April 1 - No Foolin' Still Life

For today's visual imagery, I bring to you an older image that hasn't been on the web site for a LONG time.  It's a nice enough painting with the brushwork, but rather bland in color usage.  What I have planned for April 2 is t
o take this and repaint much of it with a much better usage of color dynamics.  No foolin' !!
  So enjoy this ancient piece and know that you'll see it again with it's new "color jacket" tomorrow.

March 31 - Out like an Onion

"Out Like an Onion" (In like apricots, at least for the month of March!) This onion was done at the request of a collector who already owns one of the earlier onion pieces. I cut one of those big Spanish onions and placed it far enough away from me so that I wasn't crying while in the midst of painting! (I could at least blame the onion if it didn't go well!) This is a six by six inch gallery wrap canvas, and is done in acrylics.

March 30 - Older Demonstration Painting

"Demonstration, Five Years Ago" I thought I'd share with you one of the many, MANY demonstration paintings I've done in the past, for today's painting. Since we are anticipating wildflowers in a few weeks, this one seems appropriate. I used to do three or four demonstrations each month for art groups, and GIVE AWAY paintings like this one as a raffle prize! They were usually 16 x 20s, and earlier they were even larger. I still do an occasional demonstration, but the people who have these paintings ought to be really, really happy today. I know I learned a great deal about how to " cut to the chase" when limited to about 85 minutes to paint one!

March 29 - Rabbit, Spring

"Four-footed Spring Bird" I looked out the window of my studio today, and on the top step going down to the barns was this furry visitor to my bird feeder, sunning himself until he caught my eye. I usually trap these fellows and take them to the park down the road in the new development, because it is devoid of wildlife except for these relocated bunnies. This was fun to paint with a limited palette of cobalt, raw sienna, rose madder, Payne's gray, green earth and cadmium yellow light, with titanium white.

March 28 - Skoal - Horse Shoer, Quick Repair

"Skoal" Amazing what you can do when there are four guys scraping your ceilings and tons of noise are coming from your home. The house smells like wet laundry, the ceilings are beautiful, stuff isn't back where it belongs yet, but I had a lot of fun focusing on the back pocket of this shoer. This is a 12 x 16 oil on linen, and is from the San Juan Capistrano arena, where they held a major show a while back. The painting is also known as "Quick Repair" $500

March 27 - A Path

"A Path" Tomorrow there will be construction workers throughout our home as we redo the ceilings, getting rid of the "popcorn" texture, and I'm going to (hopefully) be holed up in the studio. Since I have a commission to do, and want to do some more smaller pieces, I hope I can handle the confusion and noise. This is a 12 x 9 oil, done in preparation with lots of textural brushmarks, perhaps indicative of the visual invasion tomorrow? But like all paths, there's always a new view in a few steps. $100

March 26 - Canadian Cat

"Yes, I'm Warm, Thank You" I was offered this delightful image of a Canadian cat, cozy in mohair, and asked permission to paint him/her.  I'd not seen such a nice image of a cat all fluffed up in something so cozy, and just felt I had to paint it.  The source material for this was also so good, I changed hardly anything--perhaps the expression a bit, making the cat a teenager.  When I have to do details like this, I prefer my acrylics, as the layering of colors allows for infinite details and corrections.  This is a 5 x 7 acrylic on gallery wrap; it sold the minute I sent it out to my daily paintings email list. The Daily Paintings Email List.