Resting Puma

Resting Puma

Oil on Canvas

12x12"

$288

 

     In our neighborhood, we call them cougars or mountain lions, but puma is closer to their scientific name. This is another of my Animal Ark friends. She was on her perch gazing serenely into the distance with her great soft paws crossed, ears down and peaceful.

Lovely Rita

Lovely Rita

Oil on Canvas

6 x 6"

$100

     This face turned out fairly good. When they do not turn out, I could blame it on their faces being just too hard to paint, but that is impossible. They are some of the world's best faces, very symmetrical, perfectly aligned, ideally composed. The true problem lies in the artist and her ability to make them as beautiful as they really are.

   

Moonlight Coyote

Moonlight Coyote

Oil on Canvas

14x11"

$308

     Here is a handsome coyotito. He lives at Animal Ark. 

     My journey with color has many chuck holes. I did not know this would turn out so midnight-ish by drawing with prussian blue, but the moon can cast shadows just as the sun does, so I decided to allow my palette to lead me on into the night even though my subject was photographed in bright midday.

Sunny Side Up

Sunny Side Up

Oil on Canvas

11 x14"

$308

     The matilijas near me at Sierra College, Nevada County Campus, were in such a huge, dense array that people slowed down to look, got off their bikes to take pictures. I liked the way this shot showed them in a sort of tumbling cascade.

Not Gene

Not Gene

Oil on Canvas

6x6"

$100

 

     Painting these little faces is my favorite studio time. I always start with someone specific in mind, but as I paint, the face so often turns into someone else. That someone seems so real to me that I allow it to be and enjoy it instead of fretting over not capturing the likeness I had in mind at the beginning. I realize this kind of thinking would not take me very far if I were in the portrait painting business.

Winking Fox

Winking Fox

Oil on Canvas

11x14"

$308

     We enjoy visiting rescued wild animals at Animal Ark in Reno where I took this picture. I thought this adorable fox was asleep on his little shelf, but when I looked more closely I saw that he was watching me.

Matilija 2

Matilija 2

Oil on Canvas

12x9"

$216

     The matilija poppies are big wonderful wildflowers growing everywhere in early summer. They are known as the Queen of California Wildflowers. (Some people think they look like fried eggs.) They are large, maybe 6" or more across. They are pretty fabulous to see growing in huge clusters as you drive along. Painting them is a good discipline in painting white.

Susans Bunch 5

Susans Bunch 5

Oil on Canvas

9x12"

$216

     More susans, this time on a warm background. Painting the warm flowers on a cool background is a big challenge.  So easy to turn out as a 50/50 painting and I do not want that.

     Painting a series presents many opportunities to work out problems. The next composition is lined up and I am eager to get started. I will try again for the warm on cool and try to get the proportions right this time.

Susans Bunch 2

Oil on Canvas

12x9"

$216

     Black-eyed Susans, there must be hundreds of them in that little corner of the yard. One photograph yields dozens of compositions. Nature provides.

Susans, Bunch 1

Oil on Canvas

14x11"

$308

     Another gift from this good garden. One corner filled with woody dead stalks came forth in a profusion of black-eyed susans. A series on each of the flowers I discover here would keep me happily occupied for a good long time.

Floppy Roses

Oil on Canvas

8x8"

$128

     We have roses at our new place, and they are where the deer cannot get them. I am hoping for many poses from these roses. 

     This little painting took four tries. I just knew it could work out although I decided to give it up over and over again. I really expect a lot from my canvas to withstand the scrubbings it sometimes has to go through.

Ava 2

Oil on Canvas

6x6"

$100

I have a lot to say about this. First, my subject is so fabulous that it is impossible to capture even a fragment of her beauty. Second, this is not what I am aiming for. I wanted it to be much more abstract, but I got caught in the process of finding her presence that I forgot to be expressive with my paint. Some faces are easy to paint and others resist it. This one resisted. I worked very hard on it. I should have known I was heading down the wrong path. If it is that hard, I am probably too deep into the parts that I do not want to paint but that are jumping up and down demanding attention. I want it to be a painting, not a drawing. 

So am I going to keep it? Yes.

Phoebe

Oil on Canvas

12x12"

sold

     Last week I painted Phoebe for a friend to give to a friend. I do not know Phoebe personally, so I used a photo reference. I think she looks like a dear, and she probably is. After all, someone wants her portrait.

     I often use photo references, but they are almost always ones I take myself. Even the ones of wild animals I take at Animal Ark in Reno.

     Phoebe certainly does not look wild. What a gentle soul.

Simone

Oil on Canvas

6x6"

$100

     So many faces, so little time.

Stella 6

Oil on Canvas

6x18"

$100

     Another little magnolia. This time on an extreme rectangle.

Dark Glow

Oil on Canvas

6x6"

$100

     I will not point out the specific flaws that I now see. There are probably plenty that I still do not see. I just cannot see everything.  If I keep looking, maybe I will get better at seeing. Our own faces are not perfectly perfect either. I still think she is beautiful.

Stella 3

Oil on Canvas

8x8"

$128

     These little flowers continue to delight me. I hope to paint many more.

Young Buck

Oil on Canvas

10 x 8"

$160

     This hungry guy got caught with the evidence right in his mouth. "Flowers? What flowers?"

Lauren

Oil on Canvas

6 x 6"

$100

     Faces. Without doubt, my favorite thing to paint. I am currently choosing the black and white photographs of the actresses of the 1940's. The lighting is usually interesting, and the poses are a mixture of allure and innocence or pure sophistication. I prefer that to the broad, heavy-handed treatment of sex-appeal that is so often used these days.

Three Galas

Three Galas

Oil on Canvas

12 x 12"

$288

     Bill enjoys Galas and I enjoy Fujis. He says tomaytoes and I say tomahtoes. In any language, red apples, upside down or right side up, are wonderful to paint.

Doug

Doug

Oil on Canvas

6 x8"

$96

     The big gray squirrels drank at our birdbath all the time and I loved them. Then one day there was a new kid on the block, a douglas squirrel. Smaller, more color, and just adorable. He is a favorite now, but the birdbath did not survive the move, and our new location is a bit too low in elevation for the douglas. The grays are here though and I am glad about that.

Stella 2

Stella 2

Oil on Canvas

8 x 6"

$ 96

     Another of those blooms from my new garden.

Stella 1

Stella 1

Oil on Canvas

6 x 6"

$75

     We moved. From big house to little house. Have you ever done it? It is an amazing experience requiring more creativity than painting a picture. 

     One day I saw that a crummy, dead looking bush in the new yard had sprouted the most delicate blossoms--a stellata magnolia! It kept changing daily and showing forth more and more blossoms. I photographed it for days. It was wonderful--until the deer ate every last flower in one night.

     I still have the photos though. How good of my new place to give me this gift to start me up painting again after being away from the easel for so long during the move.