it's Twitter, it's Fun, squawk!

a mosaic of my twitter followers today.
thanks to walter higgins for creating the mosaic maker.

Twitter Follower Mosaic : A Sxoop Technologies Creation. Imaging Software for the Web.

Matt portrait update

More or less finished, this was the most difficult one of my recent portraits, think I was overly invested in making it look "right". But I enjoyed doing it nonetheless, and feel it has a renaissance connection, the beard and robe adding to that I'm sure.

update on matthew portrait in oil

I made some progress on the portrait, not finished, tho. It takes real concentration to paint a likeness, more focus required. A challenging and rewarding exercise in painting!

Matthew portrait in oil, unfinished

I started this yesterday, but the proportions were off so I scraped it off and began again today. Think this one work out. One of the nice things about oil paint is that is malleable, you can smooth, mix and push paint around to get it to be where you like it , more or less.
Went to BestBuy with my niece this a.m. so got a late start.

"Painted Lady" portrait of my sister in oil

Believe I have finished this one, but for the sig. Really love the way this turned out, and plan to do more portraits as a result. Allowing the raw sienna underpainting to show thru adds some interest, as does the pose I chose.

Title: "Painted Lady"
Size: 14"x11" oil on wrapped, stretched linen.
NFS

Painted Lady, a Portrait of my Sister in oil

Suddenly, faces are fascinating to me. So I took a few photos of my sis the other day and decided to try painting her, since I am pleased with the one I painted of myself. Needs some touch-up, but overall I am satisfied. She will see it later today, hope she likes! 14"x11" oil on stretched linen.

Self Portrait 2009 oil on linen painting

Had a good time photoshopping, then painting 3 of me for a new self-portrait. 10"x20" oil on stretched linen. Still tape on the canvas, will remove when the painting dries. I like the variation amongst the 3, didn't work too hard on "likeness". I think my recent color explorations from the book "How to See Color and Paint It" by Arthur Stern had an influence on this painting.

self-portrait

I feel it's time to work on a self-portrait--I am my most accomodating model! Took some photos and played in photoshop, fun for a change. Am thinking about painting this, maybe with acrylic.


My truck is in the shop again, what a hassle and expense. I cannot recommend the '02 Ranger! Luckily I have family nearby to rescue me.

"5 Green Apples" oil painting study

It is cheering to paint these colorful studies of fruit in the middle of our gray winter days. This one is about 10"x12" oil on unstretched linen.

Copper Bowl study oil painting

Concentrating on the warm reflective surface in this painting study. It really helps to focus on painting these seemingly simple studio set-ups. All the recent studies have been painted with a knife to avoid fiddling unnecessarily. This one is 12"x10" on a reused raymar canvas panel.
Not thrilled with the light on the photo, will try to get one with more accurate color another time.

tangerines color study painting

Still working on color and value studies. I had forgotten that it's enjoyable to focus on painting a still life. Comparing the shapes and shadows and adding the accents and highlights is what painters have done for maybe thousands of years. Definitely feels like something larger than myself...
about 9x12, oil paint on unstretched linen.

color exercise pink grapefruit oil painting

It surprises me how much color influence I see when I look closely. oil paint on canvas board. The book called for an orange as model, but I used a pink grapefruit cuz I ate the orange. One of the hazards of using food as a painting subject.

Color exercises

Had fun today doing some color exercises from a book entitled "How to See Color and Paint it" by Arthur Stern. Some surprising colors appear thru reflection and lighting changes. Good practice to look closely and really focus on what you see. Collage of images created in Picasa, the free image catalog and editor available online. All done with oil paint and a knife on loose linen or yupo synthetic paper.

Tree study with yellow ochre on linen

Studying structure, value and pigments. Pleased with the yellow ochre used here, in addition to raw sienna, burnt sienna, pthalo blue, chromatic black and flake white. A limited palette helps to establish a baseline for the values, and I feel I have made some progress in my description of trees with a brush. About 10"x8" oil on loose linen taped to a board. bargain priced at $80.00 for the holidays.

"Fall Color" plein air oil landscape painting

These trees only keep their color for a couple of days, I belatedly noticed last fall. This year I caught them in time with the paintbox. Fall is beautiful around here, wish I could paint everyday.
9x12" oil on cradled masonite, back is wired, sides are painted a deep orange and no frame is needed.
$165.00 thru paypal's secure site,
I will ship for free within the USA.

plein air oil painting "Grandmother's House"

Another painting from my backyard; I love the dark house and the warm fall colors surrounding it. This house belongs to my niece's neighbors grandmother. I employed a vignette style more commonly seen in watercolor, where the paint is not applied all the way to the edges. It feels softer and more harmonious to me, particularly suited to this type of canvas which needs no frame. Oil paint on gallery wrapped stretched linen, 11x14".
$210.00 thru paypal, free usa shipping!

Oak limbs oil painting

I enjoy painting the many oak trees we have out here in the country. The board was toned orange and I let that peek thru to represent the fall color in the leaves. 9x12" oil on masonite.

150.00 usd thru paypal. free ship usa. email me for availability.

skyscape oil painting "Clouds"

Had a few hours one afternoon this week so I painted in the backyard but looking up. ;) 9x12" panel in the guerilla painter box, limited palette of ultramarine blue, chromatic black, pthalo blue and flake white.
finished painting at top.

150.00 thru pay pal

2 oil paintings "Backyard, Sunday" and "Backyard, Morning"

These 2 paintings were painted in my backyard on a beautiful weekend. Each is 20x10x3/4", oil on gallery stretched linen. Backs are wired, sides painted as part of the design, and they are especially nice hung together.
$250.00 each, email me for availability.

Photos from the Wildside Art Show

After much ado, I managed to get a few pix from my camera phone to the web. Top two are some of my paintings shown at the art on the wildside benefit art show. Bottom photo is "swan lake" at the Gaia Hotel looking thru the window from inside the convention center. It was raining.

Shows Over

There, now, time to relax a bit. Art on the Wildside bravely opened on Nov 1st despite the economy and politics and stormy weather. Unfortunately, it was not well attended. Maybe 100 people came-an estimate provided by one of my peer exhibitors. There were a few sales, small prints and such; I did not sell any paintings. Good refreshments and wine, and the Gaia Hotel is nice. They have a lake with swans in the center of the property, very pretty. I enjoyed meeting some fellow artists and looking at their work. I forgot to take my camera, and apparently did something wrong when I borrowed my sister's cam so don't have any pix to post. :(
It was valuable experience however, and I'm glad I did it. Thanks go to my niece, Barbara, for helping me all day and Linda at Shasta Wildlife Rescue for inviting me to participate.

hello, hello, hello, hello

This week I am preparing for the Art on the Wildside show held at the Gaia Hotel in Anderson next Saturday. I don't know what to expect, as this is the first art fair venue I have done. The show is a benefit for Shasta Wildlife Rescue and I am hoping folks will come thru for them. It will be valuable experience at any rate. There is quite a lot to do to prepare for a show and tho I am thrifty, there are inevitable costs as well. My paintings and I will be ready! I have painted a few new pieces, and pulled out some nice landscape studies done in the past, so I feel my booth is a good reflection of my art vision. Being my first foray into the art show arena, I did not have a budget for the $1,000 set-up, so I've repurposed some shelving units and whatnot and am coming in under $200. Yay!

One Show and Another

I am having a YART SALE, in conjunction with the Lake California community yard sale coming up on Oct. 4th. I am doing a little promotion with flyers, Lake California does create a list of people participating and I am inviting my cleaning clients. My sis gave a flyer to a friend of hers, who told her about a benefit art show for Shasta Wildlife Rescue being held at the new Gaia Hotel in Anderson in November, and I am signing up for that, too! I am really excited to be putting my work in front of buyers, but there is a lot of preparation and I'm kinda frazzled! framing, touch-up, invitations, new bus cards, flyers, talking to people, figuring out display options on a shoestring budget, yikes! I'm sure I'll learn a lot from this--

oil painting, "Backyard Morning"

oil on stretched linen canvas, 20x10" i used picasa to upload and adjust the photo.
It is so enjoyable to paint in my backyard, I did it two days in a row!

$250.00 usd free shipping in USA! available thru paypal

Oil Painting, "View from the Arena at Lake California"

bit of a rework on this piece, and using picasa 3 to make adjustments, crop, rotate, fill light, and also to upload and post to blogger which i have not done before. since my camera software does not work with vista, i have to use picasa anyway to import the pix from my camera card, so usually then i open photoshop to do the crop, resize, etc, then go to blogger and upload. this is a few steps quicker , i like that!

"View From the Arena" landscape oil painting

Wandered down around the equestrian center this a.m. and decided to paint this view of Lake California.. I did a color underpainting which is atypical but seemed to work well.

9x12" oil on masonite

available thru paypal

$135.00 with free shipping in the USA.