Bo Schembechler

Side-tracked from my painting of "The Oval" once again.... Jean, who owns the frame shop where I teach a class, told me someoen was looking for a Bo Schembechler print to hang on the wall of his restaurant (sports bar). So I finished this watercolor this morning. I don't know why but guys usually like watercolor sports paintings better than oils-0 at least my husband does, and he is into sports more than most people I know. Nascar, baseball, football, basketball... you name it- he watches it on TV. OK... he doesn't watch hockey. Since I have the watercolors out I will probablly get to the oval painting today.

Christine- Impressionist portrait

I used a #8 round synthetic and two #8 flats to paint this. I used the drawing I made last week of Christine and it didn't take longer than an hour to finish form life. I left the brush strokes large and unblended and they look really good from a distance. It's very impressionistic though because when you get close they are BIG brush strokes. I think I painted into a soupy kind of mud color I used to paint over the painting underneath. It ws an Indian that never sold. That helped add a bit of color harmony that might not have been there if I had used white canvas. Posting a couple closeups to show the BIG picture.
I have to paint Bo Schembechler for somebody this afternoon- they want prints- if I don't sell them the original I guess I'll offer it on the eBay. I sure hope there are some decent references on the internet somewhere.

Jocelyn a Portrait Exchange

11" x 14" oil on linen... I used the Old Holland linen for this portrait too and I'm afraid I am going to have to raise my portrait prices to accommodate the cost of this canvas because I just love painting on it. I offered Jocelyn a trade and lucky for me she went for it. Now she'll paint me in her favorite medium- acrylics. She let me know today that she loves it so I can move on to my next project-- a watercolor of "The Oval", a park-like setting near the Ohio State stadium. This is for my brother-in-law, and I have been putting it off because I find watercolors difficult to paint. Once I get going with them I'm OK, but they really require so much more preparation than an oil painting, which has become second nature to me. I'm very happy with the way Jocelyn's portrait turned out and it's a good example of what can happen if you think about lighting when you take a photo.

Allie in a Green Dress

The final in the series... I want to enter this one in a show so I've priced it pretty high. After the show I'll more than likely drop the price, although not too low because it is an awesome painting. The Old Holland linen canvas really does seem to make a difference when I paint portraits. The surface is so receptive, compared to the rougher weave of cotton, which usually takes a few coats of paint to become smooth. I'm pretty happy with the way this turned out although I may lose the flower because it is not doing anything for the composition except pulling the eye away from the focal point.

Two Models from Saturday

Tyler age 11, about 20 minutes and Christine about 40 minutes. These were done with charcoal on 18 x 24 80# drawing paper and I gave the models the drawings after I took pictures of them. I will use the pictures I took to do underpaintings for my paintings. Both models have interesting features, especially the boy.