Little Figure Painting

8 x 10"
oil on bristol vellum

This is a quick little painting I did about a month ago. I was very interested in those weightlifting gloves that night for some reason...at the time I thought they were quite cute, but now they make the painting look a little strange. What would you call this? "Weightlifter by the Fire?" "Cozy Winter Evening With Weightlifter?" Or maybe, "Shirtless Biker Boy?"

I'm still in the process of tearing my house to shreds in preparation for moving. I miss painting, but I'll be back to it early next week.

Thanks for stopping by!

From My Sketchbook

I'm packing up my house to move this weekend, so daily paintings are on hold temporarily. I'll try to post some images from my sketchbooks, and possibly some older work - problem is, I seem to have misplaced my digital archive! Grrreat....

Anyway, it's kind of hard to photograph a sketchbook page, but I always like seeing what other artists have in theirs, so hopefully you will enjoy some excerpts from mine.

Finished Portrait

8 x 10"
oil on gessoboard
NFS

Here is the finished portrait. You can see the initial sketch here. I'm happy with the way this turned out. The photo reference was pretty good for being a candid shot, and after some initial fumbling around, I feel that I nailed the likeness.

Portrait Sketch

2 x 3"
oil on Arches watercolor paper
NFS

Cat Nap

6 x 6"
oil on gessoboard
$50
$5 s/h

In my house, we pretend that cardboard boxes were not invented to package, ship, or store things. Instead, they are beds for cats. Fredo always finds a way to make a cardboard box look so comfortable...

Three Small Cats

all are 3 x 3"
oil on Arches watercolor paper
$25 each
free s/h

How to get your cat to pose: put a comfortable pillow underneath your still life lamp, wait for it to warm up, and insert cat.

Margaritaville

6 x 6"
oil on gessoboard
Click to visit ebay auction

It has been so hot in the Willamette Valley the past few days. Luckily, my husband and I picked this past weekend to spend painting my mom's attic - just what you want to be doing in 95 degree weather! So we decided to relax with a few margaritas afterwards. Well, as you can see, we had more than a few. I think a lot of other people must have had the same idea, because the grocery store was practically out of margarita mix! Hooray for summer!

Framed!

I've been wondering how I might frame some of these tiny 2" paintings, and the first picture is what I came up with. They are matted to fit an 8 x 10" frame.

Green Couch

6 x 6"
oil on gessoboard
Sold
It's 95 degrees outside today, but inside it's shady and cool. I love the peace and quiet of long afternoons of painting. Brilliant green leaves shimmering outside the window, a good NPR podcast to listen to, a cat curled up in a patch of sunlight...what more could I ask for?

Three Pears

5 x 5"
oil on gessoboard
$30
$5 s/h

8 x 8"
oil on panel
N/A
I did both of these today. I thought I was getting kind of fussy with the lower painting, which I did first. I was afraid of overworking it. Then I loosened up a bit and did the painting that appears first in this post. Moving back from the subject helped me see the value relationships a little better. Anyway, I'm looking forward to painting something besides pears tomorrow!

Tulips and Wildflowers

8 x 10"
oil on gessoboard
sold

I picked these orange wildflowers near my apartment the other day. As they were sitting under the light, they kept opening up more and more, which was a little problematical for me, not to mention the fact that I find orange difficult to work with sometimes. I'm glad I persevered, even though it took all day. By the time I finished this one, it was too dark to take a good picture, so the post had to wait for morning.

Tulips...and a Pocket Painting

5 x 5"
oil on gessoboard
Sold

Green and Blue Reflections

2 x 2"
oil on Arches paper
$25
free s/h
Sold

Pink and Blue Glass

8 x 8"
oil on panel
$85
$5 s/h

Two more bottles I picked up from the thrift store. If I don't watch out, I'm going to end up with a pretty sizable collection of colored glass. I can envision myself eventually lugging a huge box of these vases right back to the donation center, but for now, I just love painting them!

Happy mother's day, everyone. We are headed over to my mom's for brunch, but first stop is the florist!

Duck Decoy

8 x 10"
oil on gessoboard
sold

Have you, dear reader, ever tried drawing a duck decoy before? It's hard! I think it took me longer to get the drawing down, both in my sketchbook and on this panel, than it did to paint it. In the end, it felt a lot like painting a portrait, what with the shiny eye and the precise angle of the head. It was remarkable to me how the duck's facial "expression" really seemed to change depending on how I lit him. Oh, and he was one patient model, let me tell you!

Cat on a Sunny Rug

Daily Painting Number 50!
5 x 5"
oil on gessoboard
$100
$5 s/h

This is a view of my living room, basically what I see when I look back over my left shoulder while painting each day. We've been in this apartment almost a year already, and we're moving out in three short weeks! Eeek. I'm looking forward to it, though.

Oh yeah, the model in the painting is Fredo, our oldest.

Green and Blue Glass

3 x 3"
oil on Arches watercolor paper
$25
Sold

I'm super-excited today, not just because this is daily painting number 49, and thus I've got a mini-milestone coming up, but because my very first collector, and newfound mentor Susan Carlin mentioned me on her blog today alongside some other very wonderful and talented artists whose work she has collected. Phew! Run-on sentence.

Read the post here. Thanks, Susan!

Three Bottles no. 2

5 x 5"
oil on Arches watercolor paper
NFS

Three Bottles no. 1

5 x 5"
oil on Arches watercolor paper
NFS

Two Bottles

8 x 10"
oil on gessoboard
N/A

Artichokes

5 x 5"
oil on canvas

NFS

Vine Tomatoes - second try

5 x 5"
oil on gessoboard


Second try, same subject as yesterday. I'm not sure I was more successful! Oh well.

Vine Tomatoes

5 x 5"
oil on gessoboard

This painting just didn't go too well. I wiped it down this morning, and I'm planning to try again. The red was just too saturated - maybe all the colors were.