Ever Watchful

 

Click Here to Purchase - $200 - 5x7in. - oil on panel

This month's challenge on Daily Paintworks is The Feather Challenge, so I thought I'd do something different and paint a bird. It was a lovely experience painting this serene guy. Gal?

Totally Tomatoes

Click Here to Bid (6x6in. - starts at $100)

Creating a Beautiful DPW Artist Website

This is my fourth (way overdue) post in a series about DailyPaintworks.com (DPW), which my husband, David, and I created. DPW is an online fine art gallery where artists can have their own artist website to show and sell their work.

If you missed them, here are the links to my first three posts about DPW:

1. What is Daily Paintworks?
2. Common Misconceptions about Daily Paintworks
3. I Love My Website

We recently added a bunch of new features to let our artists customize their DPW websites to suit their personal style. This rounds out other long term customization features, such as being able to organize your art into custom categories and pointing a custom domain name to your DPW website, as I do with carolmarine.com.

Many of our artists have really run with it and created beautiful websites for themselves! Here are some examples. (click to enlarge)

As you can see, you can change the layout, fonts (over 60), colors, borders, and more. Click here to read more about DPW and to join us and have your own DPW artist website. We would love to have you with us!

Natural Spotlight

Click Here to Bid (8x8in. - starts at $100)

What is Daily Paintworks?

I started doing these little “daily” paintings a little over 12 years ago. I enjoyed it so much I raved to all my art friends, and several started their own daily practice and blogs. Quickly we realized it would be beneficial to band together and promote one website instead of all our individual blogs. Thus, Daily Paintworks (DPW) was born.

I created the original design, and my husband (the programmer) has put in countless hours building it into what it is today. DPW has become his full time job/passion, as he handles support, improves features, and adds new ones. My oldest stepdaughter, Sophie (28), answers questions from buyers and members, and my youngest, Maddie (23), does social media outreach. And I continue to … consult. : ) It is truly a family business.

I am very proud of what DPW has become, so I decided to talk a bit about it again, over a series of posts, in case some of you don’t know, and/or might be interested in using it. I also want to clear up some common misconceptions about what it is. (to be continued…)

Chunky Stuff

Click Here to Bid (6x6in. - ships mid-March)

Hello from Texas! We have been so busy visiting family and friends that I forgot to post this week's Daily Paintworks Challenge until today. I did this one before we left. The idea is to divide your subject into the simplest value/color areas possible, and paint them in solid chunks, without any soft edges or gradients. This allows you to really understand the BIG picture, without getting distracted by all the little details. I really enjoyed doing it, and totally dig the result! Want to try it too? The Chunked Challenge (don't forget to squint!)

Simple Cup 4

sold

Here is my fourth and last cup from my 4 in 4 challenge/series. And I am finally able to report about my recent workshop. But first, quickly, a reminder about this month's DPW contest, AND, a heads up about a 2014 workshop in San Antonio, Texas (to be announced Thursday, 10/24/13 at 8pm, CST), FYI, SYT (see you there!).

So, I flew to Wisconsin last weekend in time for a gorgeous show of fall color! You can see a tiny bit of it through the window (my view while doing demos) in the bottom left photo below. My kids were a predictably troublesome bunch, but redeemed themselves every evening by plying me with wine and dessert (apparently my reputation proceeds me)! Here are a few shots of them working:

And here is the final shot of the bunch of us, me in the Maine sweatshirt (in case you don't know me yet). Honestly, they were great kids and made some really great art. I will miss them all!

Simple Cup 2

sold

This is my second composition from my four object challenge. Would you like to try it too? Well, guess what! It is now the current Daily Paintworks Challenge, which anyone can submit to and sell through, for free! So don't miss out.

Simple Cup 1

sold

Yesterday I painted a really simple composition with this new cup I got and some paper. I enjoyed it so much, I decided to challenge myself to come up with three more compositions using just these objects. So that was hard! But I did it and I'm glad because it was out of my comfort zone, and I think it's good to be there sometimes.

Tomorrow I start my trek to Wisconsin for my last workshop of the year. I'll post the other three cups when I can.

"Plum Shy" & a contest!

sold

These are more plums, but ripe this time, and way yummy. I'm particularly fond of the way this one turned out.

And here's a little teaser for ya'll. Daily Paintworks is about to announce a monthly contest! Not only are we offering cash to the top 3 winners, the top 15 will be featured artists for a month! If you're interested, I'll post a link with more info and a way to enter on August 1st.

Red Rose II

sold

In light of the recent tragedy in Oklahoma with the major tornado, Daily Paintworks has started a fundraiser for those who have lost their homes and whatever else. I will be donating 100% of the proceeds from this painting to the Red Cross for this cause. If you would like to participate in this fundraiser by either donating your art or bidding on some, please visit the DPW fundraiser page. Thank you in advance!

Fringe Lighting

sold

I mentioned earlier that around Christmas I went through a major artistic block. While I was in the darkest part my mom asked me if I had talked to another artist about it to maybe get some help or perspective. As I was finally working through the block I remembered my mother's question and decided to put together a collection of stories and tips from other artists (and myself) so that maybe our experiences will help other artists going through the same thing. I decided the best way to share it was in the form of an ArtByte. It's totally free, will hopefully get bigger over time as I receive more stories, and is called Collective Insight on Blocks.

Red Explosion

sold

Before you go off and ask me what kind of flowers these are, well, they're fake. I find it doesn't really matter if all I'm doing is suggesting them with paint. : )

As promised I've put together another orange slice demo ArtByte. --> This one is much slower than the free one, and has a voice-over explaining what I'm doing as I do it. It also includes a shot of my palette, so you can see what I'm mixing. It is $10 and you will find it in the Daily Paintworks ArtByte store, along with a whole slew of other ArtBytes.

For the Love of Blue

sold

After seeing all the destruction on the news today from hurricane Sandy, Daily Paintworks is hosting a fundraiser to help those in need on the East Coast. I have already donated 2 paintings. You may recognize them, as I posted them before (there is a long story for each about why I still have them - I won't bore you with the details). So please consider donating a painting or buying one - either will help someone whose cars got smashed under a tree, house was blown away or flooded, or other general mayhem from wind, water and even fire. And please spread the word! Thanks!

Tomorrow morning my husband and I are off to Texas to visit family for a few days. Above is my second color collection - blue.

For the Love of Green

sold

In addition to the demo video(s) I have also been working on a marketing ArtByte. This is often the most popular part of my workshops, so I thought it made sense to finally put it online. It costs $10 and you can find it in the Daily Paintworks ArtByte Store. It is called "Marketing Ideas for Selling Art Online".

Also, I have been working on a series of paintings, each focusing on one color. I did this before years ago with my old collection of still life stuff -- I thought I'd try it again now, and green is my favorite color.

Forktastic & free demo

sold

Last week I set up to film a demo. Things went wrong. Words were said. I won't say who's to blame - he wouldn't like it. We managed to salvage the video of the painting part (but not the palette) so we sped it way up and put it in a free ArtByte! I filmed another one with a slightly different composition that will be posted later in a not-free ArtByte, much slower, with voice-over and a palette shot and all that good stuff.

"Grapefruit Diet" & Convention Survey!

sold

I have exciting news I've been dying to share with you! We (at Daily Paintworks) have been secretly meeting for weeks to discuss plans for the first ever Daily Painting Convention!!! We are planning to hold this 2-day event (plus Friday mixer) in Portland, Oregon, next September (2013). We have created a survey that explains this all more fully and asks three pertinent questions that we need answered before we can move on. We would REALLY appreciate you taking 2 minutes (honest) to do the survey. Your participation is critical! Thank you!!

Scanning for Dudes

sold

Here is my entry for this week's Daily Paintworks Challenge. The reference photo is from a recent trip to Santa Cruz, CA. The sun was barely out, which made it a challenging photo. But what was really tough, honestly, were the foreshortened bodies! I had to measure like crazy. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

Crazy Petals

Click Here to Bid

This was the very rose that hijacked my world and kicked off my obsession with roses. I found it on a walk with my husband. I used the photo reference for this week's Daily Paintworks Challenge, and this is my entry.

Drawn to Reflections

Click Here to Bid

With this painting I focused especially on putting down one brush stroke at a time, and mixing a new color for almost every stroke. I have to admit, I loved it all the way to the end, and then I wasn't sure. But now I like it. Fickle me.

NEW ARTBYTE - I just finished my latest online tutorial. This one is all about photographing small paintings, editing them on the computer, and keeping your files organized. While you're there, check out DPW's other ArtBytes!

Flipped Out

Click Here to Bid

I did this painting for this week's Daily Paintworks Challenge - Change the Color. The idea is if you keep all the values accurate, you can really make the colors anything you want. I don't normally recommend changing colors - it is surprising how many things each color will affect - but it was a fun exercise, and I am surprisingly happy with the result. Here are a few process photos.

Crazy Chicken

Click Here to Bid

Another scene from the Gold King Mine. Someday I will catch these crazy chickens in the sunlight. For some reason they roamed only in the shade. We tried to chase them around, but I only got a few blurry photos before they high-tailed it back into the shade.