Avalon

 My neighbor Gil has a few of my paintings.  He always likes ones that remind him of past scenes. In this case, he was looking for something that reminded him of Summer.  

He had spent a lot of family time in Avalon, NJ in the past and remembered the Avalon lifeguard boats along the shore. Never having been there, I had to do some research.  And, I found some neat photos of the boats.  

This one was fun as it also had one of my favorite aspects, reflections.

"The Boys"

 

I don't paint in pastels very often.  Usually only if I go to a class.  So, that is where this one came from.  We had a class, in pastels, called "Paint a Pet".  So, I decided to do one of my son's dogs, at least two of the three.

Here is how it ended up.  They are buried in a fuzzy blanket on the couch.

Looks pretty comfy!!~

The Panther

Where we live, I have a good friend whose last name is Panther.  She has also asked me to paint a few pieces to hang outside her door during various seasons, Spring, Fall, etc.

We were talking one day and she said that she would like a "panther painting" to also hang outside her door.  So, in looking, I found this image and decided that it would work well.

So, it's now looking down the hall.  Have fun Mrs. Panther!

The Ferrari "Horse"

 

Now, this one has a story:  In our community, there is a man who loves cars.  And, now he has a really serious one, a Ferrari.  Recently, he came to me and asked if I could do a painting similar to one he had seen at a Ferrari dealership.  It was of the Ferrari emblam, but more abstract.  He wanted it to be large, too.

I first told him that the size that he wanted wasn't something that I could do because of my work space.  But, he later came back and said that his wife didn't want the larger one in their living room, anyhow.  So, he asked if I could do one in a smaller format - and I said yes. It is still pretty big at 22 X 28"

This si the result and both of us think that it came out handsomely. I researched the paint formula for "Ferrari Red" and used it for the background, and added little bit of paint to give it a surface.  I paticularly like the way that the face turned out.  He look pretty mean!!

Western Winter Scene

The concept of changing your "door painting" in our community has taken off.  I'm getting a lot of requests for paintings of various seasons.  In this one, one of my past "patrons" said that he was missing snow - I guess that happens in Florida.  And, he wanted a painting which had a lot of snow.  So, this is what I came up with.

I almost always like to try something new in my pieces. And, I thought that trying a little "light painting" would add a lot to this one.  Kinda like Thomas Kinkade, I guess.  I think it turned out nice and maybe just might try it again.

Calla in Gold

 

While I like the Calla Lillies that I showed before, this one may be my favorite!  It shows the two lilies on the dark "popping" background, but it adds some gold color to the flowers, themselves.  In addition, I love the way that the bottom edges disappear into the background.

I'm going to leave this one as a large photo since it has become my favorite.  I think that it is going to end up somewhere on our walls at home.

I said that I was in love with Callas!

Poppin' Calla Lily

 

This is another example of a Calla Lily.  But, this one uses an almost black background to make the flower "pop" out of the canvas.  I liked this so much that I painted it several times, in several sizes.  One was 12X12" and it sits outside our door.  Another one is my usual 16X20" and I hope it ends up onsomeone else's wall.

Let's see

Calla Lily in Blue

 I've been in a Calla Lily state of mind recently.  First, I love the flower, but I also love using shading to show the wonderful shapes that this flower takes.  You'll see in the next few pieces, some of the various takes that I have done with this flower.

In this one, I decided to use a beautiful light blue background versus the normal dark black or blue.  Made it seem much more delicate, I think.

Pink Hibiscus 2026

While golfing one day, I saw this beautiful hibiscus.  I've painted a lot of hibiscus blooms in my painting career, but the look of this one grabbed me.  It was kind of bent out of shape, but had a beautiful pink hue.

So, I decided to paint it for our "door painting" and it turned out great. 

Fall Features in AI

 This was really interesting!  A friend asked me to paint a Fall painting for her with the colors from that season and a barn.  She has a Spring and Winter scene to put outside her door and wanted to add Fall.

So, I started looking for some inspiration in books or online.  But, I decided that I could just as well us AI (ChatGPT in this case) to find something  So, I asked to see a scene and got one in 30 seconds.  But, then I asked GPT to add some other features, a red barn vs brown, some more bushes, and a path.  And, it did it.

So, I used that as inspriation, but did the painting my way.  This was the result.  Some might say that this is cheating.  I say that it is using technology for inspiration.