Tag: Oil Painting

Categories
Flower Art Oil Painting

Sunflowers on Blue (Updated) and New York City Trip

Sunflowers on Blue, oil on linen panel, 10x8"
Sunflowers on Blue, oil on linen panel, 10×8″

(UPDATED with better photo and New York news!). It’s summer so it’s sunflower time again. This is yet another attempt (but not the last) at understanding these flowers. I got behind on posting oil paintings while I was doing the Every Day in May sketch challenge so I have a bunch to share. I’ve also gotten behind on posting in general, while planning my trip to New York in September.

I fell down the rabbit hole on AirBnB, looking for apartments to rent for the week I’ll be there. People offer their own apartments for rent while they travel or stay with their girlfriend/boyfriend or have more than one apartment in the city.  It’s fun peeking into the tiny closets that people have as their homes in New York. But it’s also a little frustrating. Some don’t know their schedules yet for September while available places get snapped up quickly.

UPDATE: The good news is that I found the perfect place, a beautiful Upper West Side garden apartment. If you’ll be in New York between 9/25 and 9/30 and want to get together for sketching or museum fun please let me know!

Categories
Flower Art Oil Painting

Sunflowers on Blue

Sunflowers on Blue, oil on linen panel, 10x8"
Sunflowers on Blue, oil on linen panel, 10×8″

(UPDATED with better photo!). It’s summer so it’s sunflower time again. This is yet another attempt (but not the last) at understanding these flowers. I got behind on posting oil paintings while I was doing the Every Day in May sketch challenge so I have a bunch to share. I’ve also gotten behind on posting in general, while planning my trip to New York in September.

I fell down the rabbit hole on AirBnB, looking for apartments to rent for the week I’ll be there. People offer their own apartments for rent while they travel or stay with their girlfriend/boyfriend or have more than one apartment in the city.  It’s fun peeking into the tiny closets that people have as their homes in New York. But it’s also a little frustrating. Some don’t know their schedules yet for September while available places get snapped up quickly.

Categories
Animals Oil Painting

Sam: A Border Collie Dog Portrait in Oils

Sam, A Dog Portrait in Oils, Oil on Panel, 8x8"
Sam, A Dog Portrait in Oils, Oil on Panel, 8×8″

I wish I had a dog but since I don’t, at least I can paint them! This dog portrait in oil was commissioned by a woman as a gift to her father-in-law of his dog. I had to wait to share it here until I was sure the painting was in the gentleman’s hands. I learned that lesson the hard way.

Once I posted a watercolor commission in progress of a house, a gift from a wife to her husband. Their daughter was searching online for the Oakland Federal Building and it led her to my sketch of that building on my blog. From there she landed on a post about spilling my coffee on the nearly completed watercolor painting of the home. She was shocked to see it was the house she’d grown up in. She called her mother right away to tell her (not her father, fortunately).

It all worked out fine in the end but I don’t post gift paintings now until they’ve been given.

Categories
Flower Art Glass Oil Painting Painting Still Life

Flowering Crab Apple Blossoms in Bottles: Oil Paintings

Crab Apple Paired, Oil on Archival Panel, 10x8"
Crab Apple Paired, Oil on Archival Panel, 10×8″

The branches I snipped from a tree in Berkeley provided many opportunities to sketch and paint. The first were watercolor sketches. Then I did these two oil paintings and some other sketches I’ll post later. Two of my favorite things to paint: flowers and glass. Crab Apple Paired (above) is available here.

Sake Bottle with Flowering Crab Apple
Sake Bottle with Flowering Crab Apple Under Warm Light, oil on archival panel, 6×6

This sake bottle is from a nice sushi dinner I had with my son. He’s much more knowledgeable about such things so he ordered the sake. I was delighted by its wonderful peach colored bottle with a kind of etched surface. I knew it would be fun to paint. I used a very warm light for this still life set up which made everything a little peachy. This little painting is available here.

Categories
Ink and watercolor wash Landscape Oil Painting Sketchbook Pages Virtual Paint-Out

Virtual Paintout: Lithuania

Virtual Paintout: Lithuania. Oil on panel, 8x10"
Virtual Paintout: Lithuania. Oil on panel, 8×10″

Doing a Virtual Paintout seemed like a good warm up for the plein air painting season. March’s Virtual Paintout location is Vilnius, Lithuania. It was fun using Google Street View to cruise around Lithuania, where some of my ancestors are from.

Virtual Paintout: Lithuania, watercolor in sketchbook, 8x11"
Virtual Paintout: Lithuania, watercolor in sketchbook, 8×11″

I started with a watercolor sketch in my giant Moleskine A4 watercolor notebook (which is proving too large to be practical to carry with me all the time but is great for a studio journal). I had trouble with the sky and clouds so did some cloud studies (below). When I paint in watercolor I prefer juicy, wet washes but they don’t work well in sketchbooks; the paper buckles, the water pools, and I can’t get the results I want. I need to start working on real watercolor paper again or use much less fluid on my brush.

Cloud Study for Lithuania Virtual Paintout, watercolor, 8x10"
Cloud Study for Lithuania Virtual Paintout, watercolor, 8×10″

I used some no-longer-available, very sedimentary Manganese blue in the top left sky above. I was really sad when they stopped making it as it was my favorite color, but apparently it was highly toxic for the miners.

Lithuania screen shot from Google Street View
Cropped Lithuania screen shot from Google Street View

Above is a cropped version of the original Google Street View scene.

Categories
Digital art Faces Life in general Oil Painting People Portrait

Two Very Different Portraits of Very Different Women

Portrait of Cyndy, oil on panel, 8x10"
Portrait of Cyndy, oil on panel, 8×10″

I painted this oil painting from a 2nd generation scan of a difficult photo. The harsh shadows, eyes hidden behind sunglasses, and brilliant fall foliage in the background created a challenge. But this was the photo her husband wanted painted so I did my best. The subject of the painting is a beautiful woman, a brilliant researcher and educator, a terrific hostess and a wonderful mother. It was a pleasure to paint her, even with the technical challenges.

Caricature of Cristina, sketched on iPad in Art Studio
Caricature of Christina Aguilera, sketched on iPad in Art Studio

Like I said, very different portraits, very different women. I sketched this on my iPad while watching The Voice, a singing competition TV show on which Christina Aguilera was a judge. I don’t understand why the women on these shows wear skin-tight clothes and so much make up that they look like cartoon characters, but at least it makes them easy to sketch since they already look like caricatures of themselves.

I’m enjoying Nicki Minaj on American Idol. She goes even further in the makeup, false eyelashes and wigs department, looking even more like a cartoon character…and acts like one too, the way she says absolutely any random crazy thing that goes through her mind. Sometimes she’s really funny.

I guess not just movie stars are wearing false eyelashes now. The receptionist at my eye doctor’s office gets hers glued in at the salon when she has her nails done. I’d rather buy those hairs glued into a handle of a brush to paint with. Much more practical, don’t you think?

Categories
Flower Art Ink and watercolor wash Oil Painting Painting Sketchbook Pages Still Life

Sunflowers: Studies, Struggles, Stubborness

Sunflowers #4, oil painting on panel, 8x8"
Sunflowers #4, oil painting on panel, 8×8″

It seems like I’ve been struggling with painting sunflowers forever but with each attempt I understand them a little better. I’m very stubborn and will continue trying until the sunflowers and I are really good friends.

I lit the flowers above with very warm light which made the olive-green backdrop cloth look gold and kind of bleached out the color of the flowers. The pictures in this post are in the reverse order I made them, with the last first.

Sunflower #3, ink & watercolor, 5x8"
Sunflower #3, ink & watercolor, 5×8″

I did the sketch above after having such difficulty with the two below, trying to better understand the shapes of the flowers and their structure.

Sunflowers in Vase (#2), Oil painting on canvas, 16x12"
Sunflowers in Vase (#2), Oil painting on canvas, 16×12″

After working for hours on the vase in the painting above I looked at it in the mirror to check the symmetry and couldn’t stop laughing. It was completely off kilter, slanted to one side as if it had melted. It’s just amazing how our eyes and brain work together to correct things and fool us. I had to completely start the vase over to get it close to right. I experimented with using a dark background and tried to paint duller, darker colors for flowers not in the light but vibrant color kept sneaking back in. After days of repainting I called it done so I could move on.

Sunflower #1, Oil painting on panel, 10x8"
Sunflower #1, Oil painting on panel, 10×8″

The first problem with the one above was my drawing. Instead of taking the time to carefully draw these sunflowers I jumped into painting, combining a few specifics with some generic version of flowers. All the pointy, sharp shapes and droopy flowers are a good visual representation of my struggle, frustration, and ultimately, disappointment with this painting.

I completed these pieces at the end of last year and had to give up when I couldn’t find any more sunflowers. Soon sunflowers will be available and I can start painting them again.

I have a feeling it’s going to go better this time around. I am studying nature drawing with John Muir Laws at his Bay Area Nature Journal Club. This month’s session was all about drawing flowers and I learned all sorts of cool stuff. More about that another time.

Categories
Animals Oil Painting

Cocoa: A Dog Portrait

Cocoa: Dog Portrait, oil on panel, 8x8"
Cocoa: Dog Portrait, oil on panel, 8×8″

When I was given the photo of Cocoa to paint from, I pointed out that her face was covered with mud or sand. I was asked if I could paint her without the dirt. I laughed, since I’d just finished a commissioned watercolor from a photo of an industrial building that was partially hidden by cars, which they requested I remove in the painting. Since I pulled off that bit of x-ray vision (not really—I visited the facility to see what was hidden), I thought I might be able to paint a clean dog from a dirty one.

My favorite part to paint was her nose. I referred to the second photo below to see her fur color sans mud.

Cocoa in her sandy face photo
Cocoa in her muddy-face photo
Cocoa minus the mud
Clean Cocoa

The person who commissioned the painting as a gift for Cocoa’s owner said the painting looks just like Cocoa and she was sure her owner would love the painting. (I hope so!)

Cocoa Preliminary Sketch 2
Cocoa Preliminary Sketch 2
Cocoa Preliminary Sketch 1
Cocoa Preliminary Sketch 1

Above are the preliminary sketches I did loosely, just playing around, trying to get to know Cocoa. I love dogs and I love painting dogs!

Categories
Animals Art business Drawing Oil Painting Painting Portrait Sketchbook Pages

Puck: A Dog Portrait in Oils (delivered with tears and hugs)

Puck, a dog portrait in oil on linen panel, 8x10"
Puck, a dog portrait in oil on linen panel, 8×10″

This was a first: when I delivered the painting it made its owner cry! And hug me. And make me cry!  I know how much Puck, who is getting there up in dog years, means to his owner so I really wanted the painting to turn out well. And I got lucky; this one just seemed to paint itself. Of course I know that saying, “The more I practice, the luckier I get” which I think was true in this case. I put thought into the painting before I put any paint on the canvas and have certainly been putting in lots of practice time in the studio.

Puck, a warm up sketch, ink & watercolor, 6x8"
Puck, a warm-up sketch, ink & watercolor, 6×8″

I always start my paintings with at least one preliminary sketch to get to know the subject. I don’t try to do a perfect rendering, just a visual exploration and attempt to understand what I see.

Today was a big day for delivering commissioned and gift paintings. I delivered five: two watercolors (a large painting of a corporate headquarters commissioned for a gift to a retiring CEO, and a double portrait of two little sisters) and three oils (this and another dog portrait and a portrait of a woman as a gift for her husband).

I can’t post the others until they’ve been gifted. And I have two more dog portraits in progress. I love it!

Categories
Animals Drawing Ink and watercolor wash Oil Painting Painting Sketchbook Pages

Garbanzo Bean The Dog: A Portrait and a Sketch

Garbanzo Bean, Dog Portrait in Oil, 10x8"
Garbanzo Bean, Dog Portrait in Oil, 10×8″

I painted this portrait of a dog named Garbanzo Bean from a bad cell phone photo (see below). I’m posting it here for Garbanzo’s owner to see if she’d like me to make any changes before I deliver it.

Preliminary sketch, ink & watercolor, 8x6
Preliminary sketch, ink & watercolor, 8×6

Before I do an oil painting I usually do an ink and watercolor sketch first to try to get the feel of the subject and understand it better. This sketch isn’t a good likeness but it might have captured his feisty spirit even though it portrays him as a much bigger dog than his tiny chihuahua self.

Garbazo's photo
Garbanzo’s photo

Garbanzo is a very cute dog but the photo’s color and detail was funky. His owner’s favorite color is lavender so I made up a lavender wall in her apartment. I hope she likes it!