8 X 8

8 X 8

8 x 8

8 X 8

8 X 8

This painting was done entirely with pallet knife.

8 X 8

8 X 8 Done for Paso Robles Art Association show.  Sold

SPENCER AND STELLA

I did this painting for good friends.  Spencer (on the left) had to be put down a few weeks ago.  One of the hardest things a good pet owner has to do.  Spencer was a great dog and is missed by Stella and the rest of the family.

My painting "Lady in the Blue Scarf" won an Honorable Mention award at a Juried Fine Art Exhibit in Cambria on Friday, November 9th.  I was pretty excited, there was a lot of really good art presented at the show with quite a few professional artists had entered their work.

I finished this painting today, September 22, 2012.  Some might say that I'm trying to find my style, because the subject matter of my paintings are so different from each other.  I prefer to think that I like variety.

A sneak peek at what I'm working on.  I love painting denim.

Just finished this little painting.  Bruce says I'm going through an Andy Warhol stage, I say I'm going through a Candy Warhol stage.

THE LADY IN THE BLUE SCARF

I said that I would put up a blog showing my painting process from star to finish.  This is how the Lady in the Blue Scarf came about: 

I start out by doing a pretty detailed drawing on the canvas.  Then I paint the drawing using only black, white and shades of grey.

The scarf took a great deal of detail work.

This may seem like a lot of work for under-painting, but it is very beneficial in establishing the values of a painting.  Once the black and white painting is done, there is not much question on where the shadows and highlights should be.  Even thought all of this eventually gets painted over, it is very important to the final work.  I’ve tried skipping this step and I believe that although it adds time to the process, it also adds depth to the final work. 

Then I start to add color and shading.  I don't pay a lot of attention to getting the colors just right at this stage of the game.  I never feel good about a painting until I have most of the canvas covered with paint.  Once it is covered with paint, I can start adjusting.

I take a lot of photos of my painting while I’m in the process.  Sometimes I can see changes that need to be made more easily by looking at a photograph of the work.  It’s like standing back at a distance, I can see shadows more easily from the photographs.

Most of the detail work is done, I've inserted some background color.

I wanted the background around her face to show some contrast.  This was my first attempt.  The lavender color was too intense.

I must have painted the background around her face a half dozen times before I came up with this.  This is pretty much the final product.  It may get some more tweaking along the way, if I see things that need changing.  I've not put the final glaze on it at this point.

I was going to post a series of photos, showing this painting from start to finish.  I’ve been looking over the selection of shots I have and decided I’ll do that another time.  This painting was a lot of fun to do.  I did it mostly to see if I could, not because I found the subject matter so exciting. 

I’ve been painting a lot, as a matter of fact; it seems to have taken over my life.  I can’t wait to get up in the morning so that I can start painting.

I’ve been working on this small painting for about a week.  I’m anxious to start something new, so I don’t know if I’ll finish it right now.  It’s almost there and doesn’t require a lot more attention.  I need to do a bit of work on the fins and tail.

This is another painting using the glazing method.  Many, many layers of color were applied to get the shine on the tops of the Salt, pepper and Sugar.

This is a pretty small painting, just 8 X 10.  After I had finished it, I was looking around my studio and found this frame that I had bought on sale some years ago.  I liked the way it looked.  This was the first painting that I did using a lot of glazing.  Glazing is done by thin layer upon layer of color.  It really gives a lot more depth to the work.

This was my next painting.  This one is a lot larger 36 X 36.

While I'm painting, I take a lot of photographs of my work in progress.  Sometimes it seems that I'm able to see the work better in a photograph than I can when I'm looking at the actual painting.  At some time I'll post photos of a painting in progress.

I've not updated this blog for some time, almost 2 years.  In the past 6 months I've been painting like a mad person, so I thought I would post photos of some of the things I've been working on.

I started this rose back in December 2011, I had not worked on it for some time, then some friends asked if I was painting, I showed them a photo of what I was working on and they said that they wanted to buy it when it was finished.  That gave me the encouragement to start working on it again.  This was the end result.  Actually it is very similar (taken from the same photograph) as a previous painting.  This one is quite a bit bigger, 20 X 20.