Blossoms Abstracted - SOLD

Blossoms Abstracted
Oil on Canvas Panel, 12" x 9"
SOLD at $20 plus $8 shipping.
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This is the last of my cherry blossoms, since they are drooping and dropping petals everywhere. I wanted to try using a different set of pink colors, including English Red.
I thought it might be fun to show you what's underneath, so here's a little progressive series. The painting underneath was an exercise for values and colors, with color patches at the bottom.

You can still see the lemon, bowl and mug, with color patches.

Progress, things are disappearing.

Still a bit of the lemon showing. I let a touch of it be the center of the last blossom.

Missing branches here, but almost done.

Cherry Blossoms Two - SOLD

Cherry Blossoms Two
Oil on Canvas Panel, 12" x 9"
SOLD at $20 plus $8 shipping.

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It's such a deluge outdoors today, that my yard looks like a rice paddy. My poor pansies are underwater.
So I used the same blossoms as yesterday, but put a sky behind them.
(Even though they are still in the vase.) My mantra today was "Messy, drama, contrast; messy, drama, contrast..."

Cherry Blossoms, Maybe

Cherry Blossoms, Maybe
Oil on Stretched Canvas, 12" x 12"
Available at $32 plus $8 shipping.

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We have some lovely blooming trees in the neighborhood, which I've been watching so I could do some plein air work, but now it's raining and supposed to rain tomorrow as well. So no outdoor painting. I got to have my granddaughter this past weekend, so no painting over the weekend either, though we did some outdoor things together. Sidewalk chalk, took a long walk, climbed trees (her, not me), hide and seek...found a parakeet loose.

So today, I walked up in the rain and clipped a few sprigs of the blossoms, maybe they are cherries, I dunno.
And here you go.

 Neighborhood tree I was going to paint.

Here's Kayla in a dogwood tree. She's a tomboy who loves pretty dresses. At 6, she's as rough and tumble as they come, but still loves to dress up. Here's the parakeet, below: (and K with chalk on her nose.)

Color Play Landscape - SOLD

Color Play Landscape
Oil on Stretched Canvas, 12" x 12"
SOLD at $22 plus $8 shipping.

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A day for color, don't ask me why. Rich, bright, and lovely colors!

Forsythia, Watercolor Pencils - SOLD

Forsythia, Watercolor Pencils
Watercolor Pencil on Watercolor Paper, 11" x 15"
SOLD at $20 plus $5 shipping.

I wanted to spend some time with pencils today, so pilfered a couple of sprigs of forsythia from the neighbor's yard, and used watercolor pencils on this one. You will have to click on it, to see the pencil marks, which are left deliberately.

Pink Tulips - SOLD

Pink Tulips
Oil on Stretched Canvas, 12" x 12"
SOLD at $22 plus $8 shipping.
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Sometimes it's useful to refresh a painting that hasn't sold by just amping up the colors, negative and positive.
That's what I did with the one below, where the tulips has an odd color. I also redid the black, made it deeper. Better, I think.

Pears with Pitcher

Pears with Pitcher
Oil on Canvas Panel, 12" x 9"
Available at $12 plus $8 shipping.

Another one done as loosely as I could, on used canvas.
I see now that I've got it photographed, the top of the pitcher should have been a little more to the right (or something). It looks a bit wonky. I do like pitchers, though, even though they are hard to draw.

Carefree Pears - SOLD

Carefree Pears
Oil on Canvas Panel, 9" x 12"
SOLD at $12 plus $8 shipping.
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I was going for "loose and sketchy" (messy) again, to the point where I used an old painted canvas panel for these guys, to keep from caring so much about the outcome; and even though I started to get fussy again in spots, it's still loose enough to where I like it. And yes, even though it's quite cheap, I'll put it up on DPW.

Blooming Apricot - SOLD

Blooming Apricot

Oil on Stretched Canvas, 12" x 12"

SOLD at $25.00 plus $8 shipping.

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The neighborhood is divided about whether this might be a peach or an apricot. The fruit is always hard, little fuzzy ovals, like walnuts. (The fruit doesn't mature, just gets walnut sized, and drops.) But when it blooms, it's a joy to stand under it and take pictures, especially against a bright blue sky.

Practicing "Messy" - SOLD

Practicing "Messy"
Oil on Canvas Panel, 12" x 16"
SOLD at $20 plus $8 shipping.

If you click to see this one larger, you'll see what I mean. I am practicing being messier, sloppier and more rambunctious in my painting. Not easy, when the natural inclination is to go carefully, and be controlled. The market seems to want either photo realism, or really loose and sketchy (messy.) So it takes some practice.

Blush Tulips - NA

Blush Tulips
Oil on Stretched Canvas, 12" x 12"
NA, Revised and Sold

I didn't want white, but I didn't want pink or yellow either.
So here you go, we'll call it "blush."

Hydrangeas on Black Canvas - SOLD

Hydrangeas on Black Canvas
Oil on Gessoed (Black) Stretched Canvas, 12" x 12"
SOLD.
If you are a painter, right now is a good time to scoot to Michaels and get canvas: but one, get two free.
So I picked up three of these rather more expensive black gessoed canvases, and they are wonderfully dramatic to work on. The black extends around all sides, and I was careful to wrap paper towels on my clamps, to keep the top and bottom edges clean. The painting can be hung without a frame.

Hydrangea Dreams - SOLD

Hydrangea Dreams
Oil on Canvas Panel, 12" x 16"
SOLD at $40 plus $8 shipping.
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So here's the color I was trying to match: Not too bad.
The other thing I'm trying for with my painting is for that painterly, indistinct look that I love so much. Where there's a little mystery in the work, there are undefined edges and passages that are open to interpretation. Trying to get away from the cut-out look, which comes so easily (stay inside those lines now...)

See Through Barn - SOLD

See Though Barn
Oil on Canvas Panel, 12" x 16"
SOLD at $30 plus $8 shipping.

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What I loved about this barn were the openings that you could see through, right to the background.
I snapped the reference photo for this along Muncaster Mill Road, in Gaithersburg, MD.

"Radiant Orchid" Iris Twist

"Radiant Orchid" Iris Twist
Oil on Stretched Canvas, 12" x 12"
Available at $45 plus $8 shipping.
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"Radiant Orchid" is the Pantone color of our challenge in DPW this week. I saw it and immediately thought "IRIS!" I mixed a puddle and thought I had it matched fairly well, but adding purples and magenta and white to model the form, I lost the pure color in most spots. Still in all, I'm pretty happy with this one, soft and twisty.

You can see the challenge entries here.

Poppy Fields - SOLD

Poppy Fields
Oil on Canvas Panel, 12" x 16"
SOLD at $35 plus $8 shipping.
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I love the red and green combination. It just pops, doesn't it?

Still Life Value Study - SOLD

Still Life Value Study
Oil on Stretched Canvas, 12" x 12"
SOLD at $22 plus $8 shipping.

Different, isn't it? I was all but out of white today, so decided to do a value study, using some mixed pink as my white, and some odd colors that I usually don't use, as the rest of my palette: Van Dyke Brown, Buff Titanium (a weird color, really), and English Red ( a cross between Indian Red and Terra Rosa). I actually kind of like it.

Hilltop Shadows - SOLD

Hilltop Shadows
Oil on Canvas Panel, 12" x 16"
SOLD at $20 plus $10 shipping.

Rolling hills and cloud shadows, approaching the overlook.

Edge of Spring, Woods - NA

Edge of Spring, Woods
Oil on Canvas Panel, 9" x 12"
NA, Revised on 5/2/2014

This one I'm not sure about. I half love it, and half hate it. It started out being what the woods "felt" like this morning, with the light catching twigs and branches, but it got away from me. Everywhere right now, there's that nice haze of reddish in the trees, so I tried to add some of that feeling in. Hmmmm. I figured I'd let you see it anyway.

Light Reflections - SOLD

Light Reflections, Palette Knife Landscape
Oil on Stretched Canvas, 11" x 14"
SOLD at 3-day DPW auction, starting at $30.00
Click here if you would like to place a bid, or view the auction

Detail (Close Up) of Palette Knife Strokes

Two days of tapping with a small palette knife. The detail shows the texture of the strokes.