Lone Plum

                                  6x6  $90
Here's another painting with my little triangle cutouts. I like the tie- in of the dark plum with the dark under painting. I want to tell all of you about the BEST documentary we saw last night (Netflix DVD) called Waste Land. It's about a Brazilian born artist named Vik Muniz who was commercially successful in NYC and wanted to take on a socially redeeming project in his native country. He chose the largest landfill in the world- in Rio- and his goal was to have his art make a lasting difference in the lives of the people. It is a daunting project, but it's highly successful and the documentary is fascinating. I think non artists will enjoy the film and artists will love it, as I did. If you see it, let me know what you think!

Good Morning Joe

                                6x6 $90
This was the first painting I did for the DPW Challenge. The fabric looked nothing like this. I tried to paint the fabric as it actually looked and ended up with quite possibly the worst painting I have ever seen. Anything I tried would be an improvement, so I simplified it and toned it down, and I like it much better. The disastrous experience with this fabric taught me that I prefer simple geometric prints and led me to the solution (for me) that I posted yesterday. I'm pretty excited about the possibilities of this technique, so I'm very thankful for the challenge that led me there.

Caffeine Makes Me Jump

                                     6x6 $90
This is actually my second painting for the DPW Challenge. For those who don't know, this week's challenge was to place a white object on patterned cloth and observe- and paint- the reflected colors in the white object. I wasn't happy with my cloth options, so I made my own pattern with colored paper. I like this well enough to use this technique for other paintings.

JAPAN CRISIS ART SALE

No longer available

I've been thinking about how to generate some funds for the Japan crisis. How about this? Anybody who wants to purchase one of my daily paintings can have it between now and March 25 for $80. $60 of that will go to the Japan crisis; $20 pays for my materials and shipping. If you want it in a floater frame, add $30, and it will come to you ready to hang. So...to order, first e-mail me at laynecook@comcast.net to tell me which one you want to buy. Then send 2 checks as follows: one made out to either International Medical Corp or American Red Cross for $60 (you get the tax deduction) and one made out to Layne Cook for either $20 (no frame) or $50 (framed). Send to Layne Cook, 16900 14th Ave NW Shoreline, WA 98177. Please send ASAP as the crisis is immediate and also, I am leaving town April 5 -May 25. You can choose from any of the $90 paintings on the site that are still available. 

The Incredible Edible

                  6x6 $90
Yikes! What's the focal point doing practically in the center of the composition? I didn't intend for that to happen! Somehow it still works for me, though. It kind of looks like the bottles just slid into place and came to a screaming halt. So I couldn't help where things landed ....

Cup of Onion

                                   6x6 $90
This is the final effort from my onion painting day. It lacked punch, and I couldn't figure out why. Then I darkened the background, and I like it a lot better. I think I got my cue from Carol Carmichael. The daily painter's blogs are a great source of inspiration and education!

Let the Light Shine

                                  6x6 $90
Enough of Rome. It's back to the still lifes for the moment. I have made a few changes to my Rome paintings (I tend to "go back in" quite often), and I'll replace the images on my postings as they evolve. So this is another "colored water" painting. The teal bottle actually is that color, but the yellow is colored water in a clear bottle. I love the way the egg picks up the color around it.

Piazza cafe

                                   12x12
Well, darn! I didn't win February's Street View contest with "Everybody's Checkin' it Out" in Prague.David Sgambellone's winning painting was certainly deserving though. Maybe my luck will change in Rome. I think this should be my entry. I like it the best of the three I've painted. Anybody prefer one of the others?

Abe with Attitude and Winkin' Lincoln

 Each 7x5 oil    $90

Almost every time I see the DPW Challenge subject, I'm a little disappointed, thinking it doesn't sound all that fun. Then it's always fun! In fact, I had such fun giving Lincoln a little smile an the first one, that I decided to try a different expression on another. If I look at the subject matter long enough, and think about what's interesting about it, and what I might want to convey in a painting, it almost always turns out to be an interesting challenge. Keep 'em coming, DPW! And thank you!

Artist on the Piazza

                                   12x12 oil on canvas
This is my second candidate for the Rome Street View contest. I found that I encountered more people in Rome if I went to the Piazzas rather than just roaming the streets randomly. This guy was one of several art vendors. There were only a few tourists roaming around. Doesn't look like a very successful sales day.

The Pause That Refreshes

                                   12x12 oil on canvas

Here's the first of the Street View candidates. My printer wasn't working, so I did a rough sketch from my computer screen and went to my studio to create. Because of the "sketchy" reference material, I was more creative and less literal. I think that's why there's kind of a cartoon quality to this.

I have painted one other Street View candidate, and gathered photos for a few more. I'll post these in the next week.

Have a Seat

                              6x6 $90
When I was painting the onions, I had so much paint left on my palette, that I impulsively decided to paint this chair. I think because I'd been painting onions intensely for a few hours, this little painting was rendered quickly and loosely. It was a nice contrast. Man, I love a good painting day!

I've been having fun roaming the virtual streets of Rome looking for subjects for this month's Street View Paintoff. I'm really getting into this. Since I love to paint people, I look for figures in interesting poses, preferably in light and shadow. I've painted a couple 12x12's and plan to do one or 2 more. Then I'd like to post them and have the comments help me decide which one to enter.

Three Mugs and an Onion

                         6x6 $90
Another onion painting. I felt compelled to come up with a color scheme complimentary to the lovely deep reddish purple of the onion. I decided that I wanted the painting to be mostly cool, but the warm colors would incorporate the onion color. I played around with lots of mugs before coming up with this combo.

The Grim Reaper

                               6x6 $90
Here's version 2 of the onion setup. This time the surface is a 1/4" mdf panel with multiple layers of gesso on it and black acrylic under painting.I rather like the resulting texture. The painting has rather a dark mood to it- and then there's the knife...thus the title. Thanks for all the wonderful comments on yesterday's painting! It was gratifying to see that so many people liked it.

Ripe and Ready

                                 6x6 $90
Here's my entry for this week's DPW Challenge. For those of you who don't know, the challenge is to mix a new paint color for each stroke that's applied- and no small brushes. The idea is that the painting will be more fresh and spontaneous, and the colors will be more unified and interesting. I painted 4 paintings featuring these onions; look for them in the days ahead!
One more thing- does anybody know why the thumbnails are no longer showing up on many of the blog links?????

Too Close for Comfort

                         6x6 $90

The flower looks concerned that it's being stalked by the bottle in the back, doesn't it? I love painting glass bottles because they makes these crazy distortions that are fun to paint I'm also quite fond of this relatively monochromatic palette. 

Today has been a fabulous painting day. I have 3 red onions, one of which is sprouting. I painted one setup on a black primed panel (dry), the same setup on a green primed panel (wet), then a whimsical setup using one of the onions and a complementary color scheme, and finally a setup using multiple colors that I tried to tie together by working a little of each into the other. On the first 2, I really tried to do the DPW Challenge of laying down a different color with each stroke. On the second 2, that fell apart a bit, but I was still mindful of the principle. Whew! What a day! I'll be posting these over the next few days.

Crow Standoff

                               SOLD
I took a little liberty with the blue here- I guess no crow ever looks that blue. Oh well, as painters it's our  prerogative to take liberties with reality!

Light My Fire

                   SOLD
This was my entry for the Daily Paintworks Challenge, which this week was to paint the Zippo lighter using only 3 colors- ultramarine glue, titanium white and burnt sienna. I was out of ultramarine, so I used Cobalt instead. These challenges are interesting, as I end up painting things I would never have thought of painting. It's also fun to see how other artists have chosen to depict the subject.

Everybody's Checkin' it Out

                           12x12
I entered this painting in the Street View Paint Off contest. The theme this month is Prague, and I had fun virtually strolling the streets and looking for subjects to paint. I will post the Google image below so you can see where I got the inspiration. If you like this, you can vote for my entry at www.streetviewpaintoff.com. You need to click on the "Contest" tab at the left.

Weight at the Bottom

                       6x6 $90

Here is the black under paint version of this setup. I must say, I think it has more drama than the other one. I don't think the black will be my choice for all my paintings, but there are times it seems to be the better choice.

Wait the Bottom

6x6 $90

I painted 2 versions of this because I am experimenting with different grounds. This one has a cad lemon under painting (oil) and the one I will post tomorrow has a black (acrylic). As you can imagine, the effect is quite different. It's good to know these things so we can select the ground that will give us the results we want. So much to learn and remember!

"Brother in the Bowl" and reworked "Sand and Surf"

                             12x12

This is the last of the 12x12's- for now, anyway. I have more blank canvases, so there will be more. I am going to do an 11x14 for a birthday present for my aunt, and then I'm thinking about doing one for the Google Street View challenge. The February one takes place in Prague, and I had fun strolling the virtual streets looking for subject matter.

I got confirmation from several comments that the man's leg led the viewer right out of the picture. Every time I looked at it, all I saw was that leg! So- the wonder of paint- I painted out the leg and changed his posture. I'm much happier with this!

Behind the Bottle

             6x6 $90

I had an inspiration to use food coloring in the water so that I would get some interesting color changes.That works pretty well, since I don't have a collection of colored bottles. The little vegetable is an Indian eggplant, in case you're unfamiliar with them (I was).

Sand and Surf

                              5x7 $90
There's a  lot I like about this little painting. I think I may do a larger version, but I may change a few things. If you have any gut responses to the compositon- especially constructive criticism- I'd love to hear them! I really value the input I get from fellow painters.

Car Camping

                                     18x24
I felt the urge to paint larger and came up with this one. I like almost everything about it, but am wondering if I should re-paint the older guy with his head tipped down and a book in his lap. There's something  intensely intimate about the interaction (or lack of interaction) between the two of them that might alienate potential buyers. I don't paint specifically with sales in mind, but I'm not interested in storing a lot of paintings either!

Three Plus Three

                                   12x12

Time for another 12x12. This is another new color scheme for me. I'm kind of into the really light blue right now. I like the way it looks with the orange (although I think I'd also like the composition if that cup were dark instead. Hmmmm........) I'm especially fond of the reflection colors in the glass.
I just have a zillion ideas right now. Way more ideas than painting time, but I'm trying to keep up.

Sorting Seaweed

                   SOLD
When we were in Thailand in 2009, I took this photo of a young girl sorting seaweed. In actual fact she was wearing a dark shirt and light shorts, but that didn't work as well for the painting. I have painted her before, but I wanted to see how my "lessons learned" in daily painting have affected my painting style. I worked hard to try to get the values right, knowing that when I added the highlights the forms would read correctly. That kind of sums up my "new" approach- and I find it works well on figurative work as well.

Gala

                              
Here's another of the 12x12's I recently painted. I'm enjoying painting a little larger than my dailies (not that I've abandoned the little ones...). Yesterday I even tackled an 18x24! This is pretty funny because I've painted as large as a 48x30 without hesitation. But now I'm applying the things I'm learning as a daily painter to the larger format.I don't want to avoid getting more detailed, so I use larger brushes. Anyway, enough about that. That's not even today's post. This post employs that little yellow bottle again, but I had to make it a little shorter because I didn't want to cut it off at the neck.

Two on a Tabletop

             6x6 $90

I'm really fond of red underpaintings. The problem I've had in the past, though, is that I don't care for the amount of red that affects the other colors- especially too much pink! Lately I've been using an acrylic ground and applying just a bit of the ground color in oil when I begin the painting. I don't think I'd feel the need to do that with yellow, but with red and blue I find I like it better. I'm very happy with the colors in this painting!

Ten Minute Poses

                             6x11.75 on 1/2" board  $150
Here's my entry for the 10 minute challenge. I didn't expect the experience to be as exhausting, stressful, instructive, nor satisfying as it was. I feel like I know this cup intimately! I wouldn't be surprised if I repeat this exercise for myself with other objects. I think the biggest thing I learned is that it will look right when I add the highlights if I get the shapes, values and proportions right.