Lots of time to waffle on a title for this quadriptych as I try to claw back some time time in the studio! I see these leucistic deer as liminal figures in a dormant California winter landscape that is cut through by a highway – traces of which have caught the deer’s attention as the headlines of an oncoming car approach.
I love color soooo much that I rarely limit myself to just one! But there was a call for monochromatic work that got me thinking about what would I do if I had to just pick one color? I was fresh off the Women’s March, that sea of pink still swirling in my mind and I knew right away that I wanted to paint a still life of a pussyhat! …
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The Art Docents of Los Gatos were treated to a demo by Dallas artist, Jennifer Lashbrook and her “Swatch Paintings” at JCO’s Place on Friday. Lashbrook creates collages using paint swatches that she gets by the forklift load and through an extensive process of sorting by value and hue builds a palette for her pixelated images, squares of color fixed with rubber cement and clear acrylic onto gridded panels. This …
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I love how these paintings come together, often the teacup is the inspirational launching point, but this time I had spotted a Townsend’s Warbler in my neighbor’s camellias and while photographing it (such a shy bird) I began to imagine what flower might suit its sweet masked face… and knew right away that it had to be the black and yellow striped petunia which I picked up in one of …
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Starting work on a new painting today, Anemone Tea is the latest in my Birds and Teacups series. I’ve paired a Steller’s Jay with an antique blue flow Chen-Si handle-less teacup and saucer and deep purple-blue anenomes, signifying forsaken love. Sketching my subjet with thinned oils onto primed board. Sketching in the background drawn drom design elements in the teacup and saucer. Blocking in background tones. Flushing out my bird. …
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So happy to get to my first painting of the white hummingbird I had so gleefully stalked with my telephoto at the Arboretum in Santa Cruz a few months back. I have lots of plans for all photos I took of him but I wanted to start with something for my Birds & Teacups series. I paired him with a white Limogues T&V demitasse, which is a delicate and glowing …
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I went to the orchard for the blooms but was taken by the dogs! This painting 12 x 12 inch painting, Retriever in the Orchard will be at the Los Gatos Museums Gallery this weekend. I think I want to try another, bold and blocky and lavender.
Woohoo! We signed up for lifetime membership at the TechShop in San Jose and dove in with a silk screen printing class for starters….what a great place, I can’t wait to try my hand at everything they have to offer (and they offer so much)! The vinyl cutter, cutting out our designs to mask out the silk screen. The boy pulling his pint. Nice firm, even pull. His Bermuda Triangle …
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A real El Niño style rain today – great for hanging out in my studio but not so good for photography – the color is definitely off in these pictures. I’m excited about how the painting is coming along though and I may have even come up with a title – I’m thinking Menagerie sounds right.
Fresh on my easel and soon to join my People In My Neighborhood series… …and yes I see that I need to make the arms more proportionate, I’m just glad that there is room on the canvas for the change!
This new Blue Sailor painting is so much fun to paint, even though it’s supposed to be about the mass of micro plastic in our ocean and how jellyfish (and their relatives like the By-the-wind Sailor) take advantage of this oxygen depleted, polluted environment to out compete other species like krill which are already suffering from the melting of ice sheets (their nursery) and as the base of the food chain, …
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Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuggggggggggggggggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! I just finished all my book keeping for my taxes …. I might as well crocheted the entire annual report for as much time as it took me! Now I feel like I need to sink my teeth into a BIG painting (or 4)! Today I primed 4 64 x 64″ canvases…that’s 16,384 square inches of gesso (not including the edges or multiple coats)! I find doing this work …
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This is how my little 8 x 8 inch plein air painting turned out after I took it back to the studio and messed with it a little…. perhaps there’s a little too much of a warm cast in the lighting but I think I’ve traded some of the freshness of color and application of the earlier stage for a stability and structure of the final version. It’s still …
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Another in my Birds & Teacups Series, Violet Tea I is still very much a work in progress… Quick oil sketch… Some lovely loose brush strokes suggesting violets… Sketching in the background… Filling in here and there… Wiping off the gestural background that I was afraid was building up too much… Blocking in some shadows and loosing my loose violets in a pursuit of realism… Sharpening up details, but there’s …
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Careful what you haul into your studio – you just might end up making art out of it! My kids had just outgrown their antique twin beds. Well, truth be told, one just broke and the the other was already damaged when I bought it all those years ago. I’d fallen in love with the pair and had planned on painting them out and reupholstering them but there was always …
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Well, I finished my tattooed baby today, at long last! This image had been burning a hole in my head ever since I began following the news of Central American children risking everything to escape gang violence in their home communities in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, taking dangerous journeys north to the States where too many have been held in challenging circumstances while waiting for their cases to be …
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I’ve started work on a new commission this week which I’m calling Among the Hedgerows and Hydrangeas. My challenge here will be to blend my realist style with a softer nod to impressionism. I must learn to make sure what I see doesn’t interfere with my creative license! Initial oil sketch – note the water fountain / urn that will soon disappear…. …Gone…. …..in favor of a garden sprite! It’s loose …
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I love to start a new painting with the new week – fresh start, fresh paint and all the those days stretching out before me like an empty road. I was able to race ahead with an image I’d already worked out…a cute, vintage Japanese bamboo demitasse filled with lucky bamboo against the lush pattern of a period cheongsam (that used to fit me). I loved this combination but wasn’t sure what …
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