Two yellow roses

I bought a dozen yellow roses to paint but they weren't opened up enough for what I had in mind so I grabbed these two from the bunch to paint. I like the way the little leaves under the rose on the left look like they're dancing. This was fun and no pressure, unlike the painting I'm doing of the dozen roses now that they've opened up! I do love painting these small paintings but I feel like I need to learn to paint larger, more complicated paintings too. This painting is 8"x10" oil on canvas.

Painting a model from life

I'm starting this post with a close-up of the painting I did today. I have been increasingly drawn to thick paint, I love big juicy strokes of thick paint and that's what I was going for with this painting. Below is the whole painting, it's 11"x14" oil on canvas.

On another note, with the kids home from school and summer in full swing, I have decided to take a break from blogging. I will miss all the wonderful comments from my artist and non-artist friends, but I will continue to read and enjoy your blogs. I wish all my readers a happy summer!

Joan

Sunflowers in a Blue Vase

This is the same set up as a couple of days ago, just a little bigger at 10"x10". It's oil on linen mounted on a birch panel. It's been fun and challenging to paint sunflowers but now I think I'm ready to move on to something else.

Sunflowers

One of my favorite things to do on a rainy afternoon is to hide out in my studio and paint! Today is one of those days and I've enjoyed the last 2 hours immensely. My daughter graduated from high school last week and she went and got some flowers for my husband and me to say thank you. These sunflowers made the perfect subject for me today.

This painting is 8"x8" oil on linen mounted on birch panel. It was an experiment, although I suppose every painting I do is some kind of experiment. This time I had it in my mind to simplify and paint blocks of color. I probably still have too much information in this painting. One reason I did a small painting is because I thought it would be easier to simplify. Below is a shot of the set-up in my studio. I don't have any kind of table for still life set ups so I improvised with that cardboard box on top of my taboret (which is too small!).

The Purple Kimono

This is actually a detail from the 11"x14" oil on linen posted below. I painted this lovely girl in her kimono from life. As usual, I didn't quite finish with the model in front of me and had to do a little more later from photographs.

I enjoyed painting this, I guess I never enjoy painting anything as much as I enjoy painting figures. They're also the hardest to find! By that I mean I can drive around until I find a landscape that interests me and paint that, or I can go to the grocery store for fruit and flowers, then the resale shop for still life props (a favorite thing to do!) and I've got the makings for a still life. But with figures . . . . I need cooperation from a model!

It would do me good to paint a model not just once a week but two or three times a week. I thought of sitting inconspicuously at a cafe and trying to paint people, but I'm not sure how realistic that is. Has anybody done this? I would love to hear about it.

If only I could charge by the mile!

Lately I have been spending a lot of time driving my paintings from place to place. Really, my paintings travel way too much. A painting starts out like any other painting, a blank canvas at the art supply store, and then it comes home with me. Then I paint the painting. Next I take the finished painting to the printer. Three days later I go and get it.

My last batch of paintings took a little trip over to Dwellings, my friend's interior decorating space. A month later I participated in an art show so I went over to Dwellings, loaded up my paintings, and drove them to the art show. Two days later I drove them back to Dwellings (all but the two that sold). A month went by and my friend decided to close Dwellings. I went and loaded my paintings into my car and drove them home. Not wanting to look at them anymore, I loaded them back into my car and drove them over to the storage unit. Two days later Stephen (of the old Dwellings) called and asked if I would hang some of my paintings in the space he's renting in an antique mall. Certainly. So I went back to the storage unit and loaded up my paintings again, then unloaded them at Stephen's space at the antique mall.

Meanwhile I took drove three paintings over to HCAA to enter in the HCAA show. All three got in so on Tuesday I'll go and get them and drive them to the Jack Meier Gallery. Thursday is the auction and Friday I'll go and get whichever of my paintings that didn't sell and probably drive them over to the storage unit.

If only I could charge for my paintings by the mile! People sometimes ask me how long it takes to paint something. It seems the actual painting part is the quickest, it's all the hours of driving my paintings around that really adds up to time spent. And you know what, driving around is not near as fun as painting. Am I the only one who feels like I run a chauffeur service for paintings?

Trumpet Man 2

Here I have painted the trumpet man again, this time a little bigger than my last impression of him. I also painted him with a white shirt this time instead of a dark blue one. I changed the shirt to white because I'm interested in the graphic design in this painting and I thought adding a light value would add to the design. I'm also focusing on my edges, trying to lose some of the edges into the background. Painting is as much about what to leave out as it is about what to put into a painting. This painting is 16"x16" oil on canvas.