582 Fuyu Line

Fuyu Line

oil on canvas

8x24" 

$288

     This year's series of persimmons has been fun. Next week we go to the Mandarin Festival in Newcastle CA where I hope to find my favorite little oranges with stems and leaves still on. I will be needing new material for next year.

     

581 Eli

Eli

oil on canvas

12x9"

$216

     Eli lives at Animal Ark in Reno NV. His ears are very short because they froze off before the good people in Reno could rescue him. I took this picture of him considering a reddish fruit. I think it was a carrot, but since I do not paint carrots very well, I turned it into a tomato. I hope it is true that bears eat tomatoes. If not, then this is an example of artistic license.

Persimmon Crowd

oil on canvas

6x18"

$162

     Sometimes when I paint these little orange fruits, they begin to take on personality. I think of them as individuals, people, boys and girls, friends. But at dinner time I don't think about that.

578 California Apple

California Apple

oil on canvas

12x9"

$216

     It is harvest time for apples and persimmons in Northern California, so I must hurry to get my photography done before they are all gone to market. The trees are beautiful fully laden with their fruit. I just take lots of pictures of the trees, go home, download, and look for the paintings in the trees. One tree can give me several compositions to choose from. I feel so rich.

577 Red Zinnia

Red Zinnia

oil on canvas

9x12"

$216

     I believe this is the most difficult piece I have done all year! It was not the white on white that was the problem. It was all the little bitty details in the phone itself. And I left most of them out.

575 Peach with Leaves

Peach with Leaves

oil on canvas

18x6"

$162

     I had toned the canvas with Venetian Red and then found the reddish peach looked pretty on it. I decided to keep the color of the toned canvas but thickened the surface with more paint. The colors worked for me and I had very little more to do. It was like the painting said, "Here, Cheryl. We are going to give this one to you."

     Thank you very much.

574 Peeking Deer

Peeking Deer

oil on canvas

16x12

$384

     It was pretty cute. This one was standing behind the tree and peeked out to look at me when I took his picture. He was coming in to get a drink at the birdbath (the one that got broken when we moved). Now we have a new birdbath and I am hoping for visits from our new neighbors, the family of deer that lives here in the woods near us. I need fresh material.

573 Greta in Blue Cap

Greta in Blue Cap

oil on canvas board, cradled

6x6"

$100

     I measured her face to see how she stacked up to the Golden Ratio. Point for point perfection. I love her in Ninotchka, when she says, "Must you flirt? Suppress it."

572 Pink Camellias

Pink Camellias

oil on canvas

14x11"

$308

     As you may know, flowers give me trouble. Our camellias this year were so beautiful and I love that pretty pink color. I am just always worried that my paintings of flowers will look trite, and they often do.

     I did enjoy composing the canvas though. I am interested in the divine proportion. If you multiply the length and width of the canvas by .618, you arrive at a result that is better than the rule of thirds. I never brag about my math skills, but I find the way the divine ratio works is great fun.

571 Madison B

Madison B

oil on canvas

12 x 12"

     I do not do commissions. I have said it before and I say it now. But when I saw Madison, I knew I would make an exception. She struck me as truly exceptional.

     She did, however, remind me of why I do not do commissions. First, she is a brown dog. How to make the brown look beautiful? Then there are her white spots. How to include them without it looking stupid? And I never would have been able to reproduce her spots and not someone else's spots. So leave them out.

     Her eyes though turned out more easily. I did work on them quite a while and used all the tricks in my art bin, but I did not find them to be problematical. I hope her family agrees with me.

     

570 For Julee

For Julee

oil on canvas

12x9"

     Julee did a big favor for my sister when she needed some serious help after her hospital stay. As a way of saying "thank you," my sister asked her favorite artist (me) to paint Julee's adorable dog as a gift. Here is the little darling, and, as usual, I fall in love with the subjects I paint.

569 Peach with Leaf

Peach with Leaf

oil on canvas

6x18"

$162

 

     The Growers Market is the best place to find fruit with the leaves still on. I bought several and then photographed them right away because I knew they would not last. I was right. We ate them immediately. Local summertime peaches--heavenly!

568 Teapot

Teapot

oil on canvas

24x8"

$288

 

     I suppose most everyday objects are rich material for metaphors, but my favorites are shoes and teapots. When I paint a teapot I can think about the setting, who is doing the preparing, who is doing the drinking, what they are doing and thinking or dreaming. For me, a teapot holds more than just tea.

567 Drinking Fawn

Drinking Fawn

oil on canvas

12x9"

$216

     They eat everything in sight. Now something cool to wash it down.

     Our birdbath gave us joy with the visits of so many birds and animals. How sorry we were that it got broken when we moved into town.

566 Marlene D

Marlene D

oil on canvas

6x6"

$100

     I like Marlene very much, but she is just a little scary. Those eyes seem to say to me that she means business.

     She is most often seen in her movies as a blonde but this image suggests quite dark hair. It looks good.

     My favorite of her movies is Witness for the Prosecution.

565 Line Up with Leaves

Line Up with Leaves

oil on canvas

8x24"

$288

    It is fun to arrange the fruit in a long line and paint them on an extreme rectangle canvas. I have enjoyed including the crease in the linen.

     

564 Deer Nibbles

Deer Nibbles

oil on canvas

11x14" 

$308

     We love the deer, but they eat EVERYTHING! I caught this young buck right in the act.  He looked at me as if to say, "What?"

563 Loretta

Loretta

oil on canvas

6x6

$100

     Same old problem, they are more beautiful than I can make them. I am doing better these days with the likeness though.

562 Mandarin Leaf Closeup

Mandarin Leaf Closeup

oil on canvas

6x6"

$75

     Sometimes if I zoom in, I find lovely new possibilities.

Mandarin Leaf

oil on canvas

9x12"

$216 

     Must paint them fast. So good to eat.

560 Sumi

Sumi

oil on canvas

12x9"

$216

     I love sumi painting and these brushes have so much character. (All my brushes are beautiful.) So I decided to paint their portrait.

558 Louise B

Louise B

oil on canvas

6x6"

$100

     Louise Brooks--I have painted her several times. I enjoy her "garconne" look, but I do not worry too much about likeness since her haircut identifies her so quickly. But this time I really did try to get a good likeness because I met the president of the Louise Brooks Society, and if anyone would notice if I got it right or not, he would.

557 Mandarin Shadow

Mandarin Shadow

oil on canvas

8x10"

$160

    It is a lucky find when the fruit still has stems and leaves. I bought the whole bunch and took lots of photographs. When I saw this one, I knew I wanted to paint it right away. At first I did not notice the crease in the linen. When I did, I had to decide whether to leave it in or leave it out. I am very pleased to have left it in. Don't know much about painting drapery, but I like the way this little wrinkle turned out.

556 Lemon Squeeze

Lemon Squeeze

oil on canvas

8x10"

$160

     I am trying to develop my still life painting, and I love to paint fruit, but utensils are a different story. In my kitchen I use the reamer regularly as I do my steel bowls, but I bet I will not paint them again any time soon. The bowl was not as hard as I expected it to be, but the reamer was ten times harder.

555 Sliced Boscs

Sliced Boscs

oil on canvas

8x16"

$256

     Although bosc pears look quite brownish, they sometimes also have a lovely orangey color that goes well with blue. Because orange and blue are complementary, the orange came out really, really orange, and the blue really, really blue. They could have used a little neutralizing or some split complement work. Aside from that, I love that little star shape in the center when you cut a pear crosswise.