ago. Bonus points if you remember!

Citrus Catch-Up

"Orange on Yellow"

8 x 10 inches, oil on canvas
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I painted this a few weeks ago, when I was working with this set-up. Somehow it slipped through the cracks and never got blogged. So here it is! No statute of limitations in painting.

Citrus Morning

 "Citrus Morning"

8 x 8 inches, oil on canvas

Click to buy

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!