Jeff

Jeff  oil - 6 x 6

Jeff is an officer at Baltimore Yacht Club and only the second painting of BYC members I have done. I will be taking this painting and a few other little paintings down to the Member's Art Show on Saturday at BYC. I was hoping to have a few portraits of members to bring but I only have Inside Joke and Jeff finished. Maybe, if I bring my painting supplies to the boat, I can get one or two more painted next week during my "Week on the Island".

Einstein

Einstein  oil - 12 x 6

Einstein is my brother and sister in-law's beautiful, black, lab. He is friendly and seems to have a way with the ladies. Every where he goes girls make fuss over him.  He doesn't seem to mind. I painted this in a day as a daily painting but I like this photo so much I may paint it again in a much more controlled style.

Update: 

I refined the original daily painting of Einstein and uploaded this new photo of it. Now I like this painting much better. It is still very loose and painterly but it looks more finished.

Inside Joke

Inside Joke  oil - 8 x 10

Here are two members of Baltimore Yacht Club enjoying just being friends. I loved this photo when I saw it in the collection of photos I took of the Post Queen of the Chesapeake Pageant celebration. The lighting and the composition was just so wonderful I knew I had to paint it.

Jovan - Blue Man

Jovan - Blue Man  oil - 7 x 5 

I painted this on a dark burgundy primed canvas to see if I liked starting with a darker value and working lighter instead, of the medium value I usually begin with. This forced me to look and paint the values in a different way. I started with the highlights and worked towards the medium values and then changed the the dark values to cooler or warmer colors where they were needed. I plan on experimenting with different colors of primed backgrounds to see how they effect my paintings. 

Sarah "Our Angel"

Sarah (Our Angel)  oil - 6 x6

Beautiful Sarah's life was taken from her but her spirit still lives in the family that loved her. Her Mom asked  me to paint this for a Father's Day gift for Sarah's dad. I can think of nothing quite as sad as the loss of a child  no matter what their age. Sarah was loved, and is very much missed every day.

Amanda

 Amanda  oil - 8 x 8

She is the middle daughter of my three daughters, but the last to have a daily painting done. Amanda has always been very photogenic so I am sure I will be painting her again. This photo was taken of her after she had been tubing behind our boat on the Middle River in Essex, Maryland two weeks ago. I really enjoy painting sunglasses on sunny faces and this was no exception. 

"Paint an Egg" Challenge

Reflecting Diversity  oil - 6 x 6

The Tuesday's lunch group met yesterday to reveal our paintings of the Spring Challenge to paint a painting of an egg (somewhere in the painting). Above is my painting of eggs I started painting at 7 pm the night before. Talk about procrastination! Eggs, I found, are not as easy as they look to paint but still a cool subject.  The fall challenge will be 4 months away since it seems we revealed the Spring challenge a month early (oops, my bad). The silver lining to having the spring challenge early is that we should have plenty of time to work on the Summer Challenge through the lazy, crazy days of summer. Below is the photo of those who attended lunch and a photo of the egg paintings with some painted eggs brought in to enhance the spirit of the challenge reveal.

We all had a wonderful time and are looking forward to our next challenge, selected this time, by Jodi. Thanks Jodi! 

Seasonal Challenge: Summer

Limited Pallet: primary colors, a warm and cool selection of each and white 

Rules:

You must paint an painting using only the colors you mix from the limited pallet of a: 

"warm" and "cool" Red

"warm" and "cool" Blue

"warm" and "cool" Yellow

and white

So an example of your pallet might be:

alizarin red

cadmium red

ultramarine blue

cerulean  blue

indian yellow

yellow ocher 

white

You are not limited on your subject.

Have fun!

We will meet at Chef Lin's, in Frederick, MD, on October 4, 2011, at 12:30 to reveal our paintings.

Breitling

Breitling  oil - 8 x 8

I did a quick little study of Breitling, a cute little "Puggle", today. She was on our boat this past weekend sporting a new life jacket. I'm not sure if it was being on a boat or wearing the life jacket but she was not too happy about the whole thing. I think if we keep bringing her along she will learn to love it. 

Tulips

Tulips  oil - 8 x 8

Thank you Leesy for sending this cheerful photograph of tulips taken by your neighbor. I love tulips. You can't help but smile when you see them. Tulips were the flowers I chose for my April wedding, 27 year ago. The florist had to wax them open for my bouquet  so they would hold up all day but they were beautiful. 

Ocean Stones

Ocean Stones  oil - 9 x 6

This is a painting I did last fall of the coast of California. I loved all the vivid colors and shapes of the rocks in contrast to the algae in the ponds and the ocean in the background. I am working on a portrait this week but I didn't post it yet since I am not totally happy with it and I want to do an especially nice job on it. I'll post it next week. This painting is for sale, framed, on my web site for $180. 

It's Not Easy Being Green

A few of us artist get together every Tuesday for lunch so we came up with the first of hopefully many painting challenges, we agreed, to do every season. Today, after changing the date several times, we finally got together to show our Seasonal Challenge: Winter, "It's Not Easy Being Green". Below is a photo of the artists. You can see me taking the photo in the mirror (I kind of like that shot of me), and the paintings in the back ground.

This was a challenge not to use other colors and to focus on the values. I found I didn't like painting in only green and I think we all agree we are kind of sick of green. With that being said, I think the little paintings came out well. Many of the artist said they will go back now and add the colors they wanted to use. We had a wonderful time and are excited to see the Spring Challenge paintings.

"It's Not Easy Being Green"

NEXT

The Seasonal Challenge: Spring 2011

"Paint an Egg"

The only rule is there has to be some kind of egg or eggs some where in the painting.

We will meet the first Tuesday in June

at Chef Lin in Frederick, MD at 12:30 pm

to show our paintings.

Me, Myself Portrait

Me, Myself Portrait  oil - 8 x 8

This weeks Daily Paint Works' Challenge, "The all about Me", was to paint a self portrait. I just couldn't skip this challenge since I have been painting so many portraits of other people. It was time that I became my own victim. So, I grabbed my camera, ran out side, pointed the camera back at myself (not an easy trick with a full size 35 mm) and started clicking. In this photo I think I forgot to smile but I suspect this is how I must look when I am concentrating on my work.  

To see other entries click here: DPW Challenge  

Kathy

Kathy  oil - 6 x 6 

This is the first painting I have done since my return from Florida. A co-worker of my daughter, sent this photo of her friend's daughter, for me to paint. Kathy is such a cute little girl with beautiful intense eyes. I really enjoyed painting her.

Morning Watch

Morning Watch  oil - 6 x 6 

The Daily Paint Works Challenge this week was a color challenge. You were to paint a painting using a complimentary color scheme. I chose blue and orange but finding a subject that worked was the challenge for me.  I haven't entered the challenges in a couple of weeks since I have been doing portraits from the photographs that were sent to me. I wanted to do a portrait for this challenge but none of my stash of photos had just the right colors. Then, I stumbled upon some photos of our dog Tug taken a couple months ago. I had already painted Tug from one of the other photos, taken that day, in a much tighter way than this looser and smaller version of her. Tug and I go on a walks every morning and she loves to hunt for squirrels, chase squirrels and sit and watch squirrels. I named the painting Morning Watch  because this is Tug's morning (squirrel) watch face.  To see Morning Watch and other paintings entered in The Color Challenge click here: DPW Challenge.

Gigi

Gigi  oil - 6 x 6 (finished) 

I took a little time this morning to make a few minor changes. I am now pleased with the final painting.

Gigi  oil - 6 x 6

Gigi is another friend of Emily's. I am not pleased with how this turned out. The photo was beautiful so I can't blame that. Sometimes you just don't have a good painting day. I painted all day on it today and even though I'm not completely happy with it I am posting it anyway. Maybe I should take a day off from painting.