tomatoes

Today's slices are tomato. After a few hours painting RED I have to get away. I can't imagine painting red larger than this. 6x8 inches, oil on masonite.

apple

More slices of life: today it is apple. These little 6 x 8 inch paintings are experiments in oil, a medium I've avoided since an oil self portrait 200 years ago when I was in high school. I guess I've come full-circle from my precise colored pencil drawings of 20 years ago because I'm back to fruit/vegetables and having fun. 6x8 inches, oil on masonite.

orange slices

I've been contemplating life a bit more than usual lately. Thinking about slices of life. Slices of orange today. 6x8 inches, oil on masonite.

ginger pot

After a sleepless night pondering my connection to a friend of 40 years ago who is now in Hospice care, I began the day without the TODAY show and the newspaper. Into my silent studio, no audio book to keep me company, this morning I have found peace in painting. My little ginger pot has been in, then out, then back in my life for 40 years. A dear old friend. 6x8 inches oil on masonite.

"Lush Life" is one of five new paintings I'll have in the next Women Painters of Washington Gallery show at the Columbia Center, downtown Seattle. Each WPW member sits the gallery a couple days each month. If you plan to be in Seattle, email me for my days and I'll give you a tour of the show.

onion

I've been playing with this little oil painting too long. Calling it quits...on to more vegetables in oil soon I hope, now that all new pastels year-to-date have been framed and scheduled for shows.

eggplant

This organic eggplant - a gift from my daughter - will be dinner tonight but first it is today's little oil painting.

NOTICE to subscribers: I am changing feeds. This blog still has Blogarithm but Feedburner is now the feed on my Current Work Blog. I'll be changing this one over soon too. Please resubscribe! With Feedburner you'll get the notice AND an accompanying image. No need to go to the blogsite.

Yesterday, I posted a new work "Tidal Wave" on the Current Work blog. You can view it now AND sign up for the new feed. I'll be switching this blog over to the new feed soon. Thanks for visiting!

I'm reworking paintings of several years ago. Here is a detail strip of "Lush Life" before and after. New work has larger masses and less overall detail, more knowledgeable color choices and a more defined focal point.

It took a little longer than I thought it would but I finished it today. I'm thinking about the title now. When I figure that out, I'll post it to my Current Work blog.

Today's studio work is a little 9" x 12" oil sketch of a scene I hope to complete in pastel this week.

Bits and pieces from today's painting, "Sweet Edge of Spring".

"Dream a Little Dream" is last week's painting. You can see the step by step process at Mighty Art Demos. The site has demonstrations in various mediums and is edited by author and colored pencil master, Bet Borgeson.

These abstracts are actually details from a pastel painting I'm working on this week. See the finished painting, "Dream a Little Dream" on my Current Work blog.

My grandsons discovered this candy in a studio drawer. They gave it to me last Halloween from their sugar collection. After one bite, I decided to paint it instead of eat it.

This little two-person Valentine's Day cake is my first oil painting - created last night before leaving the studio for the day. It was fast and fun. But, it is still wet this morning (and will be for a while). I don't know about that...

Today's painting is another from the Leavenworth October series of reference photos. Here are a couple detail shots of trees. See the finished painting, "Leavenworth October Series" on my Current Work blog.

Into the studio with a steaming mocha, I set it aside to cool and began to unframed an old painting to reuse the frame. Lifting the mat, I was surprised to see the border of red paper from my pastel-on-colored-paper period. When I turned the painting upside down, I didn’t have an aha! moment as with a painting last month but since the mocha was still too hot to drink, I decided to play with the painting for a while.



I rubbed out the pastel and began applying the colors left from my last painting, still on my easel waiting to be cleaned. The large area of white in the middle suggested the reflection of a sky in water. A half hour later I have a freeing, spontaneous experiment and another cup of mocha gone cold.


This has been a good week of painting. As the weather warms for yard work and other commitments come up on the calendar, I may not have another week like this for a while. But, I will keep in mind a comment by author John Grisham about being a writer. Something about if you don’t do a page a day, forget about being a writer and do something else. This week, I’ve applied that advice to being an artist and it was good.

"Turning Point"

Pastel Journal Creative Spark Runner Up

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Art is arranged in archives by year

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"Heart Song"

11 x 15 inches

pastel on sanded paper

"One More Time"

11 x 15 inches

pastel on sanded paper