Vase Collection

After seeing a vase painting on a trip, I decided to paint a "collection" of vases that I had seen. Most were vases that are somewhere in our life, like in our home, condo, or somewhere that we had visited.

But, I also decided to use the same genre for all of the pieces, using light as an atttention getter, making all of them the same size, 20" X 20", and adding something to the top to even out the composition. When displayed together, they make a pretty impressive 4 foot by 4 foot piece.

I like the way these came out and plan to use this idea for some future pieces.

Veiled Woman

I saw this image on the web and fell in love with the eyes. They were mezmerizing. And, I loved the color of the veil. Some folks tell me that this is similar to a photo of a blue eyed Muslim woman in National Geographic, but this one is different.

While this work is different for me, I decided to try it.

I'm very happy at the way it came out. The color harmony and features came out well. And, those eyes !!!

Kenny Loggins Glass

The Naples International

Film Festival is held each year in Naples, FL, our winter hometown. As a fundraiser, they solicit various celebrities to sign a martini glass, which is then embelished by an artist or designer, and ultimately auctioned off to raise funds for the festival

This year, 2011, I was asked to participate as an artist in the project. My celebrity was Kenny Loggins, the famous singer/songwriter of Footloose, Top Gun, and Winner the Pooh fame. I decided to pick several of his albums, Footloose, his first single album, Vox Humana, and Winnie the Pooh as the main design elements, along with several Grammys and some musical score elements. I'm excited about how it came out and anxious to see who bids on it in November.

Ellie and the Bubbles

Three years ago, I started a project to paint all of our grand daughters. The theme was to paint them all at the same age, two years old, and in the same genre. The first one, of Madison, set the style as it showed her running up a lane to a friend's house, all legs, clothes, and hair. This set the stage for paintings of Johanna and Quinlin last year. All three of these pieces are in previous posts.

This painting, on the left, is the last in the series. It is Eleanor (Ellie) at her second birthday party in June 2011. She loves chasing after bubbles in the backyard of her Denver home, so this was an obvious "keeper". She's wearing her favorite dress, too.

Snow Horses

When I saw this image, it really interested me. I'm not a big horse guy, but having lived for a long time in Colorado, the idea of a herd of horses running through the snow was compelling. The big problem is that each horse is a portrait, with different characteristics and differences. This made capturing these features, as well as conveying motion as the herd races through the snow, a lot of fun.

I love the snow exploding upward as the horses tromp through it, as well as the snow on the horses' backs. They must have been out there in the storm..

This is another image that I found online. It reminded me of the Florida sunsets, but also of several of my friends who like duck hunting. Although I've never done it - duck hunting - this is what I would expect it to look like early in the morning. This was validated as my friends Dave M. and Bob B., who have been hunters in the past, wanted to have the painting. Now both of them have it through the magic of giclee' prints.

Love the colors !!!

Goldfish

I painted this guy as "lark". Saw the image online and really liked the look of this fancy, little goldfish just checking you out. I painted it in oil, as usual , but did it on a clay board, rather than canvas. It was hard to do, as the clay board is porous and absorbs the paint. I was kind of unhappy with it until I "oiled" it with linseed oil. All of a sudden, the background popped out looking just like water. It makes it look real.

Since we are preparing for our annual art show at our development here in Naples, Florida, I used this painting to advertise the show, not really thinking that it would get much attention. Wrong !! I get comments every day on this little guy. People really like it. And, so do I!