A Plum Among Them

                                    6x6

This may be the most items I've ever included in a  composition. I remember awhile ago Carol Marine did a number of them from much more distant perspective. The simplification required grows enormously the further away you get. Now that's a challenge! This was hard enough....well, maybe I'll try backing off further.......

In a Mason Jar

                                     6x6

The lid on this jar was hard to paint! It rather looks like the whole thing, plate and all, are flying across the picture. Does that make it dynamic?

Shine Your Light on Me

                                   6x6

Red Onions are some of my favorites, to paint and to eat. I also love this color combination!

You Glow, Girl

                                          6x6

The DPW Challenge this week is the "Complement Me" Challenge, courtesy of yours truly. We did something similar in the workshop I took a couple weeks ago, and I found it pretty useful The idea is that you take complementary colors and you can use one in it's full range (in this case the red runs from red-orange to ted-purple and the other (green in this case) you can only mix with white and with the reds. The result will be a cohesive complementary color scheme.

Three Lemons on Blue

                                        6x6

One of my favorite compositional tools is combining shapes of similar color to make new shapes. There are essentially only 2 colors in this, but I think it works pretty well. I love this little green bottle.It may just be my new favorite prop.

Life on the Streets

                                        5x7  SOLD

I haven't really been away from painting. I took a 5 day workshop at the Gage Academy and aside from a short lecture period, painted all day every day. I can't way that I learned a lot of new things, but sometimes the knowledge creeps in unexpectedly. I can say that I loved it!

This little painting is for the DPW challenge and is derived from the photo posted by Carol Marine.

Red Truck

                                     6x6 SOLD


This has been a really busy day, but I managed to whip out a little 6x6 entry for the DPW Challenge. Tomorrow is the first day of my 5 day painting workshop at the Gage Academy. We also have out of town visitors- 4 people- staying with us for a couple days and 12 people coming to dinner on Tuesday evening. Fortunately, my husband is an excellent cook, so he is in charge of planning and (partially) executing the meal. I am REALLY looking forward to this workshop and hope that all the distractions won't , well, be a distraction.

A Bouquet for Today

                                     24x30

Another market painting....I was drawn to, yet intimidated by, all the flowers. I wasn't sure how to use them in the composition to enhance yet not overwhelm the picture. I also wanted to have the focus on the man's activity rather than his face. I think the glove helps to do that.

Lunch Break

                                     20x24

Another of my Pike Place Market paintings. I was attracted to the warm dark colors of they interior as they contrasted to the brightness outside.

Custom Set

  

(4) 6x6 paintings

I'm having a blast painting some larger pieces based on photos i took at the Pike Place Market. Meanwhile, however, I got a commission to paint 4 coordinated pieces to hang in a dining room with new iris colored carpet! Doesn't that sound luscious? I toned the panels with what I deemed to be "iris" and went to town. The customer had some paintings in mind, and also requested citrus and glass. I sure hope she likes them!!!!

Pike Place Produce

                                    24x30

I'm having so much fun with these market paintings. It's a huge challenge in simplification and controlling values. With this one, I was intrigued by the way the produce and the shop seemed to frame a bright little window of activity. And I loved the guy's striped shirt.
I took about 50 photos at the market a few weeks ago, and only 4 or 5 seem to be suitable for paintings. I think it may be time to go snap another 50.

Fruit Concentrate

                                       6x6

I have a commission to paint 4 little pieces for somebody. She selected 3 existing images but for the 4th she wanted citrus fruits and glass. I love the way the glass makes the colors bounce around- the lemon is doused in green and orange, the lime's shadow gets a hint of red, and the orange is touched with green. Because her carpet is "iris" and in order to unify the colors, I started with a purple blue background on all 4 paintings.

Balancing Act

This is the 2nd of the two 30x40 paintings that are going to Carmel. I really love the feel of the outdoor cafe scenes.

I haven't been doing daily paintings for some time. It sees that recently my painting is broken up into spurts of furious, obsessive painting- and then no painting at all. Tomorrow we are leaving for a 4 day camping trip with friends, and then 4 days after we get back buy husband will leave for a week. I smell a furious painting session coming on....

We are in the process of exchanging an apartment building we own for one that has an owners unit atop 4 1 bedroom units (close to downtown Seattle- yeah!). Our plan is to completely remodel the building, starting with the exterior and our unit. One of the bedrooms will become my studio. I am concerned about lighting as I am not happy with the lighting in my current studio. I welcome any suggestions, regarding lighting and anything else. I want the most awesome studio I can get within the limitations of the space!

Cafe Troubadour

                                   30x40

This was a composite of several photos. I have painted the violinist several times, but the weirdest thing happened. I was perusing the original photo (taken by a friend) and I thought I saw whiskers, so I enlarged that section and sure enough, my girl is a guy! Who knew???? Well, I guess it doesn't really matter. I was attracted to his/her body language and that's pretty "non-gender" (in this case, anyway....)

The Lady Can Sing

                          16x20

More jazz....I gathered these figures from 3 separate sources. It seems that in most actual "gatherings" one or more of the figures aren't animated enough for me. I want "gesture"- especially when there's movement involved.

Jazz Club

                                    24x30

My gallery in Carmel has sold 2 paintings and he wants more! I'm furiously painting to get them to him in time for summer vacationers. As in most tourist towns, his business tapers off in the fall and doesn't pick up again until spring.

Pike Place Fish

                                 24x30

I'm working on some larger paintings of the market. The challenge (as always) is to simplify, especially when there is so much activity and color.

Monorail at Mercer

                                        12x12

This is the third of the three "Seattle" paintings I've done thus far. I delivered them to Alki Arts today. I wanted to do a view of the space needle that was not commonly seen. I stood and waited for the Monorail to come by so that I could get that into the picture too. I wish the sky were this blue today!!!!!

                                  12x12

Another painting from my day at the Pike Place Market. These guys were taking advantage of a lull in the action to do a bit of chatting among themselves.

More Fish

                                    12x12

I walked all over downtown one day last week taking photos, most of them at the Pike Place Market. It was a busy day with lots of tourists. Out of about 60 photos maybe 6 were good reference material for paintings. Thank goodness for digital!

Limey

                                        6x6


The DPW Challenge this week is to paint something that was a gift. This gravy boat was a gift from my niece, Tara. I think it is a lovely shape, and I have thought numerous times about painting is- so I finally did!

Regatta

                                          24x30

I wasn't sure how I could depict the people in the boats without getting into too much detail, so I waited until I was well into the painting before I tackled it. Then I filled in a loosely shaped section with mostly darkish neutrals and cut into the shape with mostly sky colors. I pretty much got the effect I wanted.

Make Way for the Dark Horse

                                           8x24

Another sailboat painting. I took 5 sailboat paintings to Alki Arts last week. Tis the season.....

Not For the Faint of Heart

6x6

The Daily Paintworks Challenge this week is "stripes". So here you have it: stripes. I fas feeling an urge to use lots of color (maybe following the last post's pale palette?) Note the reflection of the blue/purple glass in the base of the cup at the left. These are the kinds of things that excite me in a still life. Often I don't see them at first, but when you're looking really really closely at all the colors, they reveal themselves. 

Egg Cup, Egg, Cup

This is my first post with my new IMac. Our old PC got so bad that I wasn't able to post, and then I downloaded a Blogger app to my IPad and did a post that was less than satisfactory. Hope this works better! There certainly is a learning curve involved when switching from PC to Mac and I hope in the end it's worth it.

So....this is the first still life I've done in awhile. I'm really happy with the color combo. I've been trying to paint with a lighter palette. That's not to say I'll give up on my beloved deep color and high contrast. I just want to be able to create strong compositions and interesting paintings that are in a higher key as well.

Red Sails

I've been going to town on these sailboat paintings. I want to explore the abstract qualities of the sails as well as capture the movement.

Pop Pop Pop of Yellow

I don't know what I did, but I messed around a bit and got the page to come up properly. Hope I can do it again . Anyway, this is the first painting I've done in about 6 weeks. It's posted on Daily Paintworks in the "Yellow" Challenge. We were down in Arizona, and LOVE the clay studio there, so I decided I would take advantage of that great facility and abandon paint for clay. That way I'll never tire of either one. Here's a pic of one of the totems I made.

I'm now excited about getting back to painting. I have some ideas brewing, and I think I will be doing mostly larger paintings, along with the occassional small "daily" paintings. It's good to be back in Seattle and back to blogging.

Pop Pop Pop of Yellow

I'm baffled; Blooger is misbehaving. My dashboard is blank; I laboriously entered the URL of my image and it says it downloaded, but I don't see it. I just returned from Arizona and I'm eager to reconnect on my blog and this is SO frustrating. Is anybody else having problems?????

What's The Point?

                                 6x6 Bid Starting at $75

This is my entry for the Daily Paintworks Challenge "Pare Down Your Apple". The idea is to create the form with as few different colors as possible. For that reason it was rendered quite quickly, which usually results in the liveliest painting- which is the point!
We're getting ready to leave town next Monday on a driving trip to Arizona. One the way, I will drop off 6 paintings in Carmel. I've been busy framing, and haven't had time to do daily paintings. Then I'll be gone for about a month and won't be posting any during that time. I miss doing them and look forward to getting on a more reliable schedule this summer.

For the Love of Jazz

                                        22x28
This one is going to Carmel. It's the first of my larger jazz paintings. My goal with these is to present something that captures the energy that emanates from the performers. This was a lot of fun to paint, and I look forward to doing more along these lines.

Stacked in Your Favor

                                     9x12 plus frame Bidding starting at $125

This is a more traditional approach to still life than I normally do, but that's where it ended up. I love the shape of the gold bowl and the pop of the red objects in the mostly cool setting.

All Crumpled Up and Nowhere to Go

                                      6x6  Bid on this Painting

This week's challenge at DPW was "Crumpled Paper". Boy, was that hard! It's difficult to simplify the shapes and still have it read as crumpled paper. I couldn't help including the glass to distract myself from the tediousness of rendering the crumpled paper.

Light Up the Night

                                  22x28
I didn't intend to make this one quite so abstract, but once I got started in that direction, I quite liked it, so I kept going. This is going to the gallery in Carmel. As of yesterday, I am listed on the official roster and you can see all the paintings that are and will be there. Here's the link if you want to check it out: http://www.edwardmontgomeryfineart.com/

You Can Call Me Red

                                      6x6 SOLD

This is actually a modification of an older painting. Sometimes I have an "aha moment" when looking at a painting and I think I know what will improve it. This one had nearly equal warm and cool colors, as the cloth on the ground was yellow. I decided that the bottle and oranges would be more dramatic in a cool environment.

Surreal Trio

                                     6x6 SOLD
There's something about this color combination that really appeals to me. I also played around a bit with the shapes and pattern. They are not quite as they appeared in reality. There are some things that don't quite make sense. That's the surreal part.

Dining in Paris

                                                   36x24
So far I have 3 painting (this being one) that I'll be delivering in April to the Edward Montgomery Fine Art Gallery in Carmel. My goal is to deliver 5 paintings so that I will have a real presence in the gallery, but he's a tough sell. He knows what his customers like and he only accepts what he thinks he can sell. That's good, actually. I respect that- and who doesn't want their paintings to sell?

Spring Feeding

                                      6x6 Bid on this Painting

I decided to paint the horse one more time, this time experimenting with more color. I'm also experimenting with lowering my prices on the DPW site. There seem to be more artists offering paintings at a lower price point, and my sales have dropped off dramatically. My hope is to get enough of a following to drive the prices back up to where (I think) the value is.

Well Bred and Well Fed

                              SOLD
I learned something interesting about light. I tried to photograph this yesterday afternoon and gave up after about 3 tries. The light was just wrong and even with Photoshop I couldn't get close to the actual painting. The yellows just dominated and I couldn't get them to go away. This morning I got it on the first try.
This is my entry for the DPW Challenge. I loved painting this horse. I tried to make sure I had the weight balanced correctly; the view of his rear end on the left is essential to make sure he doesn't look like he's tipping to the right. Then I wanted to capture the undulations of the body masses. I'm tempted to try painting him again- this time in unnatural colors and more abstracted. Just for fun.

Red Hat, Red Meat

                                     30x40
The paint is still wet on this one. I think it's finished, although there may be some tinkering. I know I can be myopic about my work, overlooking obvious flaws- so I'd appreciate any suggestions that might make it better.

Virtuoso

                                     6x6   No longer available


Another study for my new jazz series- I'm loving this idea because for me, it's all about gesture, and there's so much opportunity to explore gesture with these musicians. Also, the light comes from so many possible sources and in so many colors that one can be pretty free with abstractions and still make it believable.

Clamp It

                                   6x6  No longer available
Much as I like dark values and high contrast, I want to be able to paint in a lighter key as well. I decided to study Wayne Thiebaud's paintings for ideas and inspiration. I referred to my book of Thiebaud paintings as I painted this entry for the DPW Challenge. Tor be more "Thiebaud-like" I would paint the blue ground lighter to heighten the contrast with the shadows, and I may try another version with that goal, but I like this one as is.

Fillet of the Day

                                 6x6   No longer available
This was created for the DPW Challenge: Paint Raw Meat. I went with fish instead. Not my favorite subject matter, I will say- the meat or the fish. Yet it was a challenge and I'm glad I did it. I went with a lighter palette that usual in keeping with the delicate nature of the fish. I relied on the darks of the shadows and the onion to give the composition some structure.

Sun Stream

                                  No longer available

I was feeling the need to use some warm and bright colors. Do you suppose it has anything to do with the Seattle weather? Rain forecast all week.....

Back Me Up, Baby

                                   6x6 No longer available

This jazz series is way fun to paint! I dive into These with little rough sketches and see what develops. The guy at the keyboard wasn't even supposed to be singing, and look what happened! He opened his mouth and gave me the title.

Simpatico

                                     6x6 No longer available

Painting #2 of my Jazz series. The plan is to create maybe a dozen of these small paintings and then follow up with some larger canvases. I love the possibilities for abstractions, as the light plays off the people and the instruments. I think the lively paint reflects the energy of the music, and I hope I can maintain that on a larger scale.

Enjoy the Show

                                    6x6 SOLD
I'm thinking about doing a series of music based paintings, and this is a study for one of them. I also am working on a series of restaurant/cafe paintings, and completed a 24x30" one yesterday. Well, maybe it's not quite complete- I tend to tinker for a few days. It's close, anyway.

Workhorse Willy Reworked

                                       18x24
I painted the original Workhorse Willy from a photo I took in eastern Washington. I was intrigued by the reflection of the truck in the metal building alongside it." Where's the metal building ?"you ask? Well, I painted it out yesterday. The painting has been in a gallery for 6 months and hasn't sold, and I decided it was too dark and gloomy. It needed a punch of warmth. The original version is below. I would love to get your feedback as to whether you think the change is an improvement.



I have been in frame making mode lately with no time to paint. I have 7 new paintings to rotate into display venues and they all need frames. The "Sunny Side Up" painting is going to the Edward Montgomery Gallery in Carmel. He is looking for a "sophisticated subtle idealized ambiance" to appeal to his market niche, and I have had a hard time coming up with something that fits. I think I sort of "get it" now, and have some more ideas in mind.
Saw the Gauguin exhibit at the Seattle Art Museum yesterday. Talk about idealized ambiance! It is a great exhibit and I'll definitely go back to see it again.

Sunny Side Up

                                          36x48
This is the big canvas I mentioned I'd been working on. I love the perspective and the poses of the people in the restaurant. I tried to be very cognizant of values as I selected colors so that I'd maintain a strong composition. My husband is always saying that my paintings are too dark, and I deliberately worked toward more lights in this one. The darks are still pretty dark though; I like the contrast.

Around Town

                                       6x6 $40 Click to Buy 

I photographed this young woman in Telluride, Colorado last fall. She was wearing just sandals and had no helmet, so I assumed she was just riding around town.