Sweet Charlotte going home!

Sweet Charlotte is finished!  I did the final tweaking today.  I'll actually miss this one; it really is sweet!  I'll try to get a photo of the painting being delivered to the owner.  Charlotte is her granddaughter.

Musings about Abstracts

My friend Michael Kennedy has painted a really gorgeous painting; it's an abstract piece, very colorful - I'm attracted to the shapes and colors in it, and can actually SEE something there!  I'm not wild about abstract art - I personally prefer paintings that are "of something" and tell a story, but that's just me!  Considering the prices that some abstract art brings, it's obvious that some people really value and love it!  I think I'm warming up to it though!

When I first started painting, it was very important to me that my work was very tight and photo-realistic.  I stressed over it, actually!  My attitude, as well as my art, has relaxed somewhat; now I want my paintings to BE "painterly", and figure if you want photo-realism, you might as well just take a photo and be done with it.  It's more fun to concentrate on telling the story or creating the image I have in my head than it is to concentrate on getting it exactly perfect!  After all, it's a PAINTING!  It's a rendering, sometimes from life and sometimes from a photo, for me, anyway.  I enjoy both.

On the other extreme, there are people like my son, who feel that the best paintings ARE photo-realistic, very tight and life-like.  I was awed by some paintings like that at the deYoung Museum, upstairs.  Some of the images are so life-like, it looks like you could pluck an item off the canvas!  Certainly, there is much skill in that as well!  As a member of the Oil Painters of America, I enter some of their shows (so far none accepted), and now have entered the online competition for associated members like me.  I go there and look at the entries - quite a few of them are photo-realism, and very beautiful.  Some of those works are so stunningly awesome, I wonder how I could ever even come close....

Still, painting is the thing I love to do, and will for all my life continue to do!  I do it for the fun of it, after all!  I sell once in a while, and that makes my heart soar, because I know my art is being treasured and enjoyed.  That's part of what makes it fun!

Very busy day, but SO FUN!

I finished "Debbie's Daisies" today - a very special piece!

Debbie's Daisies

It dawned on me the other night; I also remembered something Mary said at the end of the workshop about my progressive glasses!  I forgot to change to my non-progressive glasses for the demo, so it could have been brighter.  I brightened the highlights in four spots on the painting, and NOW it's finished, and framed!

Cup Alla Prima

Then, I started the Cupcake painting!  I actually started it twice; the first canvas had some kind of weird flaw in it so I tossed it out and started over.  I got the first layer of paint on; it was a special, very decadent, many-caloried, gooey kind of cupcake!




Cupcake


After that, I went to Kennedy Gallery and worked there for a while.  It was pretty slow, but there is always the art to study; being around old art as well as new art is pretty cool!

Sweet Charlotte

Sweet Charlotte is almost finished; just some small tweaking to do, some highlighting, and it's finished!  Her Grandmother is going to love it!

Between working 5 hours at the shop and 4 and a half hours at my studio, I'm sitting here with my feet up instead of going to the meeting at the gallery.  Sometimes I just plan get tired!

Debbie's Three Daisies

Had fun working on Debbie's Three Daisies today - nearly finished, just need to tweak a little in a couple of places  - probably Friday or Saturday when it's at least tacky-dry-ish.  I put alot of paint on it today, and the white takes longest to dry.  I like it so far; it's another little 8 x 8 piece.  I found that I enjoyed doing the small ones; they're just as cool as the larger ones, but small!  I can keep the prices low enough that most people can afford them too and I like that!  You can purchase an original oil painting from me for only $125 - not bad, huh?

The number of steps involved is the same as a large one; I just use less paint and smaller brushes!  Let me know what you think!

Workshop was so FUN!

My workshop was fabulous!  Carol, Elsyne, Karen, Kip, and Mary - a great group, all brave souls, so open to hearing what I wanted to share, and to trying some new things!  It was so much fun for me, too, that I will be doing it again!

My workshop Saturday

My workshop is Saturday!  I'm excited about it - getting everything ready now!  Painting, talking about painting, sharing about painting - it just doesn't get any better than that!