Day 8 One - One In Progress

Rusty Red

Always Wear White Gloves

One Done - One In Progress! Bought almost 2 dozen new brushes yesterday! What a difference that makes . . . enjoy . . . as always paintings marked available are "ready for you to purchase" . . . just type in the title of the painting and click the Buy Now button . . .

Day 7 - Drawing

Every Thursday I have an open drawing/painting session at my studio/house . .. anyone and everyone is welcome to come from 10am-2pm . . . these are the portraits I did today . . . in a little (4"x6") hemp paper sketch pad with charcoal . . . wanted to practice facial features and the only book I could find in the upstairs studio (with lots of faces) was a memorial/photography book of 9/11 survivors, widows & rescue people . . . so that's where these came from . . . the whole time I was drawing I kept wondering where these people are now? . . . were they able to get on with they lives, marry again, continue working etc.? . . while I was doing these I also kept thinking about the graffiti and neo-expressionist artist: Jean-Michel Basquiat's quote "Believe it or not, I can actually draw!" . . .

Day Six - Fashion From The Fifties

Plum Cold

Lavender Jacket

Lucy Not Loose Enough

Only 10 degrees F here this morning . . . so decided to paint the lady in the "Plum" colored coat. . . may work on her facial features a little more. . . finished the other two last night . . . now that I am getting a little better handle on these images I want to start painting them much looser. . . hence the name "Lucy Not Loose Enough" . . . for those of you that care about this kind of thing . . . I went back this morning and repainted the green background of "Lavender Jacket". . . lightened it up some . . . purple and green should compliment each other however these two colors were the exact same value and the whole thing was completely flat . . . also no harmony of the two colors because I originally mixed the purple using French Ultramarine and the green using Phthalo Blue . . . still not happy with the facial features of these . . . want to nail down a more stylized and looser look overall . . . desperately need new brushes . . . all my small ones are worn down to nubs. . . may even go to town for some this afternoon . . . brrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

Day 5 - Stopped In Time

Turquoise

Stopped for lunch and decided to get this off the easel, and post it before I went back and started messing it up . . I am really enjoying the images from the 1950s . . . the one I was working on yesterday is below (finished). . . need to get some smaller brushes to help with the details on these . . . but overall I'm happy with the direction I'm headed . . .

White Blouse

These paintings are available now for $48 each . . . please e-mail me ASAP if you'are interested!

Day 4 -The 1950's

Lady In Red

In Progress

I finally got started on some images from the 1950s . . . which I have been wanting to do for a long time . . . full figures are hard to do on such a small format . . . but I do love this "Lady In Red" . . . the other one I am stll working on is also 6"x6" . . . I like the cropping on this but struggled with the facial features and it lost some of the vintage look by not being able to show more of the clothing . . . sorry about the "glossy" photos . . . got home too late to shoot these in daylight . . . my son Seth started Special Olympics downhill skiing practice today so had to pick him up in town . . . but I wanted to get these posted today. . . so here they are . . . . . .

Day Three - Three On Three

I decided to paint and put off going to town to get groceries one more day . . . so to alleviate my guilt I did this painting of my little brown paper bag . . . it's been used as a still life prop a few times . . . as you can probably tell . . . threw the apple in about half way through the painting . . . in order to balance the composition . . . enjoyed doing this very loose and painterly especially after the blocks and shoe (see previous post).

This painting is the second one I did of my mother's beautiful black and floral scarf . . . the first one (below) I really like . . . but felt the viewer might not "get it" since the scarf was wrapped around a big shiny black vase and everything was cropped off . . . so set up a more traditional composition and added the little candle holder for proportional reference . . . really happy with the looseness of the fabric in both of these paintings and looking forward to painting it again . . . hint: I painted all the color flowers first and then slapped the dark "black" around them and out to the edges . . .

All three of these paintings are now available . . . only $48 each . . . simply e-mail me directly . . .click on view my complete profile and click on email from there if you don't have my e-mail address . . .

DAY ONE (and 2) - TWENTY TEN

SADDLE SHOE

I picked up this little pair of saddle shoes at the thrift store several months ago . . . I've put off painting them because the actual shoe laces are too thick for these little shoes. . . they kind of overwhelm the great black and white design. . . I would like to get some of the thin round laces to fit these . . . but overall a nice little painting . . . I enjoyed laying in all the "color" necessary to create the "white" leather along the side and on the inside of the shoe.

TWENTY TEN
What a way to start the year . . . I was more than half way through this painting when I realized I had stacked the blocks to read 2001 not 2010 . . . so this is a real twist on "don't paint what you know - paint what your see". . . as I couldn't rearrange the blocks at that point without messing up the shadows . . . but the real challenge in this piece was to paint something so structured and geometrical yet keep it "painterly" . . . don't think I nailed it completely but not a bad little painting . . . you'll see lots more of this blocks in the future.

Both of these paintings are currently available! For now you can e-mail me directly . . . just click on view my complete profile and use the e-mail link there. . . I plan to have a "buy it now" link added soon!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!