Sunny Days

I haven't painted sunflowers for quite awhile and was appreciating a beautiful sunny day so I thought these flowers would make a good subject. I had a small ampersand aquabord (also called claybord textured) and wanted this to be a loose watercolor painting but, as usual, it became a much tighter painting than I had planned. I'm such a literal person it's hard for me to paint loose, gestural paintings. I really appreciate them by other artists but can't seem to paint in that style. Oh well, I guess our personalities are what they are and we expose them through our art.

Sunny Days

Image Size 5" x 5"

Watercolor

Unframed

$100.00

Pink Plumeria - Silk Painting

This is my 100th blog post! That doesn't really mean anything except that 100 of anything seems like is should be some kind of milestone. It doesn't seem like I've posted that many paintings. I look forward to Mondays and each new post. Some weeks it's been a little stressful to get a painting finished in time but knowing that Monday is looming has kept me on task and motivated.

Had I known in advance about this momentous occasion I would have tried to paint something more unusual and thought provoking but this is what you get. I'm back in my tropical mode and this is a silk painting. I love plumeria and even though the flowers that are this color don't have as strong a scent as the white ones do, the intensity of their color screams 'tropical' to me. And besides, does the scent really matter in a painting?

Pink Plumeria

Image Size 17" x 17"

Silk Dyes on Silk
Unframed
$275.00

Cliffs of San Francisco

The location for the virtual paintout this month is San Francisco. I found this scene just south of the golden gate bridge. What attracted me to it was the windswept tree. This is done in pastel which is a medium that I love but don't feel very comfortable using.

I went to a pastel exhibit last week and was really impressed with what I saw and was motivated to try the medium again. I have trouble mixing colors with pastels. Everything comes out too intense. I see so many beautiful pastel paintings that are subtle and realistic that I love but I don't seem to be able to achieve that. It's not because I don't have enough colors either. I have a wonderful large set with beautiful colors but they all seem so bright and I need more muted colors. I know that I need to optically mix them by putting colors next to each other and I know about how to mute colors by using compliments but my pastels always seem too "in your face" and simplistic. Sigh.....I will continue trying.

If you are in the Orange County CA area and enjoy pastels, you should go see the International Pastel Society's show at the Brea Cultural Center. It will be open through March 5th.

Cliffs of San Francisco

Image Size 9" x 13"

Pastels
Unframed
$100.00

Barbados Stairway

I've really been dragging out the old travel photos lately. I've always been attracted to this scene. I tried to paint it years ago in watercolor. That painting was about 30" x 48". I got some base colors on it, decided my greens were too vivid (thalo green, ugh, a killer) and let it sit. After about 3 years I decided to try to salvage it but unfortunately I had left some resist on it which tends to become part of the paper after that long. Oh well. I now have a lot of practice paper.

This photo was taken while we were in Barbados on a cruise probably 20 years ago. We got off of the ship and asked a taxi driver to take us someplace nice to spend the day. He dropped us off at a quaint hotel that overlooks a beautiful bay. These are the steps that lead from the pool area down to a beautiful, secluded beach. It was a wonderful day and I'm glad I finally have finished a painting of the spot. One of the details that I love about this photo is that there is a bent twig holding the door open at the top of the steps. It doesn't really show in this photo and should probably show more in the painting so I may have to enhance that. When I paint the view from the top looking down it will show more because the twig will be in the foreground rather than the background. I wonder how long it will take before I get that one painted.

Barbados Stairway

Image Size 24" x 8"

Oil