Danielle

Danielle  oil -  6 x 6 

A friend of mine asked me to paint two small paintings, of two of her granddaughters with their horses, in time for her to give them as a Christmas gift. This is the first of the set. This photo is so beautiful that this would be beautiful painted much larger. It is rather difficult to get much detail in such a small painting especially when Danielle's face is about the size of a quarter on this 6x6 canvas. These little paintings will make lovely gifts. If you know this family don't tell them that a painting of them is posted on my blog.  It will be a surprise this Christmas. 

Becky

Becky - oil  6 x 6

This is one of the gals from BYC, wearing a derby on the day of the Kentucky Derby. It's taken a while to finish this because I just haven't been satisfied with it. Also, I have been busy with vacations, art shows and mowing (as a result of record breaking rain falls) therefore posting weekly on my blog was put on hold. Now, I am back!  I will be posting my progress on some of the larger paintings I will be working on, for wedding gifts, The Frederick Holiday Poster Competition, and commissioned paintings for Christmas presents.  This month some of my paintings were sold at a wonderful art show called Art at the Mill, in Virginia. The Mill will be having another show in the spring that I would like enter with new paintings. In addition to all these commitments, I said I would post a new painting every week, but now I am way behind.  I counted about 40 daily paintings I have done so far. That makes 16 more paintings I'll need to do before years end. Wow!

Gidget

Gidget  oil - 8 x 8

A German Shorthaired Pointer who wants to play ball. Is there any other kind? I got together with some friends to paint, but I forgot to bring any reference materials to paint from, so I borrowed this photo from my friend Emily of her dog Gidget. Emily said she would trade this painting for one she will paint of my dog Tug. I'll bet I am getting the better end of this deal.

Princess Erin

Princess Erin  oil - 6 x 6

This is Baltimore Yacht Club's princess Erin, returning to BYC, on the bow of her commodore's boat,  after the Queen of the Chesapeake Pageant. I loved the way the light falls on her and the view of her from behind gazing over the piers.

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.