Personal Art Blog

Sharing the lessons I teach at the Artist Guild and the personal discoveries in my art.

Monday, May 13, 2019

Farmers Market Series - Yellow Hat.




Yellow Hat
6"x8" oil on canvas board $150.
Purchase HERE

Artist Note.
The yellow hat caught my eye.
AND...
yes...we allow dogs
 at our Farmers Market.

The market is getting full
of all kinds of goodies.
This week I bought
 lush red and yellow peppers
and other
wonderful veggies.

Passing on some info I was told
when I got the peppers.

Did you know that the female
pepper is sweeter than the male?
And... did you know that the female
pepper has three or four
distinct bumps
on its bottom where the male
 has two and is flatter?
You can see the top peppers
(which are upside down)
have clearly defined bumps
on their bottoms.

Okay friends, I had already published the
above about the male/female peppers
but
A nagging fact-finding vibe
kept coming into my mind
so I Googled it...
Sheesh...it is
NOT TRUE!

 Yes, there are four bumps
and three flatter bump types
but it has nothing to do with gender.
Apparently there are no gender
differences and the
sweetness depends on the soil!!


Thursday, May 9, 2019

White Flowers And Porcelain


White Flowers And Porcelain
6"x6" oil on Raymar panel $120.
Purchase HERE

Artist Note
This was a demo for one of the 
Artist Guild classes.

It is the last month 
of the Guild sessions until August
and we are doing a refresher 
of everything which has 
been  reviewed this semester.

I started this painting with a 
 dark transparent paint
 covering 
the board 
and then I lifted off
the lighter design with a rag.
This exposes the white 
of the canvas. 
To make the main flower shape
 whiter I used a brush 
dipped in Gamsol to totally
lift off the underpainting.

I find it pretty easy to gradually 
build up  the shapes with
layers of color making sure 
only one or two flowers 
are a tad realistic and the rest 
just abstract suggestions of color.

Maybe this is the easiest way of all
for floral still life paintings.
I bet most of you have tried it. 
What do you think?


Saturday, May 4, 2019

Sunning!


Sunning.
8"x 6" oil on Raymar panel $150. SOLD

This is part of an small adobe
house in the Upper valley area
of El Paso, Texas.
It is very old and once housed the
seasonal farm workers
for the large farm it is on.
It looks abandoned...
I guess machines
now do all the work .

Cats were everywhere!
They were very peaceful
and there was not a skinny one
to be seen.
There must be a treasure trove of
field mice around!