"Seeing Spots"

What was I thinking when I set up this still life? Elipses are challenging to paint. Printed fabric can be tricky too. So putting 2 cups (lots of elipses) on a printed fabric is crazy!

Available: $85+ $10 shipping. Or send me an e-mail.

"Summer's End"

I would think that the more times you painted an object the better you would get at it. I don't find that to always be true for myself. My favorite of these pumpkin paintings is the first one I painted. This one came out well (I especially like the thick paint) but the first ones are still the best I think. I wonder why that is. Maybe I'm most excited about it the first time I paint it?

Available: $75 + $10 shipping. Or send me an e-mail.

"Lost Maples"

Yay! Finally a landscape I feel good about. I still need much more practice but I see improvement!
Available: $75+ $10 shipping. Or send me an e-mail.

"October"

We went camping this weekend at Lost Maples. The trip inspired me to try a few more landscapes. Look for them soon.

Available: $75 + $10 shipping. Or send me an e-mail.

"Pequeño Pumpkins"
SOLD

Often times when I'm working on a painting I'll get about half way through and wonder how I'm going to pull it all together. I had that feeling until the last 15 minutes or so on this one.

"Half Full"
SOLD

This shadow doesn't have much purple in it but I like how it turned out. As usual for me, the handle of the mug gave me a hard time but I think I got it right.

"Harvest"

I like the color orange but avoid painting it sometimes because I have a hard time making shadows for it that don't look like mud. Orange and purple is one of my favorite color combinations so I decided to try a purple shadow. I think it's a little darker than it should be and this photo makes it look a little blue but I'm going to try purple shadows again in the future.

I was also trying (as always) to keep my brush strokes looser. It is so hard for me not to tighten up. I've been looking these artists with great stroke economy: Doug Braithwaite, Robert Frank, Kris Shanks & Karin Jurick.

Available: $75 + $10 shipping. Or send me an e-mail.

"3 Gourds"

I usually don't post on the weekends but I do paint. That way if the week gets hectic, I have a back-up painting or two. I worked on this painting Friday & Saturday. Hopefully this week will go smoothly so I'll have a painting to post each day.

Available: $150 + $10 shipping. Or send me an e-mail.

"Fall Gourds"

The fall is my favorite time of year. I live in Texas so it's still quite hot but I know the cool weather is coming. This one is bigger than I have been painting lately, it's a 8x10.

Available: $100 + $10 shipping. Or send me an e-mail.

I didn't paint yesterday. I moved my studio to a larger room! The image on the right shows my new larger space.

More landscape torture practice.

3 Lemons - Edited

Heh, heh. Ok, this is still one of my favorite paintings but something about it was bothering me. I'm sure someone noticed this but I just figured it out and fixed it. There was no cast shadow under the bowl! Here's the old version.

I'm enjoying doing daily paintings and I like the idea of posting them to a blog. However, it is so painful for me to post these landscapes I've been trying to do. They remind me of a ceramics class I took in college one summer. I wanted to get better at throwing so I went to the ceramics studio every day for 4-6 hours and threw pots and then threw them in a bucket when I was done so I could re-use the clay. I think I only kept 2-3 items from the whole semester. I never did get very good at throwing all though I did see a big improvement.

This is a quick little study I did of one Christopher Greco's paintings. It's not finished obviously, and it never will be. I wiped it off after I did it. I hope doing some studies will help me with my landscapes. They sure are frustrating me. But I remember feeling the same way about still lives a few months ago too. (Not that that still lives don't ever frustrate me anymore but it's gotten better).

"Independence"

The smaller plum in the front seems to be taking a small step away from the two behind it... I'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact that my daughter just started pre-school and is handling the transition better than I am.

Available: $75 + $10 shipping. Or send me an e-mail.

Ugh, I didn't want to post this. But it is what I painted yesterday so here ya go. I like to challenge myself and not just stick with what I know but man, this is so bad!

Here are some beautiful landscapes by Christopher Greco. (They're much easier on the eyes!)

"Red Pears on Blue Plate"
SOLD


Sigh. I really wish I was better at this whole naming business. That's about as boring as a title as you can get huh? This isn't the best photo. Every time I try to photograph a big block of red it tends to kind of blob together. I have a hard time getting the color variations.

I've been wanting to try painting landscapes for some time but I've been up against the same old fear I generally have about trying something completely new. I found a nice photo in the wetcanvas image library that I edited quite a bit in Photoshop. I need to just try it. Even if it looks horrible, I'm sure I'll learn something and it's only one painting right?

"Red Pears"

Little bit bigger canvas on this one - 8"x8".

Available: $100 + $10 shipping. Or send me an e-mail.

"Plum Fun"
NFS

These were fun. It was hard to keep the red from the background and the plums out of the blue of the plate. I had to keep cleaning off my palate and remixing the turquoise color because it kept getting muddy. I like this color combination.

"Pink Swirl"
SOLD

I thought the pattern and color on this fabric might be over-powering but I think I toned it down enough so it isn't.