Going Rogue

I started this painting as an impromptu demo at our local art league meeting. Our guest speaker had to cancel at the last minute and I am person in charge of speakers! I decided to demonstrate a technique used in a workshop I attended a few years ago.It involved using transparent oils as an underpainting, then adding opaques.It was a little nerve wracking but it all turned out okay. Whew!

What I Meant to Say

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• I have a collection of baskets.some are baskets with a chicken head woven into it. In the last few years of my mother’s life we went to many garage sales. I had given her a chicken basket that we had found at a yard sale in Maine.Soon after that we started to find some more of the baskets. It was a great treasure hunt. The basket in the photo here is not a chicken basket. I have a lot of them in a display cabinet. They remnd me of my mom whenever I see them.

Possible Beauty

When I started this painting I wasn’t quite sure what direction it was going in. I had used a beautiful aqua paint for the base coat and I couldn’t stray from that color so it forced my choice of other colors.The referennce for this had many more realistic greens found in nature. This is one of my favorites in the past weeks.( 12x12 stretched canvas)

Camera Ready

Landscapes for me lately have a flower theme.i think I am drawn to the flowers as a way to break up the monotony of all the green  of a landscape. I love wildflowers so it is  a chance to paint them one more time.

Little Less Conversation

I was listening to something on television when an old video of Elvis singing the lyric about “ a little less conversation “came on.The words seemed to be perfect for this painting I was working on.It has a  level of complexity but the message is simple; we are all better off not talking so much— just look for the beauty.

What a Feeling

Geraniums  have a personality all their own. They don’t belong to that elite group of cut flowers that are delicate and don’t last a long time. No, geraniums stay firmly planted in their sturdy pots. They bloom over and over , reaching for the sky and never wilting. Kind of like the placid next door neighbor that always has whatever you have run out of. A grown up!

Keeping Promises

I like to think of the subject of this painting as what I might see walking through a wholesale flower seller. The flowers are in buckets and other containers not meant to enhance but arranged for ease of selling. The pure  beauty of the blooms is all that matters.

Put The Kettle On

This painting of zinnias reminds me of a homey place. I don’t think you would find these in a sleek Manhattan apartment at all. These jars might be more likely found in an English cottage where the owner of the home might be sayong”Put the kettle on?”Can you tell I have been watching too much BBC?Life is just a British novel.

Follow Up

I think there are millions of possibilities of bouquets of flowers. I enjoy painting these arrangements; often changing what I am looking at to make a more pleasing composition. I think color is one of the most important elements of composition. The colors catch the eye of the viewer before anything else.

Antigua

i took a lot of photographs while on a cruise that visited several islands. I loved the pastel colors of the houses and the bright sunlight. The light there is different than where I live now. I tried to show that in this painting of the aqua house.

Keep on Walking

I consider my landscapes as still technically floral. I always have to sneak in some flowers somewhere! This was a subtle scene at a time when Summer is almost over and all leaves have not started turning. The key to this kind of painting is to make it about contrast. Dark against light helps break up the picture into planes; each farther and father from the center.

Success Story

Painting multiples of the same thing can make it hard to have a good composition without being boring.The way to make things different is to,change the size of shapes( this also shows depth). Another is to vary the shapes and placement of the shapes. Doing this can create a kind of movement of the objects; moving the viewer’s eye around the picture plane.