Started My Largest Painting Yet...

Tonight I sketched out my largest painting yet...an 11x14" canvas!  You can see him yet, but there's a fella' fishing along side this river! Also, continued work on the San Xavier painting (I think I spelled that right?!)  I've come to the conclusion that I am quite simply...a VERY SLOW painter.  That doesn't particularly bother me, but it would be nice to pick up the pace a bit.

Working Three at a Time

Painted tonight for a couple hours.  I have three works going at once right now.  Here's a couple pics of the painting I'm doing for my dad.  Decided to use the palette knife for the light wall on the left...looks like the stuccoed.  More work on just about every part of that painting, but still more to go!

I'm baaaaack!

Wow!  A year and a half since I last blogged.  Been a busy year, home schooled our girls for a year and then just enrolled them back in a new school which we like very much.  When we started homeschooling I started building a "classroom" in our barn.  I finally finished it after we had enrolled them back in school...go figure. So...what to do with the classroom...why, turn it into my studio!!  Here are some picks of the new studio and the painting currently on my easel - work in progress!

Finally, found a good place to hang my mom's painting she did years ago.

Mood Over Sauve Island

Been a long time since I've painted...too long!  Thought I'd warm my brushes up with a small 6"x8" tonight.  This is from a photo I took on Sauve Island weekend before last.  My wife and daughters had never been out there so we made a day of it.  Picnic, fresh strawberries, hiking around checking out the wildlife and then finishing off on a beach.  Just an all around great day.  Despite the imposing clouds we only got a short, light rain at the end.  Hope you like!

6"x8" Oil on Raymar Panel

Ford Work Horse

Finally, got in a little painting this afternoon.  Awhile back I asked permission to a few wonderful photos from a friend of mine who's a terrific photographer, Thyra.  I've been eyeing this old Ford C-700 for quite a while and finally set out to painting it.  I've never tried to paint a vehicle before, but I must say....this was tons of fun (pun intended)!!  I do think I need to correct that "lazy eye" lookin' headlight :-)

Still have some more detail to go.  6" x 8" panel.  

The Yellow Rose of....well....Portland

Today, my family spent the day waiting for my sister-in-law "Auntie Koin", as the girls call her, to come out of surgery.  She was diagnosed with cancer very recently and so they went in to remove it.  We're happy to say it was very localized and hadn't spread to the lymph nodes so that was very good news!

So while we were waiting, I was reading an article in the Feb/Mar 2009 issue of International Artist magazine on one of my favorite artists, E.J. Paprocki.  His impressionist style just appears so vibrant to me! So tonight when we got home I decided to try this style of painting out.  I attempted to let some of the underpainting show through to create that vibrancy that draws me to these types of paintings.  Not sure if I pulled it off, but it certainly has a looser feel than my last rose.  I actually wanted the underpainting to be a bit more on the lavender side and the rose to be a bit more yellow, but at least it looks like a rose ;-)

6 x 8 RayMar panel

RIP Indy - 2012

Tough day today.  We had to put our cat of 9 years down.  His name was Indy, but we usually just called him "Big Kitty" because he was such a big Maine Coon.  My wife and I are very sad, but my girls, 9 and 10, are heart broken.  Indy has just always been there for as long as they can remember...and now he's not.  We'll miss you "Big Kitty"!

Bright lights, no problem...he'd just cover 'em up when he got sleepy.

He loved to talk to you!

He was often lookin' down on us from the rafters in the barn.  We never did see how he got up there!

That's a lot of fur to keep clean!