"Sisters" --- SOLD

I've been searching for good background fabrics forever, with simple, 2 color designs. I've found a few, but I'd like more. So today I did a search online for dying fabric and the first thing that came up was "batik". Cool! So I ordered a whole bunch of dyes and wax and whatnot from Dick Blick and will have some new fabrics in no time! Ok, maybe I'm a little over-ambitious ... if anyone has any batik secrets they'd like to share, I'd love to hear it. Thanks!

"Mango Fandango" --- SOLD

I already named something Mango Tango, and with my husband out of town, I couldn't come up with anything better than this. Please come home sweetie! I painted this a few days ago, when I was doing mangos, and for some reason never posted it. What do you think - can green and orange work together??

"Leaning Tower of Pepper" --- SOLD

It didn't occur to me while I was painting this that it may look unstable, but this was actually the only position in which it WAS stable. : )

One of my great joys with daily painting is being part of a growing community of wonderful artists from whom I am honored to receive kind and supportive comments and emails. I have been able to and so much want to continue to answer each email, but unfortunately, even though I now spend more time replying to emails than painting, I find myself falling far behind, without the possibility of catching up. So, while I welcome all comments and emails, I am not going to be able to reply to them all, and when I do, my replies will have to be quick. Instead, to help answer the many questions I receive, I am putting together a FAQ, and will soon post a link to it. Thanks for your understanding!

"Racing Peppers" --- SOLD

I never knew bell peppers would be so fun to paint! Now that I've done a few I'm going out on a limb to say they should be up there with pears on the universal list of great things to paint. They have a really compelling translucent quality that lightens up the shadow side, a wonderful shape in general, and lovely curving stems. I'm hooked.

Thank you all for the great comments on yesterday's demo! It was really rewarding to hear, and I promise to post more coming up.

brushes, palette and setup

I forgot to post these pictures with my video yesterday. Here are the brushes I used. The two on the right are various sizes of Silver Bristlon brights. I love them. The one on the left - I can't explain how it came to be this shape, but I love it for laying down the ground and sketching in the drawing. I think it used to be a filbert...



Below is a picture of my palette after I was done with the painting. Part of the mixed paint on the palette is from another painting. I tend to work from left to right, and when I fill it up (after a few small paintings or one large one), I scooch the top paper down, scoop up any useable blobs of paint with my palette knife and put them down on the next clean sheet of palette paper. I used my basic colors for this painting: t white, cad yellow lt, cad red med, aliz crimson, ult blue, phthalo blue and burnt umber.



Below is a view into my shadow box. I've used this light setup a lot lately where I have my true "white" light pointing up (so it bounces around the box a bit and "blues" up my shadows) and my "daylight" (more yellow than the other) spotlight directly on my subject.

"Yellow Bell" & demo --- SOLD

Happy Memorial Day everyone. Since my sitter was coming anyway, I used this holi-day to do a demo video. I've been putting it off for forever because I thought it would be really difficult. But it turned out to be a cinch (especially since my husband did the hard part - getting the video ready for the web). While most people have to speed them up, I actually had to slow my video down since I paint so fast. Ok, not really. It is 8 minutes long - view demo.

"Mango Stripes" --- SOLD

The tough thing about Mangos is they don't have clear highlights, so you can't count on putting the =zing= of the painting there.

"Stems Up" --- SOLD

We're out visiting my parents for the weekend, but I'm ahead by a few paintings so I'll still post. Today, cherries - tomorrow, mangos.

"Into the Light" --- SOLD

Cherries make great subjects. They are easy to arrange, sit still while posing, and have cute little highlights & stems! I am enjoying painting them. And as expensive as they were I'd think they'd be great tasting too, but they are fairly sour. Oh well.

"Red Dream" --- SOLD

This was a challenge. I thought the cherries were saturated until I considered the red shadow (from a round, red, glass bowl)! I had to be very careful not to get even a hint of blue in the shadow - except for the purpley bits on the edges. I also did a large painting today. When it's dry enough I'll get a good photo of it and post it here. I really like it.

"Private Party" --- SOLD

Someone asked me to post my palette, so here goes (from left to right): Titanium White, Cadmium Yellow Light, Cadmium Red Medium, Alizarin Crimson, Ultramarine Blue, Phthalo Blue, and Burnt Umber. I figure I can mix just about any color with these. Every once in a while if I want a really saturated green I'll pull in a lemon yellow, or if I want a different purple I'll pull in a different shade of red. I use all Utrecht brand paint. It's inexpensive but I've never had an issue with it. Every once in a while I buy a more expensive tube to see what I'm missing and always go back to my Utrecht paint. I'm having fun with the cherries.

"Flee" --- SOLD

Several of my students in Santa Fe did some lovely things with cherries and I thought I'd paint some again myself. It is good to be back to painting regularly.

Carol's Kids

We wound up the workshop yesterday and got a nice photo of everyone and their favorite paintings (or what they hadn't already packed up). It was a fantastic group and we had a blast all week! I flew home today and promptly took a 5 hour nap. : ) I'll be back to posting paintings very soon.

"My Captors" and more ---SOLD

I did this one (above) yesterday. Matt offered the title - fitting I thought - and Nathalie (both students) suggested I sign it in a way that wouldn't be covered up by a frame. I hadn't considered it before but I suppose it would be an issue for framing ...

Yesterday after class I drove to Taos (a beautiful drive through the mountains) and visited with artists Seamus Berkeley and Tara Wheeler. We had an exhilerating coversation for hours and hours about everything art while eating avacado pie in a restaurant with no lights. : ) Ok, we didn't eat pie the whole time, and yes it was REALLY good!

Today a student requested I paint a flower in glass for my demo and offered to buy it before I had even started. I wasn't feeling ANY pressure - nope! To my great relief, I didn't crash and burn (see below - sold). This class is starting to feel like family and I will be sad when tomorrow is over. I promise to post a picture tomorrow of the whole class and some of their paintings.

limes & asparagus --- SOLD

This is second painting I did today. The lamps we have in the workshop are so strong they actually cook what we're painting if we put them too close! I cooked the asparagus a bit, but I REALLY cooked a couple of the limes (below). I call the asparagus "fenced in" and it has already been purchase by one of my students. The limes below I am calling "key lime fiesta" (I got LOTS of suggestions for this ... this is the one I remembered) and it was also bought by a student. This morning my new buddy, Matt (a way cool guy who paints pet portraits in his real life!), and I went to buy produce for the class and came back with a ton of neat stuff, including the limes and asparagus.

"Square Tea" & workshop

Today was the first day of my workshop and I lucked out and got a great group, once again! I borrowed this square teapot, from the place I'm staying, for my demo. And last night I got some of these funny little lemons with the "nipple" on top. Wierd, I know. I always tighten up a bit on demos (especially the first of a workshop). Here are a few of my students painting:



I loved the way Leiza (sorry if I spelled that wrong) held all her brushes in one hand while she painted (she did a beautiful painting):



Another big day tomorrow. Gotta hit the hay.

"Adoring" --- SOLD

I forgot to mention that I am going to Santa Fe to teach a 5-day workshop this week - and now I'm here! : ) Santa Fe is a lovely place to be, especially this time of year. The weather is supposed to be in the 60's and 70's all week (a big improvement over Austin). I am looking forward to meeting a new group of artists tomorrow. I will get some pictures (if they'll let me) and post them tomorrow night. I got in a good hike today with my buddy Erin, had my reward (ice cream) and now it's time for a good night sleep. zzz

"Empty Plate" --- SOLD

Someone asked me yesterday what I've learned in the last 500 paintings. For what it's worth, here's what's topmost on my mind:

The most difficult thing about realism (even impressionistic realism) is ... getting things to look REAL. However, if you can pull it off, it is most impressive. And the way to make things look real is to be accurate with proportion and value. And the way to be accurate with proportion and value is to teach yourself to always compare each distance/value with the WHOLE scene (SQUINT!!!!). It's all too easy to get tunnel vision when we draw/paint and only compare within what we're focused on (it's because of the way our brains work). When we do this we lack the big picture and proportion/value are much more likely to be incorrect.

I've also learned some interesting things about edges, but those are better demonstrated than spoken. So, I am going out on a limb here and setting a deadline for myself. I will post a demo video within one ... two months. How about that? (I'm going to hate myself for this, I know it)

"Touch of Lavender" --- SOLD

This is my 500th daily painting! It is a commissioned piece, so not for sale. Someone asked in a comment if I think about being loose when I paint, and the answer is yes, absolutely! I reached a cross-roads with my painting some time ago when I realized I could either go more realistic or more impressionistic. I asked myself 2 questions: which do I like to look at more, and which do I enjoy doing more. The answer to both was impressionistic and so that's the direction I took. That doesn't mean I don't expiriment with all sorts of things, but a big goal of mine is to stay loose with my strokes, and to interpret and suggest rather than copy. I am honestly in awe of those that can produce photorealistic paintings, but for my own enjoyment, I paint this way instead.

"Radish Landscape" --- SOLD

Painting radishes is always a bit like painting outside. When you're outside you've got to paint quickly because the light can change drastically from the time you start to when you finish. When you paint radishes the leaves wilt and the shine goes off the ... pink bits (in this case). Because of this I got a bit loose with my paint. Almost abstract, maybe?

I hear often from people that they would like to loosen up with painting. When I first heard this (when I was tighter myself) I thought it was something to do with the wrist ... like you just had to loosen the wrist and suddenly you would paint better. But I have found that even when you paint loose you have to be precise. You just have to be precisely loose. : ) I'm serious.

"Loss" --- SOLD

I spent the entire weekend working on larger paintings and did a couple that I really like. Yeah! Now I am up in the middle of the night, unable to sleep, posting what I didn't have to time to post this evening. Keep in mind, if you bid on this, there will be a delay in shipping as I will be in Santa Fe teaching a workshop when the auction ends. I will ship this on or soon after May 19. Thank you for your patience!

"Aloha" --- SOLD

I love the idea of doing paintings of fruit arranged in little dramas. I don't necessarily want to specify what the drama is, but rather suggest something that gives the viewer something to ponder. Perhaps. This one is titled "aloha" which can either be a hello or goodbye.

Well, the sitter I mentioned finding recently bailed after 2 weeks. I've been looking for a new one and today I think I found Mary Poppins! I don't want to jinx this, but she seems so great. Soon I will be back to painting large on a regular basis (along with these dailies)! Wahoo! She'll be watching him while I'm teaching my next workshop in Santa Fe, in a little over a week.

"Morning Glow" --- SOLD

This is the last painting I did in Rockport this last weekend. It was Sunday morning at about 8 and the sun was hitting these two boats head on, making their hulls just glow. Consequently the reflections on the water were just magnificent. Unfortunately a storm rolled in while I was painting, completely changing the color of the sky AND the water, so I had to use some creative liscense in finishing it off.