More Radishes

7/120 paintings from life  More Radishes                                                                                    

This should have been  Thursday's post but I was on my way to New York city for our niece's wedding, which was on Saturday.  It was quite a surprise that the snowstorm was larger than we had imagined.   I had pre-posted some new photos for the week-end but was unable to publish them until today.

 6 x 6 in. oil on panel

$100 plus free shipping

Sun On Main St.

6/ 120 paintings from life                Sun On Main St.

This is one of the paintings I worked on in a plein air painting workshop last week-end with Tim Horn.  Three of us chose this restaurant to paint and I really enjoyed the challenge of making the front of the building look very bright in the sunlight.  I have a few more things I may add but I am relatively pleased with it.

8 x 10 in. oil on canvas panel

$150. and free shipping

Radishes From Greenville

5.  Radishes From Greenville

We stopped in Greenville on the way home from Atlanta and saw my son Geordan, his wife Meg, and my sweet grand baby Maggie.  Their beautiful garden produced some great radishes.  After tasting one, I decided they were too good to resist AND- I could paint them.  I put them in a bowl of water when we got home so the greens would stay fresh and I set them up to paint this morning.  I plan to cook the greens and put the radishes in a salad.

8 x 10 in. oil on canvas panel

$125

Tim Horn Workshop

On Saturday and Sunday I was in Georgia, very happy to be taking part in a painting workshop taught by Tim Horn.  We were painting outside in beautiful weather in the charming little downtown area of Norcross.  I learned so much from this very talented artist as he focused on teaching us ways of capturing light on a sunny day, compositional pointers, and the entire plein air painting process. Here you can see one of his demos, early Sunday morning.  I almost completed two paintings which I will be posting later.

Quick Muffin

4.  Quick Muffin

My daughter is home from UNC on fall break and decided to bake yesterday. I asked her if I could use one of these for a still life and she jokingly told me I would have to eat it if I got paint on it.  Well, I didn't, but I still plan to eat it.  They are delicious, pumpkin coconut, and were pretty easy to make. They are made with whole wheat flour. You can find the recipe online at Runner's World. I'll see you Monday, I'm off to a Tim Horn plein air workshop in Atlanta.  Looks like the weather will be great!

6 x 6 oil on canvas panel

$100

Blue Coffeepot

3.  Blue Coffeepot

11 x 14 in. oil on canvas panel

Today's painting involved placing my focal point or center of interest in one of the areas of the painting  using the rule of thirds. (Divide the canvas into thirds vertically and horizontally and plan for the focal point to be at one of the intersections.)The pansies are my focal point and I just have a couple more things I want to do on this painting.  Tomorrow I will move on to another design concept.

2. Red And Gray Pot

2.  Red And Gray Pot

I had fun setting up this little still life and even more fun painting it.  I am trying to work on creating more depth in my paintings and I think  this one succeeds fairly well in that respect. It  took me a little while to gather the objects and position them under my light so I am going to set up tonight for tomorrow's painting so I can get an earlier start. By the way this wonderful pot was made by Robin Van Vliet, one of the potters at Franklin Square Gallery in Southport, NC.

10 x 10 in. oil on canvas panel

120 Paintings

1.  Endless Summer

This is the first of one hundred twenty paintings that I plan to paint from life in varying sizes.

I have been doing mainly 6x6 inch paintings, and even though many of them are from life, I feel the urge to intensify my efforts to improve my painting skills more rapidly. While doing these paintings I plan to work on certain ideas in each painting. In this painting I wanted to practice painting glass and get more depth in a still life setup with Hydrangeas.  As much as I love these flowers which are still blooming in my yard, capturing them the way I'd like to in paint continues to elude me. I spent about an hour and a quarter on this. I got this idea from a wonderful artist,

Debra Pero. Click on her name to see her blog.

Sheep's Clothing

Sheep's Clothing

We went to the N.C. State Fair in Raleigh yesterday afternoon and the weather was perfect, the crowd was congenial, and the attractions were fun. I always love seeing the animals and agricultural entries (more soon on blue ribbon winners). 

 Should sheep wear coats?  Absolutely, because it keeps them clean for the judges and influences the quality of their wool.  This sheep was one of my favorites and had a great personality and beautiful eyes.

6 x 6 oil on canvas panel

Camden By The Sea

Camden By The Sea

Today has been a wonderful day- I dropped off two new paintings for a show near Wilmington and then spent some time on the beach with my faithful companion, my poodle, Camden.  I had really been feeling like I wasn't spending enough time with her or giving her as much attention as usual so we had fun today.  She had my full attention and rewarded me by being her agreeable, loving self.  She even layed beside me on the beach towel when I told her the beach was too crowded for her to run. (I promised her we would do that early tomorrow morning.) This little study of her with the wind blowing her ears back comes straight from my heart.