Friday, January 28, 2011

Other Places

Cotswold Cottage
Rue Cler Fluers
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Poujauran
Dinan
Arlington Row

All of these paintings were done from pictures that we've taken over the last ten years or so.  The albums full of images have given me hours of remembering and enjoyment.  My motivation for taking the pictures has partly been that some day I would paint these places.  Finally the skill has begun to catch up to the desire.  Arlington Row was started about five years ago but not finished until recently.  The town of Bibury is in England and these houses are much newer than the ones at the bottom of the hill which have been lived in since about 1200a.d.  The  history of these places is stunning and the Cotswolds area is a photographers dream come true. The gardens are beautiful and allow for a lot of artistic license in my paintings.

France has always been a favorite destination of mine and Paris pastry, flowers and architecture makes for some fun paintings.  The paintings take me a long time to do.  I took a picture of my progress about every two hours of painting time and found that twenty hours is about average for a completed work.  But what a great way to spend it!!

Sorry that the first image is sideways. My blogging skills still need some work.

Monday, January 10, 2011

Painting Animals

The Competition
Team Work
Elephant Walk
Big Boy
Best Friend
When people ask me what I like to paint, I usually say whatever appeals to me on any given day.  That is especially true when it comes to painting animals.  The roosters are fun because of the colors,  the tiger appeals because it is endangered and so magnificent that there are no words.  The team of horses reminded me of the team that my dad owned and loved.  They were brown but this painting seemed best in a black and white color scheme like an old black and white photo.  Elephant Walk was done with acrylic paint as the outline and then watercolor on the shadows.  And, of course, the Best Friend.  My Tuesday morning watercolor class painted this dog and when we put the paintings up in a row, all of them were wonderful.  The dog had many expressions and all of the painters had success!  What a fabulous medium to work in.

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Layered flowers

"Peony"
"Betty Boop"

These two paintings are large.  The Betty Boop rose is a 24in. square.  The peony is 24in.x30in. (By the way I couldn't figure out how to make it go up and down on the blog so it is on sideways)  I've done several of these layered large flowers on cold press paper.  The orange iris and the white peony sold already and there is one other pink one that is downtown at Polished.  Both of these flowers have given us so much enjoyment in the garden.






 

Sunday, January 2, 2011

Wet Into Wet Layers

"Sun Break"
"Saturday Morning"
"Embracing Life"
"Fleurs"


All four of these paintings were done with that very fluid style on hot press paper.  In fact, I have found a new surface to paint on that is just fabulous.  It is Crescent Illustration Board that has hot press watercolor paper adhered to it.  The painting "Sun Break" was done on this board.  It does not wrinkle and frames up without the usual problems.  All of these images are hung at a manicure business in Salem called Polished.  The Santorini ones are also at Polished.  With thirty-five paintings out in two locations in Salem, the studio and our house have very little left hanging on the walls.

Another portrait


Here is another recent painting of a child.  This is Howard Steven Case, my next oldest brother, when he was about five.  The duck was a family pet and seems used to being held.  This is a more traditional style of painting portraits for me and not nearly as fast to paint as the other child paintings that on the blog.