Sunglow

Sunglow

18x22 Oil on Canvas

When I first began painting, I did a painting titled Sun Glow.  The original work was very nice but it wasn't blended quite as well as I wanted.  Being a beginner, I wasn't sure how to go about it, and the final painted ended up a bit cloudy.  I always wanted to do another Sun Glow painting.  This one really looks nothing like the original but that's okay.  I like the bright, bold colors of this painting.  As this year is drawing to a close, this will probably be my last post for the year. A group of artists I belong to have decided to try for a painting a day this upcoming year so I hope you'll visit again to see what I come up with in 2013.  Happy New Years!

2012 Favorites

2012 Favorites

This idea came from one of my painting buddies.  I love the idea of highlighting a few of my favorite paintings for the year.  Some of these were chosen for my own journey this year, some for the subjects (my puppies), and others because of the paintings themselves.  It's been a wonderful year for art.  My artist friends I paint with regularly are great inspiration and encouragement.  This upcoming year, there's an artist group that plans to produce artwork 365 days for the year.  What a challenge, but also an encouragement, this will be!  Thanks for looking.  Have a Happy New Year!

Wonders of the Sea

Wonders of the Sea

16 x 20 Oil Palette Knife Abstract

It always surprises me when a painting turns into something totally different from what I had in mind when I started it.  This painting began as a way to use some leftover paint on my palette.  I think Survivor season finale was on in the background so maybe that's what brought the sea to mind, but as I was painting it, I kept seeing the all the living items in the sea.  So this is what I came up with.  Thanks for looking.

Wolf in Winter

Wolf in Winter

12x12 Oil on 1" Gallery Wrapped Canvas

As animals are not my usual genre, this was a challenging painting for me.  I wanted to be sure to catch the variety of colors in a wolfs coat while still having the texture of the fur.  I purposely kept the background softer and out of focus to highlight the wolf.  Thanks for looking.



Phoenix Rising

Phoenix Rising

16 x 20 Oil on Canvas Panel

The title came from a friends comment. I'm not sure if the Phoenix Rising was actually from a conversation we had a couple of years ago or what he saw in the painting. Either way, I like the title, and it brings good memories of our friendship. 
Abstracts are still my first love in art.  So anytime I've worked on a more realistic painting, I have to take a time out for an abstract.  This has the bright fall colors I love along with the blue/green mix which are among my favorites.  I haven't yet come up with an appropriate title but wanted to show the painting in the meantime. Thanks for looking.

Wolf Study

Wolf Study

8x8 Oil on Canvas Panel

This painting is a study painting for a commission.  The final piece will have a outdoors background.  Mainly I wanted to try playing with various colors and seeing about making fur texture.  The actual painting shows shadows a little better and the chin shows more definition than in this photo.  Thanks for looking.

Never Alone

Never Alone

5 x 7 Oil on Canvas Panel

This has been a year of journey in so many ways.  At the moment, I seem to be in a spiritual journey.  It seems life has been keeping me too busy for many important things including art.  So I needed to paint!  This was a quick, textured, multi color reminder to me that we are never alone.



Nexus (or The Nexus Ribbon)

Nexus (or The Nexus Ribbon)

16x20 Oil on Canvas Panel

Star Trek fans will understand the title.  Of course, this is my interpretation of The Nexus Ribbon.  This painting wasn't started with this in mind; this is just what it reminded me of as it developed.  Thanks for looking!

Fall Tree #2

Fall Tree #2

11x14 Oil on Canvas Panel

This was my 2nd go round on our Painting Buddies Challenge.  I decided since abstracts are more my thing, I needed to make these challenge paintings my way.  So using the same reference photo, this is my updated challenge painting.  For this I blended the colors a lot more to give it a more abstract look yet I can see the tree in this.  I may try a 3rd  more abstract version. Who know!

Twilight Canyon

Twilight Canyon

16x20 Oil on Canvas with 5/8" canvas wrapped panel painted Burnt Umber.

This abstract makes me think of canyons with a river bed running through it.  I'm not sure I've ever actually seen a true canyon but photos of canyons always draw me.  This oil has layers upon layers of color and close up, you can see additional colors peeking through.  This painting was a lot of fun for me.  Blending colors is one of my favorite ways to paint.  This also keeps with the autumn colors kick I seem to be on lately.  Hope you enjoy this.  Thanks for looking.  

Autumn Tree

Painting Buddies Challenge #4
Autumn Tree

8x10 Oil on Canvas Panel

This is week four of our Painting Buddies Challenge, and we're continuing with the fall theme.  Denna (who selects are challenge) found a great image looking up through the tree at the sky.  It reminds me of the sponsored United Nations Pilgrimage trip for teens I had the privilege of going on when I was 16.  While our trip was in June, I have a photo of the Washington Monument that reminds me of this angle.  If I remember correctly, one of the guys on our trip laid on the sidewalk to take the photos for us.  It was a great time!  So this brings back good memories for me.  Fall colors are always a winner in my book!  In addition to that, I'm pretty pleased with the branches showing here and there through the leaves.  This painting has lots of texture to the leaves and bark. 

Thanks for looking!

Pumpkin Patch

Pumpkin Patch

5x7 Oil on Canvas Panel

This is week 3 of my painting buddies weekly painting challenge.  Autumn colors must appeal to us all since this is the 2nd week of an autumn related painting.  I just love all the gorgeous shades of orange we see in the fall and tried to show some of that here.  The green makes a nice contrast to the orange.  The stem on the reference photo had a nice curl to it; not sure I succeeded as well with that. 

 

"Oh how we love pumpkin season. You did know this gourd-ish squash has its own season, right? Winter, Spring, Summer, Pumpkin.... We anxiously anticipate it every year. ~Trader Joe's Fearless Flyer, October 2010"


Glacial Majesty

Glacial Majesty

16x20 Oil on Canvas

Lately I've seemed to be working on smaller canvases and was ready to go a little larger scale.  This 16 x 20 oil is very textured.  It helps the terrain.  While painting this, a map view or satellite view of glaciers kept coming to mind.  I'm pretty please with how this turned out - the terrain has a variety of colors, and the water area includes the algae around the outer edges. This was really a fun painting to do.  

Autumn Leaves

Autumn Leaves

8x8 Oil on Canvas Panel

Two artist friends and I get together weekly to paint.  Recently we decided we needed a weekly challenge for all three of us to complete while also giving us an opportunity to stretch our talents.  Since I prefer abstract painting, this might be a little more challenging for me!  The Daily Paintworks Sky Challenge last week was what we started with.  This week, our challenge was an autumn leaf.  Of course, we each use our own interpretation.  So I chose to add several leaves to my painting.  

The Sky's the Challenge

The Sky's the Challenge!

8x10 Oil  on Canvas.

This was last week's Daily Paintworks Challenge. While I actually painted this one - and the previous one posted - last week, I just didn't get them painted and submitted during the active challenge time. The idea of this challenge was a sky with instructions to be brave with color and have fun!

 

The Sky's the Challenge - Abstract

The Sky's the Challenge - Abstract

8x10 Oil Abstract on Canvas.

This was last week's Daily Paintworks Challenge.  While I actually painted this one - and the next one to be posted - last week, I just didn't get them painted and submitted during the active challenge time.  The idea of this challenge was a sky with instructions to be brave with color and have fun!  This painting was not taking shape to suit me, and I was just going to scrape off the canvas and start over.  Since I'm an abstract lover and new technicques are so much fun to me, I ended up really liking the scraped off look.  It's a technique I plan to experiment more with.

Flare

Flare

11 x 14 Oil on Canvas Panel

This painting almost got named Sanity! Recently I had a couple of MRIs done back to back.  So while in the MRI machine for almost an hour and a half, I was trying to keep my mind busy and ignore all the noise.  This is the image that came to me while I was lying there.  For me, I can interpret the image a couple different ways which is exactly why I love abstracts!  Since it's fall, I also apparently seem to be in an autumn colors mode.  

Mountain Scene

Mountain Scene

16 x 20 Acrylic Palette Knife Painting

I'm still in my autumn colors mood.  This entire painting was done with a palette knife.  While I've done several of my abstracts with a palette knife, this is the first time I've tired using one for a landscape painting.  This was fun!  Really enjoyed figuring out the different ways to hold the palette knife to get the thickness or thinness needed for each area in the painting.  Thanks for looking!

Autumn Splendor

Autumn Splendor

16 x 20 Oil
Have been strongly pulled lately to get back to the abstracts I love painting the most!  With autumn upon us, several of my recent paintings have been leaning toward fall colors.  It's my favorite time of year and one of my favorite color palettes.  This painting brings several different images to my mind.  See what it brings to yours. 

Ecclesiates 3:1 There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens:

At the Cross Roads

At the Cross Roads

22x28 Acrylic on Canvas
It took a while to decide upon a title. While I see one thing and would hang this one of two ways, a friend of mine sees something else and would hang it one of the two opposite ways.  For me, that's the beauty of contemporary abstract, everyone can see what has meaning to him.  This painting was a real change for me.  It took on a life of its own!  It actually started out as multiple brown tones and a totally different look.  This was also the first time I've worked with glazes.  While I'm not sure it did much for this painting, I look forward to working more with glazes.  Thanks for looking!

Reflections IV

Reflections IV

Acrylic on 11 x 14 5/8" gallery wrapped canvas

This is the fourth in the Reflections series.  For now, this is the last one but who knows if I'll decide to play with more color combinations.  My thoughts on this one were the black, red, and gray might give it a more edgy look.  Not sure if that's what I successed with but I still like it.  Thanks for looking.

Reflections III

Reflections III

Acrylic on 11 x 14 5/8" gallery wrapped canvas

This is third in the Reflections series.  For this one I tried painting in different areas rather than vertical sections.  While working on it, I wasn't sure I liked it but as I look at it now, I'm pleased with it this way.  Fall colors are also some of my favorites so that gives this a wonderful look for this time of year.

Reflections II

Reflections II

Acrylic on 11 x 14 5/8" gallery wrapped canvas

This is second in my fun series of Reflections.  The bold bright colors give it a very contemporary look.  It looks great hanging on the wall!

Reflections I

Reflections I

Acrylic on 16 x 20 Canvas Panel

My mood this weekend was to do my favorite fun type of painting.  Love doing this kind because you never know how they're going to turn out.  One of my dad's favorite past times was to see what images he could see in the clouds....that's one of the things I like to do with this type of painting.  Each person will see different things.  What do you see?

Aubree's Puppy

Aubree's Puppy

8 x 10 Acrylic

One of my granddaughters called me last weekend to tell me she wanted a painting of a puppy for her birthday.  She wants to hang it in her room.  Since her birthday is today, there wasn't time for an oil painting to dry so I went ahead and gave it a try in acrylics which is much harder for me to work with.  I hope she'll like it!

Update:  My granddaughters reaction to painting was "Awesome!" 

From This Day Forward

From This Day Forward

12 x 12 Mixed Media Collage

This is my very first mixed media collage piece.  The inspiration for this is the current sermon series at church.  While this series is continuing, this piece is on display at the church.  I really enjoyed working with the mixed media and collage - from concept to finding various textures and materials to work with.  Hope you enjoy this, too.

Rolling Hills

Rolling Hills

11 x 14 Oil

I'm actually happy with how this turned out.  For me, this was an experiment with color to make the various hills of land.  I think it accomplished my goal.  This painting is currently framed in a mustard color frame that sets off the gold sections of the painting beautifully.

Golden Glow

Golden Glow

16 x 20 Mixed Media, Acrylic and Oil

Fall is my favorite season, and fall colors are among my favorite colors.  It's been a while since I've painted a landscape so the time seemed right to do something other than my usual.  In this painting, fall colors were my focus.  I'm pleased with all the variety of colors in my sky.  Thanks for looking.

 

Rose

Rose

8 x 10 Oil on Canvas Panel

This painting was originally going to be an art lesson for my grandson.  The timing of this was perfect - this was the Daily Paintworks Challenge posted this weekend.  My grandson changed his mind about trying to paint by gridding.  Since the photo and canvas panel were already prepped and it also fit in with the Challenge, I couldn't resist painting it!   I like the way the colors in the rose blend.  

Sara

Sara Sue

8 x 8 Oil on Canvas Panel

This is my other beloved and spoiled puppy, Sara.  She's starting to age and also hates having her photo taken! It was quite a challenge to get a photo I could work from.  I'm really pleased with how this panting of her turned out.

Snickers

Snickers (Snickerdoodle)

 

 

8 x 8 Oil on Canvas Panel

 

This photo doesn't quite do justice to Snickers.  For some reason, I couldn't get the colors to adjust to really represent the painting.  Love, love, love my puppies.  So had to give it a try to paint them.  May have to continue working on a better photo of this painting so you can see how she really looks.  Her eyes just speak to me. 

I think the second photo is a little truer to the actual painting. 



Flames of Motion

Flames of Motion

8 x 10 Oil on Canvas

This painting belongs in my personal "art therapy" collection! When I feel the need to just express emotion, these are the types of paintings I have a tendency to do.  I love them!

Fireworks

Fireworks

6 x 6 Oil on Canvas Panel

This was a painting my grandson and I both decided we were in the mood to try.  We had fun just playing with this.

Waterside View Asbstract

Waterside View Abstract

9 x 12 Oil on Canvas Panel
This is a third painting of the same waterside view.  It was a fun experiment to do paintings in different styles of the same thing.  This is a very textured abstract version.

Waterside View - Revised

Waterside View - Revised

16 x 20 Oil on Canvas Panel
While I really liked the more misty look of the original, it just felt like the background needed a tiny bit more detailed look. So this is the revision.  I still love the more misty look of the water and sky while getting more texture to the background.

Waterside View

Waterside View

16 x 20 oil on canvas panel.  This was inspired by the same print as the Waterside Village. I wanted something simpler, a little closer to abstract.   Photographing my art accurately is something I still struggle with.   Not sure the photo really shows the background as well as it should. In the actual painting, I love the way the sky and water blend.  The land background shows more depth in the original  My intent with this painting and the Waterside Village was to have something to go well with the other art in my office.  Not sure either of these are going to find a home there.  But it gives me motivation to keep working on just the "right" one to hang in my new office.  We'll all see what I continue to come up with. .  My grandson, who is becoming quite the little artist, is coming to spend some time with me. So I'm sure we'll be doing all kinds of painting soon!  Thanks for looking

Waterside Village

Waterside Village

16 x 20 acrylic on canvas panel.  This was inspired by a print that hangs on the wall in my office.  The original intention was to be an abstract but the painting just kept going!  This was fun.  Acrylic is usually a technique I use with abstracts.  White this isn't my usual style of painting, I do like this one.  The colors in the trees in the background, the village in the background turned out fairly close to what I had in mind.  

Color Spash 2

Color Splash 2

8 x 10 acrylic on canvas panel.  Repeating myself again, it's playing with techniqes that makes art fun for me.  I was still experimenting with the drips.  Not even sure how I did this one but it's got  wonderful texture to it!  I love it! It's hanging by my Canyon Rain, and the two go very well together.

Canyon Rain

Canyon Rain

16x20 Acrylic.

It's been a crazy few weeks so really needed some time out for fun with my art.  As I always say, it's the techniques I love playing with.  This one, though, I really enjoyed.  I love the colors, too.  Hope you enjoy it.

Koi Pond

Koi Pond

12 X 12 Mixed Media.

Water is my element plus I've always loved watching fish swim.  This is a painting I've wanted to do for quite some time.  Currently I seem to be in a technique experimenting mood.  For me, that's the most fun part of my art.  Overall, I think I'm pretty pleased with how this painting turned out although I'm not sure the photo shows this painting at its best.

Petals Abstract

Petals

11 x 14 Oil.  The idea for this was to create an abstract painting from a cropped photo.  For me, it's pretty obvious and not so much of an abstract.  But I'l still please with how it turned out.  I changed the colors to more of the oranges and browns which are more to my taste.  It was fun to get back to painting as I haven't had much time to do so for the past couple of weeks.

Bold and Wild Water Color

   

     

Water Colors from the Bold and Wild Water Color Workshop I attended this weekend.  I had an absolute blast with these!  Love the way the colors flow and blend.

Flow

Flow

11 x 14 Oil
This was the original idea for the Relay for Life donation. However, there wasn't time to let it dry.  This piece is very heavily textured; I think the most textured piece I've ever done.  It almost feels rubbery to touch.  Browns and blues are one of my favorite color combinations so you'll often see them in my paintings.

With the Flow

With the Flow

11 x 14 Acrylic on Canvas.

The idea for this painting came from our local Relay for Life.  They are having a silent auction this weekend of art pieces.  The theme is Fight Back.  I wanted to look at the positive side of fighting back and thought about the traits it would take to fight back....Faith, Love, Strength, Courage, and Hope.  Had I had more time, I would have preferred to try the theme a little differently and in oils as they are so much easier for me to blend.  I may have to go ahead and try that at a later date and will be sure to post the results.  In the end, though, I like the idea of this painting.  It's going to be great fun to see all the different interpretations of Fighting Back!

This weekend is also the local Festival of Arts.  This past year has been a year of stepping out of my box and letting people see my art work.  I'm actually going to have a display at the Festival this weekend.  It's going to be a fun time!


Color Splash

Color Splash

16x20 Acrylic on Canvas Panel.

I've always loved the abstracts with the slashes of color in them but wasn't sure how to get started with them.  I had great fun experimenting with this one!  Love the splashes of bronze and blue.  Planning to try some more in this style.  One of my grandsons is a budding artist, and he's going to give one of these a try, too.  Thanks for looking.