Texas Wildflowers

Ai yi yi.

It's blue bonnet time again, and they must be painted. So I tried some more robust color combinations and crammed all the wildflowers together in my thrift store loving cup. More exploration.

30 Minute Nude

This is another good model. She is absolutely perfectly still, AND she remains smiling the entire pose. Also, she has a very distinctive elongated head which is shaved on the sides, cut very close in the back and top front, and for the crown(!) a top knot of dreadlocks bleached to a very pale yellow. I always mean to get that top knot in the painting, but frequently, like this one, the adjustments that I have to make for that long head and face force the top of the head off the panel. Oh, but she is fun to draw and paint!

Rose for Pamela

This is a commissioned piece for another birthday present.

Mugshot 49: Possible Family Member

I have had this photo for awhile, thinking how I would go at it, than finally I had the idea. I didn't want it to be prettified or babied, hence the brown background. I have had a bad cold during the painting so there have been lots of stops and starts, never a good thing, but I kept at it even when it was clear it was overworked, just to finish and see what I could do with it. The child is very serious in the photo, and I wanted to get that. Also, of course, the luminous skin. I think a large part of getting beautiful skin is using lots of thick paint, which makes skin on all its own. I didn't accomplish this, somehow I forgot about loading up the brush. Anyway, I'll have another go at it when I'm using all my cylinders. But I did like the positioning of the head in the space and the size of her, that was the most successful part.

Larry's Bouquet

This is a little painting for the birthday of my friend and neighbor, Larry, who grows loverly flowers and then he and his wife let me have cutting privileges in their garden. They are the Veuve Cliquot of neighbors.

Mugshot 47

This was a straight forward attempt to just get a likeness! I finally got it though after a few wipe downs. Mostly the likeness just appears without too much agony if all the shapes and darks are correct, but sometimes, if I can't get it fairly soon in the process, I can't see things correctly any more. And then I want to put my foot through it.

Blue Bottle #2

Another go at the fish oil bottle. I set this up as a color problem also, using the complement of blue, orange, and an analogous color to it, pink. Sometimes I can make things work in the set up and I can't quite get it in the paint. This sort of works overall though, making an orange painting with some blue in it. Soon, the reverse.

Blue Bottle #1

This blue bottle is the fish oil bottle I have been saving to paint, and I've been looking at in the studio for a few weeks, thinking, I will have to get used to it first and do a get acquainted painting. I also made a gold foil box to use in set ups for some reflective surface. I learned a lot on this one, particularly with edges and color.

Chicken Leg on Paper Towel

This is a raw chicken leg, but the lights... they sort of cook it as you go. This makes for much more interesting colors in the flesh, but also promotes thoughts of becoming a vegetarian.

Black Pansies, Pink Box

One more black pansy -- I had a smallish block of time for painting today, and so another little one.

Pink Cyclamen/Orange

This is a plant brought back from the dead. I have been trying to get to it to paint before it got any more complicated. Those pink heads bunch up into an unrecognizable mass really quickly, then there are all those patterned leaves to deal with. They are strange and beautiful, though.

Black Pansies in Little Vase

Nice to do a quiet little one after all that cowboy, gun-totin' stuff.