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!

Really great music

We went to see The Avett Brothers lastnight. Wow.... If you haven't had a chance to see them live yet, you really should. I couldn't believe the amount of energy they have. It was the best concert I've been to in recent memory. After having not seen any live music in maybe a year, we're on a concert going frenzy this week and seeing Cat Power Sunday night. I've always wanted to see her perform. There really is a lot of fantastic music out right now. I haven't been this excited about new music since high school really. I mean I was a grunge fan in college, but let's face it, most of that music was really awful. I still love Fugazi and Husker Du but I'm just not going to listen to it while I work in the garden.

Back to painting..

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.