Hal's Garage

This morning a friend and I painted a picturesque old gas station that we had been wanting to paint for months. Hal's Garage is on the west side of Fayette, a small town 30 some miles west of Toledo.

12" x 12" oil on canvas

Another Holly Jolly House Painting

This is a traditional brick style ranch home that looks like it might have been built in the late seventies or early eighties. Nothing special about it, although it is beautiful. The photo I was given lacked contrast and the plants were fading. The leaves had lost their leaves. I magically returned the leaves to the trees and brightened up the shrubs and grass, giving the painting a late summer appearance.

After I showed her the proof she mentioned that she might not want that little pine tree in front of the house, so I'll probably be doing an edit.

11" x 14" oil on canvas

REVISED

Removed the tree. It took about three minutes. 

The Last Painting of the Year

This year I have done more custom paintings of houses than usual. I am up front about what I can do ans I can't perform miracles. I tell people that the painting will be better if they provide me with good reference photos. And I am still sent out of focus reference images taken with cell phones or 400 pixel wide images from Realtor.com. I patiently explain how to go about getting better images but often they're just not interested in spending the time. I don't argue but I'm not always proud of the paintings I come up with either. I wasn't aware that the Google Monster that has invaded so many facets of our lives has actually recorded minute details of where we live as well. Like almost everyone else I know, I have gone to Google Maps and checked out the image of my house to see what it looks like and try to guess the approximate date it was taken. Sometimes it is possible to narrow it down to a specific year and season but the details of my house were never very clear.

I suppose the cities get more attention because the client asked me to look at Google Maps, but I was still amazed at the level of detail available. Along with the address of the brownstone, she also gave me some photographs but the street was hemmed in with cars so I couldn't really see anything below window level. The Googlemobile uses a van with a roof mounted camera so the viewpoint is better and it allowed me see behind those cars.

My goal is always to make it prettier than in real life so I pretended not to see the peeling paint and the flowers are more vibrant than they actually are. But what is the point of having a painting done of a place where you used to live if you can't recall it as a golden moment in time?

Philadelphia Street

16" x 20"

oil on canvas

And in case you were wondering- here are a few of my reference images.

Fall, Black Cats and Halloween

11" x 14" oil on canvas

A collection of gourds and a black cat. Tis the season, I suppose.

Put My Sister in Disneyworld

This was a little different commission than I normally do. She wanted a painting of her sister at Disneyworld. Apparently her sister adores all things Disney so I used a few different photos to create a montage of her sister happily entering Main Street in Disneyworld.

A really unique gift idea!

Summer Vegetables

Looking at the date of my last entry, I can see that it has been almost two weeks since I posted anything to the blog. A pretty long time to go without painting... for me. Well, I have been painting, just not posting. Weddings, reunions and other stuff just gets in the way. Life, I suppose. My daughter is back in school now and my house guests have returned to Texas so it's time to catch up.

Last night I painted some produce that was gifted to me by my mother when I stopped at her house earlier in the week. I used a blue film over my spotlight as an experiment to simulate north light. I'm not sure it worked but it did make my carrots look awfully pale. So pale that I touched them up with some orange this morning when I took another look at it.

The reflective copper kettle is one of my favorite props and I'm getting pretty good at painting it. The very first time i painted it I spent over two hours on the kettle itself. This time I spent about two hours on the entire painting and called it done.

I started with a blue underpainting because I thought it would give the warm tomatoes and carrots a little kick. My favorite part of the painting is the onion because I spent two minutes on it and I was happy with it.

Summer Vegetables 11" x 14"

Oil on canvas

The Albert family

I have been working on this painting for a couple weeks. It's a commissioned piece for a friend of Jamie Hurley's. Two years ago Jamie had me create a really illogical painting of her being rescued by her boyfriend, who was riding a white horse and being aided by a giant Michigan Wolverine. A dragon and a castle were also included in the mix. Later Jamie married her boyfriend and I like to think my painting had a lot to do with that. Perhaps not. :)

Anyway, that's how I came to do this painting, which is a lot more traditional and showcases the couple's lovely home and even more lovely child. Plus their two dogs....one of which is paying attention and the other which is not.

18" x 24" oil on canvas