Red Chairs

This pair of red chairs sit under a wonderful oak tree in my back garden area...I can sit here and watch the hummingbirds feed and they don't pay any attention to me at all.  I don't usually paint with much difference from my reference photos since I'm basically a studio painter it seems, but these shadows were so inviting and gave me the chance to paint them alaAnneAbgott's merging technique.  It was a really fun paint.

San Diego Adventure with Painting Friends Forum...

Here are a few shots of some of the fun we had last week in SanDiego when a few of us from PaintingFriends forum met at Cindi Deweese's gorgeous home in SanDiego.  We'd had the good fortune to be there and were able to attend a marvelous demo by SanDiego artist Keiko Tanabe on one of our free nights.  Cindi actually got to attend her workshop that weekend...but we had scheduled our flights out and couldn't make it.

This is a group shot of the buildings perspective demo that our friend Wyna Woodford from Montana (the tall gal on the right) taught as one of our demo's.  Wyna is a wonderful teacher...now we can do those little alleyways we see in the photos from Europe...well...hopefully I got it.  There are more pretty fun pics to show...I'll just have to get around to doing it.

Kitchen Kittens

This is a little "fluff" painting I wanted to do because I found this darling little salt/pepper shaker pair in a local antique boutique here in Noonday and thought they were too cute to pass up.  I have a huge collection of blue spatterware pottery and crockery that I've collected from my art show traveling days and thought they'd work in a composition.  My mother collected salt/pepper shakers and I probably have 50 of her sets packed away down in my studio from when we closed up my parents home.  Just makes me smile to look at it...and I painted it...ha.

Ball Jar

Here is another painting of glass...this time I put some cherries and blueberries into a Ball fruit jar...no telling what I had canned in it years ago as I never throw any of these jars away.  I actually have a whole collection of different sizes and shapes...although they're sold today in most stores, most of mine came from either my mother or grandmother.  My reference photo was interesting with that area of light there separating the reds and blues and for some reason these photos always draw me in to try to paint what I see.  And, of course, there's the red...ha.

Red Bottle

After changing the color on the front perfume bottle from clear glass to sap green glass to phalo/Antwerp glass, I've decided that this one is done.  We'll be painting this as a demo in San Diego next month for our Splash get together and it's a really fun paint with all the different colors.  And, you'd know I have to have something red to paint.  I've put the WIP up on PaintingFriends.  Looking forward to seeing my artist friends again after a year's absence since our last meeting in Florida.

Blue Bottles

When we have our Splash III meeting in September in SanDiego, I'm going to be painting a glass demo...which hopefully my artist friends will also get painted while we're there.  This little sketch is trying out the blues for the perfume bottles we'll be painting.  Going to scratch the colors in the tall glass in favor of some more transparents...but all and all I love the phalo blues in the perfume bottle...the reflections are really fun.

Lemons and Candlewick Glass

Here is the final version of the glass painting...I think.  I darkened the background more to the blue side than green, and strengthened some shadows here and there.  There may be more value work to do there in the right hand bottom area...it's funny how you can see more things to do after you post something.  The cloth was fun to paint even though it sure played jitterbug with my eyes.  I enjoyed working with the blues and yellows.

Lemons and Candlewick WIP

Decided to go ahead and post this WIP.  We're having our PaintingFriends SplashIII adventure in SanDiego in September this round.  I'm trying to zero in on what I'm going to demo for my friends and needed to get started.  After working on this little ditty today, I've decided that this one is not going to be on the menu...too much crossed eyed action with all the stripes in the plaid going on...our goal is to paint one in just one day and this one just won't fit the bill.  I'm enjoying the limited palette...just yellows, blues and greens...and it'll get done tomorrow.  I've been having fun doing photo setups this past couple of weeks...lots of new stuff to paint rolling around in my head.

Cherry Tomatoes n'China

This is a small demo WIP I did for our Painting Friends Forum for July...thought the lace turned out pretty fair for a detail oriented artist who is trying to paint a bit looser ever now and then.  I enjoyed the little hits and misses of the lace holes...you really don't have to paint everything you see like I usually try to tell my brain.  Anyway, it was another fun painting to do.  Arches 140 and 8x10 size.

Spiced Oranges

Gracious...it's been so long since I've posted anything I've almost forgotten how to go about it.  I have been painting...honestly...just nothing that I really enjoyed enough to post.  This spring has been spent mostly in my new sun garden (which is burning up now in the Texas sun) and watering gardens for two friends who have had hip surgery and broken bones...maybe they don't need to claim our friendship because seems that I have another friend having hip replacement surgery next week...hummmm.

This little painting was a fun paint...bright happy colors, and reds...8x10 on Arches 140.  I just have to have reds somewhere to enjoy painting.  I had found the jar of spiced oranges in a magazine long ago and tore it out...I added the cherries into the mix, blueberries, and the plaid cloth for interest.  There was no background that I felt I wanted to tackle, so I took the easy way out and just painted it solid...but it was good to get back to painting.

A Visit To Texas...Jane Freeman and Janet Belich

My friend, Jane Freeman, called one day and asked to come to "hot Texas" to get out of the snow of Minnesota...what a thrill to have her visit.  And then, another friend from Artcolony (and my roomie from our Artcolony reunion in Chicago 2 years ago) couldn't stand it so she booked a flight down from Maryland for the week too.  We had such fun.  I had intended for us to do flower garden stuff, but it was a bit on the cool side...Janie was sweating in the 70's as she's used to snow and ice right now...but we turned on the AC and that worked.  Janet's weather is very much like ours, so she wasn't in "weather heaven" like Jane.  But, we fooled around all week...shopped, went to plant nurseries, and mostly giggled and talked art like kids (and we think we are...you know). 

We went out to our art retreat to meet the girls I paint with every Tuesday  and they were very happy to welcome Jane and Janet...we took pics and they signed our "wall of fame". 

The rest of the week we just fooled around...shopped Chico's(bad Janie!!), ate fried catfish several times, enjoyed some Tex-Mex, drank a little wine and just had a marvelous week.  Wish they could have stayed longer...but Friday I took them back to Dallas to catch their respective planes.  We'll do this again next year...maybe at one of there houses...that's a promise.

The Alamo

This painting is somewhat different for me...and I was pretty happy with it all in all.  When I was in SanAntonio several years ago, I went by The Alamo...our beloved Texas shrine.  For you who have not ever seen the old treasure in real life...you'd be very surprised at the exquisite carving and relief work done in the front door area.  The columns and windows and niches are just beautiful.  I thought I'd keep a pretty simple limited palette as there are no shrubs or flowers there...just the grand old building.  This is half sheet...and I'll crop it when I decide whether or not to continue the columns lower in the bottom area...going to live with it for a few days and then decide.

Azalea

While I was looking around for something to paint that required glazing, I found that if I painted a floral that's almost around the corner for blooming...that'd be a good thing.  Our azaleas here in East Texas rival those of further south and east and are always the first big show of spring.  My thing isn't really in the glazing department...so I thought I'd try some here.  My usual way to paint is to charge in and just let the paints merge.  I'm not so sure I even like this glazing stuff...maybe I need to do a bit more before making that decision.  This one is quarter sheet and I painted it large enough to be able to do the glazing.  I find that painting small doesn't give me enough room to do much and probably would have had more fun had this been half sheet.

Cindi

This is my friend, Cindi DeWeese, from California.  Last summer after our Florida get together with our PaintingFriends group, she and I decided to take a "Thelma & Louise" road trip for a few days to New Orleans on the way home.  What a fun town...Bourbon Street, the French Quarter, casinos, jazz and clubs, great food, just a fabulous few days of wonderful things to do.  On one of our little shopping excursions she found this darling crochetted hat...and while having a bit of food and "drink"  somewhere in the FrenchQuarter the photo op with these sun spots bathing her face was just too good to pass up for a painting.  Portraits aren't my strong suit, but this one was really lots of fun...

A Fireside Chat With Jane Freeman

My dear friend, Jane Freeman, got cornered into doing an interview with me for a forum that I'm on...Painting Friends...and it is up and ready for reading.  Hope you'll drop by www.paintingfriends.com  and take a look.  Just go to the site, sign in as a guest, and enjoy.  We met year before last when the Artcolony gang met for a face-to-face in Chicago, and I could still see her smiling eyes and hear her voice when we were "chatting" so it was lots of fun for me.  There are a handful of her paintings included, and some pretty good information and bantering back and forth if I do say so.  Janie's book, "A Celebration of Light" was one of the very first art instruction books that I purchased as a rank beginner.  I saw this gorgeous painting on the cover, and that was all there was to that.  It's amazing that from that painting and book a pretty special friendship has happened.  I think it's somewhat of a miracle that I so admired the book and her talents, then found her blog(Artcolony) and became a real fan of Jane and the other very talented artists there, then by some still unexplained event was asked to join the blog, and have become friends with the author of the book that started it all...go figure.  Our art world is a rather small world in the scheme of things...and aren't we all lucky. 

So, hope you'll go and take a look...you'll love her thoughts and wonderful advice.  This landscape is one of her latest paintings...and we're all drooling over the others.

One of our friends just e-mailed me for more instructions...so...click on "What's New" and scroll down to the chat, or click on "Quick Links", then click on "Today's Posts" and scroll.

Crystal Blue Persuasion

Thanks to one of my Artcolony blog friends, Bitsy Gibson, for the title to my latest painting.  Had so much blue going on except the pinks and greens in the hydrangeas and was totally stumped for a good title.  This paintings was mostly done in mid-tones...which is pretty hard for me to do since I usually charge in with lots of color...but I'm enjoying the calmness amidst all the busy elements.  Now it's time for another one, and there are some "must paints" that are calling my name.

Silver/Crystal WIP

Here's where I stopped today.  Seems that I have another decision to make about the crystal.  When I did the drawing, I decided to keep it on the sparse side facet-wise as the rest of the painting is really busy so I wanted to "slow it down" a bit.  It is half sheet, so there's lots of "stuff" going on.   Now I'm thinking that there aren't enough facets in the decanter as the many facets seem to be what attracts me to painting crystal, and now I'm thinking it may be too sparse.  Also, I'll wait to do my value adjustments until I decide what to do here.  Ah, the trials and decisions of we artists...but...that's what makes us such perfectionists it seems...too much, not enough...I'll just sleep on it and see how I feel tomorrow.

Silver/Crystal WIP

After taking a really long time off from posting to my blog (and I'm ashamed of myself for having my muse stay in Portugal) I decided I'd best get back with the program and start painting seriously again.  Found this drawing from last year that I had just not wanted to tackle...and I'm still thinking I'm crazy for jumping back in with this one...but I do love to paint silver and crystal...so...this one is coming along nicely.  Hopefully I'll get it finished this coming week.  The silver topped decanter is one from my sister-in-law and the karaf is from a neighbor after I admired it so...too bad both are empty...ha.