New painting

A local car dealership had one of those "push-pull-drag" events and I liked the big headline. I thought the lemon was fitting. Worked on this while waiting for another picture to dry. It's Back, 9 x 12.

Adaptation

Adaptation, 24 x 36, finished in January 2011.  Another painting for the upcoming summer show. The USDA recently updated the growing season zone charts for the whole country. The zones are moving northward.  We will all have to adapt - animals, plants, people. This picture is kind of talking about that process and other related climate events.

Patchy Snow

This was actually completed this fall but I never got around to posting it. Patchy Snow, 24 x 36. It's part  of the large series paintings I am working on that will be in show next summer. I recently finished another one that I will post tomorrow.

The Gift

Here's another small picture fit in between the larger ones I am working on. The Gift, 6 x 8.

ANother new tomato picture

This one, Garden Produce, is 9 x 12. There is something about these partially ripe tomatos and all their variability of color That I really like.

Tomatos

The garden is brimming with unripe tomatos, and since we've had several frosts already they will have to be picked or will freeze on the vine. It has been a big tomato year. Here are a few of them getting ripe indoors. Unripe Tomatoes, 8 x 10.

Resistance

This is the first of the three large paintings I mentioned in the last posting in August. They are part of a whole series I am doing. Resistance, 24" x 36", on canvas.

Squash are ripening

We have acorns, pattypans, tons of spaghetti squash and of course zucchinis. Here's  one of them. White Squash, 6 x 8.  In the meantime I have started another large painting and have three more planned out. I will post them as they get completed.

Unnamed

I just finished this painting last week. I still haven't decided what to call it yet.  24" x 36", on canvas. Unlike the last one I did ( see last blog entry)  this one worked itself out rather easily with not a lot of changed ideas along the way.

Hiding from The Heat

This painting was finished in June. Along the way I changed it about 4 times in major ways so it took a while to finish.  "Hiding from the Heat", 24" x 36",
oil on canvas.

 Although a lot of the first large pictures I did were on gessobord, it is getting a lot more difficult to find places that sell the size I like, 24" x 36", and shipping is a problem. The last set I got had bunged corners. Local stores don't carry the size.  And they are heavy, even if they don't need a frame. And you have to buy a whole lot of them at once. So this painting is on canvas. It has certain disadvantages - can't scrape off the paint as vigorously if I don't like what I  did,  for instance.  Can't do some of the other techniques I did either, like masking and cutting.  But I guess I will have to adapt.

New paintings and other news

It's been a long time since I posted anything.  I've had a lot of distractions such as visitors coming and going and dealing with the gardening and just never got around to the blog updating. It's hard to update when I've got a garden bed out there ready to get weeded or watered. The biggest distraction however has been my working on a massive overhaul of my art database and mailing list which has taken weeks to update. Whole weekends in May and June disappeared doing it and I am still not finished. I am using the program called Artist Butler. Although it is is fairly unsophisticated it's good enough for my uses. Going back through all the scraps of paper I have in file folders to glean info and finding and making the digital pictures all uniform has been a huge job. Trying to get it all into the right order is a real project.

Painting-wise I've been working on some large paintings lately. The small ones have gone by the wayside for a while. Here are a couple little ones I did work on that never got put on the blog before.

Below, "Fading Tulips", 10" x 8",  Blue Scarf, 5" x 7"

Another Shoe

Here's another shoe painting. Shoe 2, 5 x 7.

A Shoe

Here's a little shoe painting, Shoe 1, 6 x 8.

Sugar

Here's a little painting I have been laboring over.  It's another shadow picture, 10 x 8.  Sometimes it's time to just quit and start something else, so here it is for now.

Shadows

As January rolled around again this winter the early sun once again began to highlight the kitchen wall with interesting shadows where the pots hang. I couldn't resist doing another painting of the pots and their shadows.  Kitchen Shadows,  12 x 16. Last year's is below.

Another tea picture

Another tea picture, Tea Again. 6 x 8. I decided to paint it again, but I had to change the tea- it was starting to "grow".

Tea Time

Another small painting, this one 9 x 12, Tea Time.

Copper Box

This is a small painting of things collected from around the house. The copper was tricky to paint with all the color reflections. Copper Box, 8 x 10.

Winter Ice

There's been a lot of ice around lately with all the snowstorms we've had. Here's a painting that's all about winter ice and snow, especially along the irrigation ditches. I have been working on it for a while and finally finished it. I kept changing things but I think it's done now. Winter Ice, 30 x 30. This one will probably be hanging at the Muse Gallery in March and April.

SHELLS

Well, shells aren't so easy to paint. I'll have try them again but here's the first attempt. Shells, 6 x 8.

Travel-sized

Now that everyone has to put all their toiletries in small zip lock bags for airport security we seem to have a lot of these small bottles around. So I decided to paint some of them. This one is called Travel-Sized, 6 x 8.

The last of the tangerines.

This is the last of the tangerines - now we've eaten them all. This painting Bowl of Tangeines is 9 x 12. It's still drying - things dry so slowly in the winter.

Mini-Tangerines

A portrait of a few tangerines from the large box of Christmas tangerines that arrived here. 6 x 8 on a panel. It's going to take a while to eat them all.

Beach Rocks

A painting (6 x 8) of various rocks collected over the years at different beaches. The big gray one was from the Oregon coast, the smallest colored ones were from a Mexican beach. I wish I was on that beach right now - it's cold and snowy here, was around zero degrees this morning.

Barn and Mountains

Haven't really named this one yet. It's a relatively new painting, 16 x 8.

detail

Here's a detail from a larger painting I am currently trying to finish up. The paint has to dry a little more before I can start working on it again, particularly since I will be adding some glazing. This one is going to be 30" x 30".

Nuts

It's been a million years since I put anything up - but well - it's been Christmas... I haven't given up painting, just working on larger things for a while. Haven't done any updates to the blog though.  Here's a new small one, 6 x 8.

red cup

Here's a detail from a painting  The Red Cup,  6 x 9,  that I worked on this weekend. I think I am done working with this silk scarf background for a while, but it was fun dealing with it and a nice change from using a plain background. It is interesting that when I compare them to each other they all look different. In the first one with the apples the background looks more yellow and green, in the second one with the orange it looks more orange and the green is bluer. This one looks more on the warmer pink side. The colors in the  actual scarf do vary a lot from area to area.

Orange on Silk

Another painting on the scarf. This one is 6 x 8.

Apples on Silk

Here I stuck two apples on a silk scarf. I liked the variable colors on the scarf.  This one - 5 x 7.