Girl's Best Friend

A girl's best friend is NOT diamonds. It's her dog. I painted this for my son who will give it to his friend- the model. The photo had really nice light and shadow and even though it was a very low-resolution cell phone picture it is possible to get a lot of information from this kind of picture. The lack of detail encourages an artist to "lose" the detail, which is usually a good thing for a painting. This allows you to keep the focus on what's important. Here it's the girl and her companion. Her 'best friend.'

Painting at the Williams County Fair

A friend and I painted at the Williams County Fair this week. I was attracted to the colorful concession stands and the angles of the grandstand. I added the people later at home because there were too many people to think about putting them in when I painted. Fair food, petting goats and painting out side made for a great day.

9" x 12" Coles Cotton Candy
SOLD

Colleen from our Portrait Group

Colleen posed for the Hyter Group yesterday. She wore a black blouse but I am not that fond of black so I changed the color to a violet. A great model who held her pose well and didn't complain. I have located my pastels so I decided to use them! The day was perfect except for the opera music playing loudly in the back of the room. Oh well.... can't have everything I guess.

14" x 18"

Pastel on Canson paper

The Caretaker's House at 577 Foundation in Perrysburg, Ohio

I spent an afternoon painting with friends at the 577 Foundation in Perrysburg, Ohio last week. This is the caretaker's house, where they hold meetings and luncheons. Another wonderful day to paint. This summer has been a wonderful season to paint outdoors.

11" x 14"

Oil on canvas

Kunkle Horse Barn

 9" x 12" oil on linen

It was a perfect afternoon to paint and my friend and I had permission to paint on a farm in Kunkle, Ohio. We wanted to take pictures of goats and Brenda Baker has 8 or 9 of them in her pasture. Unfortunately, one of the "kids" took a liking to me and my painting gear. Here he is investigating my suitcase. Later he jumped up to have a look at my palette and got cadmium yellow light all over his foot. Then he walked around, ate some grass and ended up with paint all over his mouth! I tried to clean him up with a baby wipe but it didn't do much good. He had the paint all over my pant legs by then and I decided to make the best of it and try to ignore him. However, I seemed to be dealing with a drunken 50 lb. puppy who had no concept of what the word "no" means. "Billy" would forget about me for awhile and munch his grass, then suddenly he would look up and spot me again. "Maaa?" He would cry as he galloped toward me and I braced myself and my easel for his enthusiastic greeting. It was quite an experience. I was surprised that my painting turned out as well as it did with all the external elements I dealt with that day.