Hummingbirds

9 x 9" oil on oak floor tile
Here are some hummingbirds I've been working on for my mother in law. I still need to coat them with resin. I hadn't painted birds for a while so it took me a while to get back to it. I love birds, but I seem to enjoy painting humminbirds more than any other kind. They can be so colorful and strange. Now that they're finished, I think I'll work on some more birds for the shop.

Self portrait with glasses

I rarely wear my glasses. Only to watch movies with subtitles and to drive at night. I could probably stand to wear them more, but my glasses are a tad large for my face. Since I don't wear them daily, I went for the cheap big chunky black frames. I usually spend too much on designer frames, and well I wanted some heavy duty glasses. The kind you don't lose or break, and that you can't see the edge of when you're wearing them.

I nearly went for a pair of red "Sally Jesse Raphael" frames. I remember when these were all the rage. I didn't wear glasses at the time, but my mom got a pair. I think my sister and I must have pushed for it, but I was so proud that my mom had these cool glasses. Strangely enough, the SJR frames were marked down heavily at Kaiser. I myself am getting too old to accesorize ironically, but surely these must make a comeback. It fits in with the 80s, and well, they are surprisingly flattering.

Painting with gnats

Oil on birch panel 6 x 6"

After painting my imaginary flowers, I moved on to paint some actual flowers in our garden. I sat my stool down to paint a red tulip, but ended up painting the bleeding heart instead. I hope the tulip doesn't mind.
I battled swarms of gnats to paint these. They were out in force. Some met an untimely death in my palette. You'll be happy to know that none are buried in these paintings however.

In other news, I received a lovely email from Etsy seller/blogger Jade Scott, who posted about my Edie prints in her blog.. She makes great jewelry (lurve the necklaces..) and has some fantastic deals in her shop right now. Aside from her own work, she also posts great finds from Etsy. Thanks to her blog, I now see 100 more things I need to own.... sigh.

Spring is here!... or at least it was yesterday

6 x 6" oil on birch panel

Yesterday was gorgeous. In the 70s and perfect for sitting outside and painting. During the week, I had worked on two different 'people with glasses' paintings, but they were looking too forced and weren't working out. I took that as a sign to veer off into some imaginary flowers. These were really fun to paint. I mostly paint from observation, so it was fun to to paint from imagination for a change, and just lay down different shapes. While I did these in oil paint, I think I'll continue the idea with encaustics. More to come... who says that winter time is more productive for people? I get way more accomplished with some sunshine!

Fred Terry Drives his tractor

6 x 6" oil on birch panel

Just in case you though I'd only be painting men in glasses...

Here's fair-goer Aunt Fannie Johnson Smith.

Park Ranger

6 x 6" oil on birch plywood.
I'm posting a photo of this painting, taken with my sad little digital camera, so my apologies for the poor quality. I'll replace it with a scan once I gather a few more paintings to take to Walgreens to scan. I really ought to buy a scanner. I'm just not sure where I'd put it. Living in a small house means surfaces are extremely valuable real estate. If I buy a scanner, where would the printer go? I could move the printer on the file cabinet, but then where would the serger go? and so on...

In other news (can we really call it that?), I can't stop listening to She & Him.

Cowboy Harry Webb

Harry is a sharp dresser, plus he just so happens to wear glasses, thus meeting my new portrait criteria!  

I'm having a lot of fun painting skin tones.  I used to mix primary colors together with white to get this putty tan tone that made everyone look like Barbie.  I'm now onto a better technique of keeping the colors separate so you can see greens, yellows, pinks and blues in the skin tone.  I'm much happier with it.  I'm still painting with the first tubes of oil paint that I bought to experiment with.  It's amazing how much longer they last compared to acrylic paints.  I have every color under the sun in acrylic, but with oils, I've stuck with the primary colors plus a yellow ochre and a raw umber.  This is forcing me to mix more of my own colors and also just keeps life more simple.  Both good things for now.

In other news, it's supposed to reach a balmy 60 degrees today!  

People with glasses.. a series?

6 x 6" oil on birch plywood
Back to what I like to paint best- people with glasses. Not sure why. I've been trying to push myself to do abstracts or more mixed media work. I'd still like to, but what I really enjoy most is painting people wearing glasses. So I'm not going to fight it for a while.

Candy Rings

6 x 6" oil on birch panel

I've always said that plastic is my favorite gemstone.
These small paintings were done last week. I'd been thinking of painting my plastic ring collection for some time. I didn't realize it would be so much fun. They remind me of little pieces of candy.
Note to self- always do at least 2 paintings of an idea.

Edies are scanned, and completely clothed

I've been using the scanner at Walgreens. I usually wait until I have 3 or 4 things to scan before I go, since it seems wasteful and silly to get a cd of just one image. Tonight I walked over with three paintings to scan and returned an hour later to get my disk. I was given three disks by a guy who said he was new. "It just started spitting out disks" he said, "I thought it was kinda wierd". errrr ok. I thought maybe he burned each image on a separate disk and took them home to investigate. Nope. I got my scans, plus 2 disks of somebody's naked pics. Artful nudes really. Tatooed ladies frolicking in the forest sort of thing. I really wanted to post one on my blog. In fact I almost regret returning them as I type. It was the right thing to do though. Should I be involved in a nude forest frolicking photos session, and my photos were to fall into the wrong hands, I would hope someone would do the same for me. Then again, it's doubtful that I would entrust them to an 18 year old boy working the Walgreens photo booth....
So no naked pics, just Big and Little Edie in all their modesty.

Sidetracked with the Beales

Yea!! I just got my new encaustic paintings posted to my Etsy store. It feels so good to finally post new things. I hadn't posted much all summer since, as usual I decided to switch gears and learn something new, when I was just geting into a rythym with oil painting. Fun for sure, but it doesn't amount to many new paintings...
But alas a pause from the encaustics to finish some long neglected Beales paintings.
I've got this small little Edie just about finished- just lacking some minor touches, but I'm really happy with it.
My intention this morning was to paint a partner canvas- same size but of big Edie. Leave it to me to get sidetracked. Instead, I started a new larger canvas of a scene with both Edies on it. I 'd really been wanting to see both Edies together and to paint larger, so I'm glad I went with it. It's drying now so I can get back to work on it tomorrow-- and also Big Edie's portrait. I swear...! Must have Edie prints done for Christmas.