YUM!

Is it strange this makes my mouth water?????

Purr-fait

Petit dejuener at the Chateau d'Angion!  Purr-fait!

Cozy!

My French house is so cozy! Overstuffed chair by a window, big cup of English Breakfast tea with a delicious mouth watering Madaline, wrapped up in a quilt handmade with love, feels like a little slice of heaven.  Forget the to do list, it's all about now:) Tomorrow I leave to drive to the workshop a couple of hours to the south.  Fingers crossed for a wireless connection!

France!

France!

I'm leaving for France early in a.m. for a petit sejour

followed by a ten day workshop with

Ovanes Berberian!

Not complaining at all:)))))))) Silly grin.

I hope to post if WiFi is available, but in the

countryside of Burgundy, anything can happen.

If I run into technical difficulties,

I  promise to share when I return at the end of May.

Thanks for staying tuned....

Yes!  Off to France, tra la la, tra la la!

Joy!

Joy

Joy 5 x 7 oil on museum board

sold

I loved this photos of my friends' dogs (Sophie and Jordie) running on the

beach in the outerbanks. So I asked

if I could paint it:)

It just had such a feeling of freedom and joy!

My painting pal Jo MacKenzie does beautiful

watercolors and lots of pets.

She is always looking for pet photos, so if

you've snapped a good one recently send it along to her.

You can check out her work here:

http://jomackenzie.blogspot.com/

Relax

Relax

You are purr-fect just the way you are.

This is a photo of my friend Louise's cat, sleeping, really sleeping.

No stress there!

I decided to follow the example and take a day and do

only what I want to do and not anything I 'should' do.

 

On a score card with 10 being the highest, a ME day

looks something like this:

creativity pursuits=10

chores=0

 

I include cooking in the chore category so it's pizza for the

hubby tonight and out to my pal Jeni Caruana's

art opening of Maltese landscapes.

Purr-fect!

 

 For arts sake I'd like to share one of my favorite paintings

I've done recently:

Pecan Pie  6x6 oil on museum board

for purchasing info click here

 This painting just seemed to sing it's way onto the canvas:)

Thanks so much for viewing my art!

A-pear-atif

 

A-pear-atif  6x6 oil on museum board

to purchase for $100 click here

 

I found these precious miniature pears in the

grocery and couldn't resist buying them

to paint.

They went really well with a glass of

white wine,  visually that is:)

 

Thanks so much for viewing my artwork

and taking the time to comment.

You complete me:)

 

 

Rose Tea Pot

Rose Tea Pot  8x8 oil on board

to purchase for $250 click here

I was trying to push my warm/cool color 

relationships a little further with this painting.

For me painting is a process with 

lots of small steps along an

endless journey of creative self discovery.

Deep, I know:)))

 

Sun Bathers

Sun Bathers  6x6 oil on museum board

to purchase for $100 click here

There's a beautiful park near my house that overlooks

the rocky Maltese shore. There is always something interesting

to paint there. I meet there with a friend to paint every week.

It's become a joke with us that whatever I choose to paint

moves almost immediately. I definitely need to

paint faster!

Twins!

Mr. and Ms. French

Birth Announcement!

Check out the French's new twins!

They are so proud:)

to purchase for $100 click here

Snoozin'

Snoozin'  6x6 oil on museum board

to purchase for $100 click here

My friend Jeni Caurana and I were painting in the

park and hit the jack pot with this guy dozing in the

sunshine with his hands crossed.

 

He woke up, noticed us, and came over to 

have a look.  I asked him what he thought and he said-

"I'm going to go back over and hold my stomach in!"

LOL

 

 

Strollin'

Strollin' 5x7 oil on museum board

to purchase for $100 click here

Is this gentleman the quintessentially British chap or what?

Even my British friends say so.

I loved his character as I saw him strolling along the

seafront and he politely posed for me to

snap his photo.

Artistically I was worried that he would look

too stiff in the the painting, being so

proper and everything, but

I think I lost enough edges in the process to

keep it from being too ridged.

What do you think?

Flower Market

Flower Market 6x6 oil on museum board

to purchase for $100 click here

These two women I saw at the market in Frankfurt,

Germany were more interesting to me

than the flowers they were buying.

They were a joy to paint!
This painting says
"spring is here"!

Shufflin' Along

Shufflin' Along  5x7 oil on board

to purchase for $100 click here

I loved the character of the old fellow

shuffling along the seafront in the Maltese sunshine.

Keep on keeping on! 

Remember that expression? You know

who you are, and we're NOT going

to talk about age any more.

We're as young as we think;)

Enthralled

Enthralled 6x6 oil on museum board

to purchase for $100 click here

The warm weather and sunshine has people hanging 

out in parks and on the benches that dot the

seafront in Malta.  It's one

of my favorite spring subjects!

I feel for you guys that still have snow.

April 2013 Newsletter

Fun and Games  Martini Collage

 

Hi Friends, I sent out my April Newsletter this morning.

If you're not signed up and would like to

take a peek to see what my buddy

Robi has been doing, a quote from Cris Rock,

and wonderful things that come in threes-

click here.

 

Thanks to all of you for your support and viewing my art!

 

 

Fresh Sliced Orange

Fresh Sliced Orange 6x6 oil on museum board

to purchase for $100 click here

I bought some new colors in preparation for my

upcoming workshop with Ovanes Berberian in France

next month.  Two new ones for me

were cad green and platinum violet.   So I

picked my fresh oranges instead of lemons this

time to work with the color scheme.

I love orange, green, and purple together and lucky for

me it also happens to be a triadic color harmony.

About the purple-  it has a more red bias than what 

I usually use: carbazole violet. I did the

under painting with the platinum violet and you can

see it bleeding through on the bottom left.

I went over it with the carbazole violet

simply because it looked better to me and I liked it.

Do you have a favorite purple? Feel free to share!

All In Video

All In  16 x 20 Oil on Canvas

I made a video progression of this painting today.

Check out the step by step process below:

Thanks for viewing my art!

Fresh Sliced Lemon

Fresh Sliced Lemon 8x8 oil on museum board

to purchase for $300 click here

I'm still on my lemon binge. I had so much fun painting the

knife and the lemons, and the shadows, and

the color shifts under the martini glass,

and the reflections in the shaker.

 Why do I procrastinate?!

But I do, just a little on a daily basis.

Maybe it's that haunting feeling I get about finishing

and feeling like the painting should more this or more that.

'Should' is a very bad work I believe

and I'm trying to eliminate it from my mental vocabulary.

What keeps you from the joy of painting?

 

 

Fresh Lemon Slice

Fresh Lemon Slice  6x6 oil on board

The patterns of light and dark continue to hold

my interest no matter what my subject is.

What I'm really focusing on is

how to express these

values and colors with loose brushwork

and a variety of edges.

 

This subject literally falls in my lap from 

my lemon trees in the garden!

 

to purchase for $100 click here

On The Edge

On The Edge  6x6  oil on museum board

I love painting this knife, but this

painting is really all 

about the patterns of light and dark. 

If I get the negative spaces correct

then the objects just paint

themselves:)

to purchase for $100 click here

 

 

 

 

Cutting Edge

Cutting Edge  8x8 oil on museum board

 

to purchase for $200 click here

 

Lately I've been working behind the scenes

 taking a private week of pure

experimentation and not worrying at all about

the 'finshed' product.

It's a simple luxury that I don't think I

indulge in enough.

 

Play is the soul food of art that keeps me going.

 

Please feel free to share your secrets

about what keeps you going on your

creative journey.

 

Two Down

Two Down   6 x 6  oil on museum board

to purchase fro $100 click here

I'm enjoying the primary palette, the distortion of the liquid

and the reflections on the shaker.

The combinations seem endless yet each

painting is a new challenge.

I'm experimenting with a different surface this week.

I've coated each panel with three coats of gesso

sanding in between. After I play

with it a while I'll let you know which on I like best

and why.

 

How do you prepare your panels.

I order Ampersand from the states.

What do you use?

Striped Cream and Sugar

Striped Cream and Sugar 6x6 oil on museum board

to purchase for $100 click here

I'm listening to horns honking and people singing as I

post this. We've just had the elections here in

Malta and the Labor Party is a happy bunch.

They won and ousted the National Party after

being in power for 25 years.

Apparently the idea is to make as much noise as

possible in celebration, all day and all night.

We're on day two, everyone is Still out on the

streets. Except me and probably the head of

the National Party.

Hopefully tomorrow things will return to normal,

whatever that means!

 

 

Cherry Triple

Cherry Triple  6x6 oil on museum board

sold

I switched the color of my under painting and my

tinted palette I've been playing with.  

It makes all the colors change.

Have you tried this? If so I'd love

to hear about your experience!

Cosmo Down

 

Cosmo Down 6x6 oil on board

 

to purchase click here

 

This is another version of the glasses done on a

palette that was tinted the same color as my under painting

on my board.

 

I think I'm getting used to it, although it's a bit

confusing. To me the colors

seem to harmonize and pop more.

 

What do you think?

 

 

 



Shaken Not Stirred

Shaken Not Stirred  6x6 oil on board

sold

I'm still having fun with colors, reflection and

the distortions created by liquid in colored glass.

I tried something with this painting that I've never done

before. My friend, Abbey Ryan, suggested I try

painting on a palette the same color as I toned my canvas.

That's right quinacridone red!

I usually work on a mid tone palette so I can easily tell

what value the color I mix is, on the light side or the dark side.

Sometimes I work on a white paper palette which is 

super easy clean up, especially outdoors.

But a hot pink palette?

It was crazy confusing for me at first but I really 

started getting into it and want to experiment with this some more. 

I did this by painting paper the same color as I toned the canvas

and placed it on the mixing area of my canvas. 

Then I put a piece of glass on top and proceed as usual,

well almost as usual.

All In

All In  16 x 20  Oil on Canvas

I'm really getting into this gaming series. This one is

quite a bit larger and took me about four painting

sessions to compete. Yet it was a pure

pleasure to paint!

There are alot of details in a painting like this

but my goal was to keep it as loose as possible.

I think the key to keeping the painting as

direct as possible is to be as

accurate as possible with the drawing underneath

before any real painting is done.

Fortunately I really like to draw and find

it very soothing.

for purchasing information click here

Two Pair

Two Pair 8x8 oil on museum board

Most of the work on this painting was done before I ever

dipped a brush into the paint.  It actually took me

a couple of days to get the set up right. 

Then I did about ten preliminary black and white

sketches, trying to simplify each time down to

three values. 

 By the time I got to

the actual painting things went pretty smoothly:)

I painted it in one day, then let it dry a  bit

and added the finishing touches the next day.

That's the way I like to work the best, 

looking at it the following day to get a fresh perspective.

To purchase for $350 click here

Red Drink Down

Red Drink Down 6x6 oil on board

I'm really having a good time with this theme and

the abstract quality in the glasses.  I stayed with my

one inch brush much longer on this

version and it made my 

painting time a little shorter:)))

to purchase for $100 click here