Group Twelve

 

Click Here to Bid - 8x8in. - oil on panel - starts at $100

When you are in the center of Florence (Italy), there are often several tour groups touring around you, at all times. This makes for lovely clumps of people to photograph. My thanks to group twelve for posing so nicely.

Rachel and Katie

NFS - 26x24in. - oil - "Rachel and Katie"

These are the adult children of a good friend. I figured I needed practice with adults as well, and these 2 were a joy to get to know! And beautiful to boot, as you can see.

Getting good references of more than one person at a time is quite a challenge, but one that I sincerely enjoy. I have one in the works with 3 kids (including a baby!). For this one above I ended up frankensteining a couple of photos together, which I'm finding is the norm. Which is why I take a gazillion photos at every session.

Hattie & Margot

NFS - 12x20in. - Oil - "Sisters"

Here are the two sisters, Hattie and Margot, together. I asked them to sit together but looking in opposite directions. When I said - "ok, now look at each other," they spontaneously broke into big smiles! I hope they always get along this well. : )

I feel compelled to say - all these portraits look better in person. And that - I'm learning so much. And did I say - loving it?!

Bonding Time

 

Click Here to Bid - 8x8in. - oil - "Bonding Time"

I got a great series of photos of these two (on a bench in a square in Florence). At first the kid was having a meltdown (probably hungry). The dad was trying so hard to make it ok, but the boy was leaning away and having none of it. Then finally the dad got through, they had a little chat, and a hug. But the final photo was the very best arrangement of limbs and light. And that bird! So I chose to paint it even though dad's on his phone and you missed all the bonding. Ah well.

Out in Flannel

 

Click Here to Bid - 8x8in. - oil - "Out in Flannel"

Let me just start with - flannel is hard to paint. I've tried before and failed miserably, but I thought this actually turned out. This is another one from Freiburg, Germany. A lovely town we've been to many times.

Also, I've added new prints to my prints page. : )

A Strolling Kind of Day

 

Click Here to Bid - 8x8in. - oil - "A Strolling Kind of Day"

While we were in Germany in May, my husband and I took a day trip to Zurich. Some friends of ours took us around town, including to this lovely little market under the trees. Many thanks to Annemarie who was very patient with me while I took pictures!

NEW PRINTS AVAILABLE

I have added a few new options to my prints page. But you can request ANY painting (ok, almost any) to be made into a print. Just find a painting in my gallery, click on it, and you will see a 

"request a fine art reproduction" in the popup.

Apparently we had a bug in the ordering process that we have now fixed, so if you tried and had trouble, please try again. And if you still run into trouble, please let me know - it really helps! Thanks so much.

Bring the Dog

 

Click Here to Bid - 8x8in. - Oil -  "Bring the Dog"

Here is another painting from my trip to Europe last month. This scene is one I photographed in Freiburg, Germany. They were pausing on the bank of a little "creek" running through town, with a lovely restaurant with outdoor seating on the other side. I think the little dog was just thinking about lunch.

I am now selling prints!

I'm starting with these five, popular paintings, and will add more soon. I did tons of research and found a gorgeous, heavy weight, matte paper, and bought a top of the line printer. The prints are fabulous! You can purchase them from the new prints page on my website. : )

Across From the Duomo

 

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

I know it's been a while since I posted any people paintings. That's because I haven't been anywhere in forever. This is one I dredged up from my Florence, Italy files.

To the right is my reference photo. You can see I changed some things. Photos tend to capture darks as darker than they are, especially in the background. I lightened the darks there so they would recede a bit more. I also took out some of the people right behind my main characters, because mostly I felt they were awkward - a head sticking out from the main guy's head; one person on the bench hunched forward so much they don't have a head; the lady with a bright red purse and no legs...

Also with their hands up both main characters looked like they were on their phones, so I picked one and guessed where the lady's hand would be if it were down. And I gave her black shoes.

Conferring

 

Click Here to Bid (8x9in. - OIL - starts at $100)

These three cuties were students of mine in an Italy workshop a couple years ago. We were probably waiting outside for our ride to dinner one evening, and they were sharing pictures from the day. It's always more enjoyable to paint people I know because then I think of them fondly the whole time I'm painting.

The Big Bench

 

Click Here to Bid (6x12in. - OIL - starts at $100 - click image to enlarge)

I love this horizontal format, but they look so small here! Make sure you click on the image to see it larger. This scene is from references I took in Florence, Italy a couple years ago. I'm looking forward to going back someday.

Strolling by the Flower Shop

 

Click Here to Buy ($600 - 12x16in. - OIL - click image to enlarge)

Here's an even larger painting that I did recently from some of my Florence references. I experimented with my process on this one. The references weren't that great, so I started with burnt umber and OMS and just played around with the values where I wanted to see changes. I brushed on more paint for darks, and wiped off paint with paper towels and squeegees to go lighter (hint, if you brush on OMS and then squeegee it, you can precisely remove paint down to almost nothing). One thing in particular that I changed was to add the shadow that sticks out on the ground behind the foreground gals. Without it the scene seemed like two separate parts: the left and the right. I really feel like the shadow connects them, while being believable.

Once I was happy with the values, I painted for a few hours and then let it dry overnight, unfinished. The next day I had a fresh perspective and was able to see more clearly where I wanted to take it. I found I really liked some of the areas where I had pushed around the burnt umber much better than the actual scene, so I mostly left them alone. Sometimes I would paint an area and then decide to wipe it off and try again. Having the dry underpainting really helped me with that because it left a road map behind. All in all I'm quite happy with how it turned out.

Spring in the City

 

Click Here to Buy ($700 - 16x16in - OIL)

This is from a trip to San Francisco a few years ago by myself. One of the things I love about downtowns in cities are the big shadows and occasional channels of light that break them up. I had fun with the warmth seeping into the shadow areas, and they sky reflected off the windows and metal hatch(?) on the sidewalk.

On a different topic, I used to recommend Feedburner at my workshops as a free way to set up a newsletter. Unfortunately that feature will end soon, and they are recommending that anyone still using it download their email lists if they don't want to lose them. : (

Yes Dear

 

Click Here to Bid (8x6in. - OIL - starts at $100)

Here's one from Florence that I've been saving to paint. I don't have a ton more references of people before I run out, so I have to admit I've been taking it slow. Because who knows when I'll be able to travel again, much less find people walking around without masks! But hopefully soon, right? Right?!

And I Also Got...

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

I've wanted to paint this one for a while (from Florence, Italy), but wasn't sure how I was going to handle the background. As you can see > the wall is kind of weirdly textured, with no context. What I ended up doing was painting on the general color, mixed with a bit of gamsol, and then moving the paint around with a squeegee. Then once that was somewhat dry, I added some darker bits on top and modified the edges next to the girls. I'm really happy with it. I'm definitely going to try that again.

Lunching in the Square

 

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

An old scene from Germany. There was some sort of political thing going on with balloons everywhere. A few were floating in the background, but they didn't read well when I painted them. So I took them out because I figured ... there was plenty going on without them!

Can We Hear Yet?

 

Click Here to Bid (6x8in. - OIL - starts at $100)

All the tour groups in Florence used headsets. The guide talked into a little mike, and everyone in that group could hear it through little earphones, rather than the guide having to shout. There were tour groups EVERYWHERE, so it really helped keep the noise down this way. But it was always a little bit of a hassle at the beginning, making sure everyone's headsets worked. This is what I imagine these folks were trying to figure out. But oh how lovely they look in that light!

Navigating Florence

 

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

While I'm waiting for my new lightbulbs to arrive (from Amazon, because I couldn't find what I wanted locally), I pulled up my Italy photos. This was a VERY common sight in Florence - people looking at maps. It reminded me of the days when we used maps regularly, rather than our smartphones. But it was the bags that really caught my attention with this scene. The large white bag next to the little yellow one - scrumptious.

Una Piccola Pausa (A Little Break)

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

This may sound weird, but I love the tiny, little, old people in Italy (and France). They are so cute. Another one from Florence.

A Warm Spot to Wait

Click Here to Bid (10x10in. - OIL -starts at $200)

Here's another one from Florence. I wanted to experiment with unfinished edges, and decided this was the perfect scene for it. It was a challenge though because I use a grid when I'm painting people so I can get all my people parts in the right places. : ) I didn't want to leave grid lines behind so I only used them in the upper right quadrant (where the people are). I also changed a few things - there was a big trashcan, left, front, and I took that out; the backpack in front was an odd color that demanded a lot of attention, so I changed that; and a few other little things. It was tough to decide what edges to "lose," and how to do it, but I'm really happy with how it turned out.

Shade in Mexico

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

As I slowly process what I learned from the online tutorials I recently watched (by John Burton and Nathan Fowkes) I find myself wanting to pull out old reference material and look with fresh eyes for potential paintings. This one is from a trip to San Miguel (Mexico) I took with some buddies a couple of years ago. The "thing" to the right of the skirted lady is a big bunch of balloons and toys being held by a guy who (I'm guessing here) was trying to sell as many as possible to us tourists. But the thing that really grabbed me about this scene was the split between light and shadow. It was tricky to get all the value relationships just right, but I'm really happy with how it turned out.