Friday, March 15, 2024

MYSTERY FOREST


  This is a large (30x40) commission that I recently did for some friends moving into a new home. I more often do floral compositions but I enjoy landscapes too. Doing this type painting allows for a deeper composition. The flowers at the front are a kind of gateway into the picture and takes the viewer deep into the picture. The muted colors promote the calm mysterious feeling.

Tuesday, March 12, 2024

Fast Forward


 FAST FORWARD

      I enjoy painting bouquets of flowers; either very close up or on a table with other objects. This one is a focus mainly on the actual blooms. When I started this I was looking at a vase of flowers but I took some artistic liberties arranging the flowers in my head. If you notice, I used repetition , an important principle of design by repeating colors and shapes in the bouquet to make the viewer’s eye move around the plane of the painting. Another way I used design is in the background. I used pattern to make the plain blue more interesting. I actually did it with 2 blue shades that had a stronger contrast to each other. It was pretty but it called attention away from the flowers so I toned down one of the blues so they are almost the same value. A little artists “ trick”.

Saturday, March 9, 2024

Fairyland


  Swasn’t sure whereI was going with  this painting but the delicate flowers took me in this direction. 

I remember reading the story about Thumbelina; the story about the tiny girl who ended up falling in 

love with a flower fairy prince her size. This flower forest is just the place she would have loved!

Available on Dailypaintworks.com Libby Anderson




Friday, February 23, 2024

Doc Amos Store


 This is an oil painting of Doc Amos Store; a store that my watercolor class in college often went to paint

back in the 1970s. It was a 2 story wooden building that sold groceries and was a local gathering place for for men in the neighborhood. I have several photographs that I took at the time. I am glad because the structure is no longer standing.i like the contrast of the figures against the building.

Friday, February 16, 2024

NAME oF LOVE


 I am back to painting a meadow scene. I love the freedom of showing flowers in their natural setting.

These spring flowers are so exuberant that they seem to burst right off the page in all their glory. While they have some similarity in a repetitive pattern; each flower has a distinctive personality.as if to say”Look at me!”Available on Daily Paintworks.com- Libby Anderson

 


Tuesday, August 29, 2023

See You Again


 


This is a 9x12 oil on panel. The subject matter is a favorite of mine; hydrangea blooms. The painting is based on a limited palette so I had to rely on values more than color to make it work. The glass vase relies on lights and darks to show the transparency of light. I don’t think I will ever tire of painting these flowers!

Saturday, August 26, 2023

Wait For The Moon


 I love bright colors; but also enjoy the challenge of a limited palette. This painting consisted mainly of blue, green and white. Because it was fairly neutral, I had to develop interest in other ways. The flowers were all white but there were many shades of white to create interest.The green shapes have a lot of variety. Even though the painting is very abstract , the viewer can still tell what it represents.

Saturday, August 19, 2023

Pardon My French

Pardon My French

   I love to paint bottles and jars as vases for flowers. They makes the arrangements much more      interesting. The variety of blooms keep the viewer’s attention within the picture plane. Color harmony has been addressed to make a pleasing painting.
 

Thursday, December 15, 2022

Parallel Parking


 

CELBRATION STORY


 This painting is a little different from most of my others. It has a little more of a graphic feel to it. One of the artists of the past that I admire the most is Henri Matisse. The thing I love most about his work is his use of pattern. I enjoyed adding pattern to the vases in this painting to add interest.

Monday, September 19, 2022

PERFECT TIME


 I haven’t posted in quite a while.Painting and solo and group shows have taken up a lot of my time. Plus Life in general. I do enjoy taking a little time to talk about a single painting though. Along with flowers I do love chairs. The combination is perfect. Wouldn’t you love to come home to a basket of beautiful flowers waiting for you in your favorite chair? A perfect time

Saturday, April 9, 2022

Where Will You Go?


 I do florals more than landscapes; but my landscapes often have some florals in them! This landscape has  some mystery because of the path that disappears into the darkness. No one knows exactly where it goes- it  is up to the viewer’s imagination.The path leads the viewer into the picture plane and all around it. The colors chose add to the calm feeling of the painting.

Friday, March 11, 2022

Carlotta


 Sometimes the title for a painting comes to me after a painting is finished. As soon as I fnished this; the name Carlotta popped in my head. She is a character in a book series by Linda Barnes about a private investigator who solves various crimes. She is a colorful redhead who invokes the kind of colors present in this painting. The neutrals are only present in the greens and background, allowing the flowers to pop!

Tuesday, March 1, 2022

Kindness


 I chose bright , light colors for this painting with very few darks. I was trying for an upbeat , happy feeling for the painting. Everytime I use aqua in a painting that seems to be the outcome; I don’t know why. I guess because it is a kind of blue but with a little kick to it by adding the green. Kind of like a fun day at the beach. I would like to audit a good color theory class some day. Not for a grade; just to absorb some of the knowledge. There are so many things to learn; so little time!

Monday, February 28, 2022

SPRING UPDATE

 
 I haven’t posted in a while. I misunderstood that the blog was going to be discontinued. It was just the mailing list. In the meantime I have still been painting every day. Last week my Instagram account ( @libbybob) was hacked by a bitcoin hacker making it seem that I was asking people to invest in bitcoin. I am trying to resolve this but in the meantime I have opened a new account named @was_libbybob

So please follow me on that account; no bitcoin allowed!


Wednesday, June 9, 2021

WILD MEADOW


 This is a closeup of a flower meadow.The dark background adds depth; making the viewer wonder what else is behind the flowers in the front. The colors pop because of the neutral greens with the surprising yellows.

Monday, June 7, 2021

Parallel Parking


 I did not have to parallel park for my driving test and I avoid it when possible. I drive around the block for 20 minutes or park 3 blocks away also to avoid it. These bottle vases remind me of that parking situation!

Monday, May 31, 2021

Lost in the Garden


 I do floral compositions more than landscapes but do enjoy landscapes as a change of pace. This landscape combines my love of flowers with the outdoors. The flowers draw the viewer in toward the buildings as the blooms get smaller as they recede.

Saturday, May 29, 2021

Summer Romance


 Viewers often ask if I draw my subject before I paint. I usually take a brush and a thinned color from my palette to block in the placement of the basic shapes. If I was a beginning painter I might do a lot of preliminary sketches but I have been painting for so long I have a pretty good idea for placement and scale. Since I am using oil; I can also just wipe it off if I don’t like it. I find that I have a fresher painting if I don’t have a tight drawing that I am trying to follow.

Saturday, May 22, 2021

Likewise


 These vases had a kind of 1950’s vibe to them ; what you might have had flowers brought to you in the hospital as you recovered  from some kind of surgery  or maybe a baby being born. They may have sat on the window sill for a week because as you know back then hospital stays were at least that long. Now you go in for heart surgery in the morning and they send you home in the afternoon.  Not that modern medicine is so great— all about the money!

Tuesday, May 18, 2021

Daily Story


 My favorite part of this painting is the white flowers. They are the star of the show and spice up the neutral colors of the flower arrangement. Without the white the lovely purples and blues wouldn’t sing as beautifully. A lesson to all of us that we need each other!

Sunday, April 25, 2021

One More Silver Dollar


 The title may seem strange to you but titles just come to me sometime out of the blue.A lyric from the song Midnight Rider popped in my head for some reason. My favorite thing about this painting are the way these colors harmonize with each other. It could be an accident but maybe years of experience play into it. That said, I have many day of painting where I wipe off many paintings and start over. It is never easy!

Tuesday, March 16, 2021

Good Idea


 Colors that an artist chooses tend to convey the message of a painting.This painting doesn't have the most brilliant colors available but certainly not a New England feel. I would expect this to be from an island home or some tropical destination. There are neutrals, but just enough necessary for the eye to rest.

Saturday, October 17, 2020

Agreeable


 I like choosing multiple objects in a composition. It works well to vary the size of the objects to make the painting more interesting. Another good rule of a painting is to choose an odd number instead of an even number. The even number of things seems to divide the space up into two areas  and moves the eye out of the painting.

Tuesday, October 13, 2020

Top of the Ticket


 Composition in a landscape usually relies on some kind of perspective. There is most often a view that shows distance;foreground, middle ground and background. This landscape adds another element which is light and shadow.  Hopefully I was able to show the effect of sunshine hitting the meadow.

Friday, May 29, 2020

For the Beauty

I don’t do landscapes as often as flowers. You will notice that I often sneak in flowers in my landscapes. I am hopeless! I totally left reality when choosing color for this painting; well not bright purple and orange. I want to feel a little excitement when looking at a painting. Otherwise why go to the trouble of painting it. When I first started painting I was just glad to get something down that looked like what I was seeing. I now want to push it farther.

Wednesday, May 27, 2020

Red Tree


It is always important to have a center of interest in a painting. An easy way to make that happen is to make that center of interest different from other areas of the painting. Since a summer or spring landscape has a lot of green in it; a pop of red is unexpected,
. This guarantees an immediate attention getter, a position that is not dead center in the composition is important too.

Friday, May 15, 2020

Life Instructions

In 1987 I went to Matisse Retrospective at the museum of Modern Art in NYC. It was a huge  show featuring many of his works that had been hidden away from the public due to the Nazis. It was an overwhelming experience. His works are primarily interesting to me because of his use of pattern;often mixing 2 or 3 in one painting. I had finished this painting earlier but it lacked something. It was good enough but a little boring. I added some pattern to it that gave it some life, taking a little instruction from Henri Matisse.

Tuesday, May 12, 2020

Remember Me

I tend to paint florals more than landscapes but the same principles apply in both subjects. My one objection to landscapes in summer is that there is so much green that they can tend to be boring. In this landscape I tweaked the colors to make the painting more interesting. You may not find these exact colors in nature but they make for a more pleasing painting.

Sunday, May 10, 2020

Game On

In a 2 dimensional painting texture usually has to be implied. Some artists use oil paint thickly
which adds a texture of its own. I choose to try to create texture by the use of value and brush strokes. in this painting there is a variety of texture. Smooth texture is in the blue cloth in the foreground which contrasts with the rough nubby texture of the basket. The flower petals would feel smooth to the touch but the way they are tightly layered would give them a ruffly feel If touched.