South Vienna Prairie

A friend and I traveled south on Saturday to South Vienna for a paintout sponsored by the OPAS (Ohio Plein Air Society) It was a chilly day for April with temps in the mid forties and some wind but I put on my gloves, scarf and hoodie and manged to come up with a painting. The muted colors of early spring are hard to work with in my opinion.

9" x 12" oil on linen

Sunflowers in a Blue Vase

This is a painting I started in my painting class last week as a demo. We all paint the same thing step by step. I never get the entire thing complete because I am usually helping the students. So I took it home to my studio and finished it. One note about this project: the vase was clear and I allowed everyone to choose the color they wanted to make their vase. We had red, green, yellow and I chose blue because I thought it would accentuate the orange tones in the sunflowers.

11" x 14"

Oil on canvas

A Summertime Memory

I spent a week at Lakeside last year teaching art to vacationers as a sort of 'artist in residence.' Initially I thought I would have time to paint in the evening when I was finished teaching. It didn't really work out that way because there were a few too many distractions where I was staying. I did take some good photographs though and that's what I used as a reference for this painting.

12" x 16" Afternoon Light

This is a painting of Madison, who modeled for our portrait group Saturday. She had a really different hairstyle that I could have allowed to take over my painting. Instead I chose to paint her face first and add the hair when I was finished. Those are actually feathers sticking out of her wrapped dreadlocks but I minimized them because they don't add much to the portrait. I changed the direction of her glance. She was looking off to the right and I moved her eyes so they are looking at us. The direct stare makes her pose more personal and encourages empathy. Another change I did when I got the painting home was finish the background in a series of colors all the same value, but different hues. There was a red backdrop behind her on the model station and I thought it overpowered the muted colors of her clothing and skin.

Daisies in an Orange Pitcher

These daisies were left over from an arrangement at work. You can always count on daisies to live longer than most flowers. I needed a break from another painting I have been working on for a few days and flowers are always fun to paint..

12" x 16" Spring Daisies