Painting 33

 

Back to the large paintings. Love painting close-ups of  subject matter on large canvases. My subject matter was taken from a photo I took during my travels in Asia. This is a detail from a relief carved into a door at a Temple in Laos. The carving was beautiful, and I love the imagery of the Buddha. Buddha represent serenity and reminds me to live for the moment, and to not fret over those things from the past that I cannot change, nor worry about the things to come that may or may not be. There are a few issues with the rendering, but overall I'm very happy with the painting, probably because it connects with me emotionally and because it reminds me of the wonderful adventure I had in Asia years ago. I did try to sell this painting, but I priced it to where it was worthwhile to sell, and that price was too high for anyone to be serious about buying. I'm broke the rule of getting too attached to one's work. I'll try to sell it again and I may or may not lower my price, but for right now it's in my bedroom, and surprisingly enough, not hanging in my closet!

Painting 32

 

A little abstract series I messed around with for a long period. Did the block shapes while at the Creative Arts Center and then added the circles later on. It's decorative painting and I know it's popular, but just not something I get a lot of satisfaction from doing. I like them and I've had friends actually want them. I wanted them too. I'm just like all those other suckers that want the abstracts to complement my interiors, match the colors, etc. When it comes to actually paintings something,  abstracts are not that interesting for me, but I constantly see abstracts that I would be proud to hang in my home. I do plan to dabble in abstracts a bit more, just to get a better feel for them and maybe generate some extra cash that my other paintings don't seem to do. 

Painting 31

One of my last paintings at the Creative Arts Center of Dallas. We pooled our resources and a group of dedicated artist found a wonderful space in The Cedars to call our home. No more painting on someone else's schedule. Very exciting to have a studio and more exciting to have a group of artist to hang with and be inspired by. But I digress. This is from a very bad photo I took in Chicago outside our hotel. I wanted to try my hand at an urban landscape and I also wanted to experiment in loosening my brush strokes and to push my color usage. There are things I like about this painting, such as the woman on the sidewalk in the white dress, but then there are things I hate, like the squatty woman on the street. Another instance where I couldn't bring myself to correct things that were wrong. There was a lot going on in the photo, and I didn't exactly give the painting a good focal point. The purple shadow on the building looks out of place and the red overall is a bit much. I didn't think I could do the cars, so I was surprised they even came out as well as they did. Well, a good reminder to make sure you have a good reference before you start or at least have a plan as to how you're going to fix it. Now, I would have removed the shadow on the building behind the white dress lady and let the sun flood that area and make that my focal point. Easier said than done though.

Painting 30

 

I had to keep posting tonight to get to this one. A small milestone because I hit my 30th painting. I worked hard on this sucker. Borrowed the bowl, planned the set up. Photographed it, etc. I love pears as subject matter. Mark has painted some beautiful pears and it inspired me to try for myself. The old saying that you have to paint a few stinkers to get to a good one applies to this one, at least in my opinion! After a few crazy daily paintings, I took my time and made something that I am very proud to display. I painted on a new surface, a board instead of canvas and I loved the feel of it. The painting measure to around a 16 x 20 if I remember correctly, so it's fairly small. I sold this one to Cindy, a former studio mate. It's in New Orleans now and I'm so pleased she wanted it. I miss Cindy, she had such a great laugh, but I know she's happy in her new home.

Painting 29

Total messing around. Just throwing paint on the canvas, not even using a reference. 12" x 16" painting. I used to struggle with what subject matter to paint. Now I have so many things I want to attempt, that I doubt I'll ever be able to tackle everything. I know it would be great to have a defining style and be known for a particular type of work, but it's so much fun to experiment. This was just one of those experiments.

Painting 28

What can I say about this? Odd subject matter, but it's just another salt and pepper shaker, like the previous painting, just a tad more exotic. Another daily painting, working wet on wet, trying to get values, highlights and of course, the actual drawing of the object. I succeeded in drawing it correctly, but because of the subject matter, not sure if I'd ever be happy with it. One thing I would do differently is to tone down the background and would have made the upper dark and the lower area the lighter color and then pop out a nice shadow to ground the object. Attempting to paint a reflective surface was a good exercise and the daily paintings are valuable, and if I painted regularly, I think I would do them a bit more. However, for the sake of this blog, I'm glad I will not be filling it with quick paintings. That's not the point of all this. Size: 5 x 7

Painting 27

After tackling a few large canvases that seem to go on forever, I decided to try my hand at a few small painting to finish in one sitting. No photo reference, just the real objects. Yikes! I started this a couple of years ago and I was just reading where Carol Marine started her daily painting around 3 years ago. I wonder where I'd be if I'd stuck with it like she did. This one was fun. First time for glass and the biggest faults with the painting are the drawing, especially with the lid of the salt being somewhat skewed. The painting is just a small 5 x 7. I think I handled the pepper nicely and the reflection of the table in the steel tops works well. I'm not really jazzed about the color of the background, but it was just an exercise. Never really expected to sell it or anything. Damn that Carol!