FINALLY, A DAY OF PAINTING!

I'm going to get started on some new paintngs this morning, yea. My new web site is going well. The server should have it up later today and then its just the changes to the shopping cart system. I say "just", those can be a real hassle. It sometimes takes days, even weeks of back and forth with the shopping cart creator to get all the kinks ironed out. Hopefully it won't take too much time out of each day.

I've got a new layout ready for a painting in the Passions of Nature series. Those take a few days to complete because of the glazing techniques that I am experimenting with. The leaves have a mosaic patterning make up of various colors on a ground shade that becomes the veins in the leaves. The background is a very impressionistic melding of colors, almost like clouds. I start with very strong, contrasting raw colors for each area and then start adding tinted glazes over the top. The glazing brings the two areas of the painting into harmony with each other and creates a richness in the overall look of the canvas. The finishing touch is to bing a few colors back out from under the glaze by repainting them on top of the glaze as accent colors. I will get the under painting done today.

I also have a drawing in progress for another huge elephant ear leaf painting. These "ears" will be purple instead of green, so I will do a whole new color story for this one. I want to try and really loosen up my technique on this one and make it very brush strokey and bold. I have some elephant ears growing in my backyard that I planted last year and am using as "models" for the painting. They are quite amazing, although you have to water them daily. I think I may get some of the purple ones for another area of the yard next year. They are a great huge bulb and you plant them very early in the spring...even as early as February.

Today I'm attaching a couple of my funky Flat-Coat paintings. These are very personal, since the models are my own two Flat-Coated Retrievers, Traveler and Oona. I've attached their picture, too, along with my two cats Fred and Ethel so you can get to know the whole family. That's Fred's rear in the second painting! I listed both of these paintings on eBay one day when I was short of listings. I didn't think anyone would be interested in them. Much to my surprise, they both sold and there was a bidding war for the one called "Doggie Discourse" and I ended up getting a very high price for it. It went to a lovely woman in Tasmania Australia, who I know is enjoying it very much. That made me feel better, because I was actually planning on keeping them. Art is to share. It is better for me, as an artist, to sell them and move on.