Sugar n' Spice Winter 5"x7" acrylic #173

I lost my camera which is kind of sickening, because it seems like such a waste of an expensive tool. Anyway, I have ordered a new one, but in the waiting-for-it-to-arrive time I have to scan any painting I do and that is tricky. This one looks pretty good. It is of a working sugaring barn and popular restaurant which is open for breakfast and lunch. It is not far from where I live so I see it everyday. A sugaring barn is where they boil down maple sap into syrup. I have painted this in other seasons. In the fall they tap all the sugar maples around the place so there are buckets hanging from the trees. They have some old farm equipment and cars there which give it a rustic and picturesque look against the mountains. I used acrylic so it would dry fast so that I could scan it. I kept it loose and tried to have strong brush strokes.

Barrier to Perception 5x7" oil #172

This painting is a re-do of an earlier painting I did. I changed the painting he is looking at to a Pollock and put in the electronic barrier that keeps patrons at a safe distance from the painting. I like how he is leaning in to get as close as possible to this massive image. It looks like the painting is going to suck him in!

kneeling nude 6x6" oil #171

I am all goofed up and have scheduled 3 important things for the same time slot this afternoon, including an online arts radio show I am the featured artist for. UGH! So I feel like burying my head in a pillow and just hiding from the universe!

Ink Portrait #170 ink 6x6"

Headed home today. Parked the car in the road so Carl could snowblow the drive and walkways. I came in, built a fire, turned on the thermostats and baked potatoes and brownies in the oven to facilitate warming up the house. Life is good and this relaxed pose reflects that.

mug shot 6x6 ink #169

This isn't really a mug shot, but Karin Jurik is doing a series of 100 4"x4" portraits from mug shots and I think this one kind of looks like it could be one. The model almost fell asleep during this pose and it was a short one...which is why her eyes look so droopy!

Celebrate oil 6x6 #168

More merriment....

Be Joyful oil 6x6 #167

Merry Christmas

Joy watercolor 6"x6" #166

This was from a photo challenge. It is my merry Christmas-weve greeting to everyone. It is difficult for me to get even a little study completed these last few days, and I know so even more for the next few. It really makes me respect all those painters out there that are doing really fine work every single day. Just to attempt to touch upon their discipline humbles me. I think that is true for everyone who is dedicated to what they do. I am enjoying the playful approach I am taking to discovering watercolor and it is so easy to clean up!

Everything's Coming Up Roses 4"x6" watercolor #165

Some days everything just goes right. In my life this is the exception, but yesterday was one of those incredibly easy days, full of fun surprises, and it snow, snow, snowed so beautifully. I have been playing around with watercolor and discovering what it can do and yesterday it did roses. I think I am getting into the spirit of the season.

Zumba 8"x8" acrylic #164

My goal with this painting was to get a reasonable likeness of Lisa, the Zumba instructor, and to create a feeling of movement...hence the blurred hand and foot. I could have increased this by shifting her weight a little more so she was a tad bit off balance. It is a mirror reflection so I hope that comes across.
SOLD

Check the Weather 5x7" watercolor #163

My husband is one of those guys who is always saying to me, "Could you check the weather?" This means, go to the computer and see what it says on weather.com. I find this amusing because we live in a house with lots of windows and a climate that always cold and snowy in the winter, so why not just go look outside. So this is the view out our upstairs bathroom window. It is two roof lines with snow, a birch tree, a mountain covered in snow, a grayish sky and a chimney with snow. Honey, it's cold and snowy outside. I think I will go skiing. (still experimenting with watercolor)

Orange Target 6"x6" oil #162

This is a really simple subject....it was fun to paint the value and color changes and is a good exercise...it looks a little lonely....but it makes me think of Christmas stocking...we are nuts and fruit kind of stocking stuffer people.

Fluffy 6"x6" oil #161

This is a piece I have reworked several times. I am finally happy with it. Little Fluffy has gone from a menacing Yapper who was a scraggly,
poor excuse for a fashion statement, to the made-over version who just wants to be your friend. I took off the leash, closed his mouth, changed the attitude of his tail, and generally fluffed him out and made him softer. Sometimes the paint brush is better than reality. I really like the top-down perspective, but in some cases it just doesn't work so well.

Sunrise over the Canyon 7"x7" watercolor #160

I tried another watercolor. I have a lot to learn but each time I do one I figure out more. This was from an artist's daily photo challenge. I used to live in the Grand Canyon so this is a very familiar and stirring image for me. I am not confident with what watercolor paint will do, and painting the Grand Canyon seems challenging, except that I remember that it is all just shapes, colors and values and it becomes manageable.

A Walk With Paw-Paw oil 5"x7" #159

I am so not with the holiday this year. Today I am going skiing for the first time this season, so maybe that will stir up some sentimental feelings. I haven't done any Christmas shopping, however this painting is a present to my husband. When we are with our grandson, Carl gets up early every day and he and Ollie take a long walk together. It is their special time. This painting isn't a masterpiece, but it is loaded with love.
SOLD

still life with onion and garlic oil 6"x6" #158

I don't really have a title for this yet. It is a study in gray but I guess that is not really obvious. When I did this I was in that almost meditative state of hard looking. It is difficult for me to enter that place but the results are always a lot better when I do. I am by nature a "cut the corners" kind of person, so I rush most of my paintings and I need to slow down and look, look, look. I get a feeling of elation when I enter this zone, so that makes the painting memorable to me. Some people may not like the "black hole" but I do, and I love all the round shapes and the "kissing points" and all the other rules this doesn't follow.

Highland Lighthouse 5x7" oil #157

When I am painting I constantly am questioning how much detail. Lisa Daria has the amazing ability to capture wonderful planes of color and value with the most minimal of detail. Claudia Hammer keeps her subjects simple but uses glowing color and strong shadows to give the impression of detail. Jonathan Aller's still life paintings are in a silent world of their own...minimal subject matter with perfect detail. Karen Bruson has wonderful painterly strokes that are so loose they seem to almost want to dance away, but she has a fair amount of detail in her work. I vacillate between detail and less detail. I really tried with this one to just talk about the surfaces and only give enough detail for it to be recognizable.
SOLD

Under Cover 5"x7" oil #156

The model struck a reclining pose and we set up for a 1/2 hour session. A couple of minutes into it I noticed she was twitching all over. I thought she was going to have a seizure but it turned out she was just freezing cold, so we covered her up and took a break. This is as far as I got. It is a winter wonderland here and we need to remember to kick the heat up for the models. I like the quick little portrait though.

Samara the Teething Garden Fairy 8"x10" watercolor #155

This is the second (and last) painting I did in Robert O'Brien's workshop this weekend. It was a watercolor landscape workshop, so I don't know what I was thinking when I chose this image to paint, but it is all about shapes, right? I really like watercolor and it requires me to exercise a huge amount of patience, which is good for me, but I love the immediacy of oils and the edginess I get with those. I want to keep practicing with this medium, but also keep up with the oils, which is already a challenge. A samara is a maple seed (also called helicopters). It is appropriate for my granddaughter, Samara, to be a little fairy in the garden, however she is the teething queen of fairies, so something has to go in the mouth. In this case it is her tutu. I am still struggling with grays, and I am not referring to my hair color.
SOLD

Snowy East Mountain Barn 14"x18" watercolor #154

I am taking a watercolor workshop with Robert Obrien www.robertjobrien.com this weekend. He is a master at watercolor, a medium I have always wanted to use but haven't had the courage to try, except one workshop last year. So this is my first watercolor landscape and I am happy with the results. It is such a wonderful thing to observe an artist doing a demo because I think that is where I really learn. The way he swishes the brush, paint and water on his palette is where the work happens and applying the paint is the magic. As Lisa Daria (lisadaria.blogspot.com) said today, "The best thing about painting with other people is you get critiqued which results in hearing ideas about your work you wouldn't normally think of."