Peony Trio

Peony Trio

6x6in oil on canvas $100.  SOLD

This little painting combines three things I love...
my special shawl, a Murano glass vase and peonies.
After the storm of activity I have just been through
I was perfectly content painting objects of
such quiet beauty.

Shawl and Silver Bowl

Shawl and Silver Bowl

Graphite. 6x6in

Commission. SOLD

This is the shawl I love to paint in egg tempera.

The request was to make a pencil drawing with emphasis on the fringe.
This particular collector loves realism and I had a hard time suggesting the fringe
without making every single strand too obvious. I was concerned it was not
precise enough, but she loved it.

Artist Note.

There is a lot of repeat diamond and triangle shapes
in both the positive and negative areas. Squint
to see them. Start with the inside of the bowl...then the outside...
and on and on.
Hard to photograph the pencil so the dark contrasts look harsher than they are.

Back to oils....

Turquoise and Pansies

Turquoise and Pansies

8x6in  oil on canvas board   $125. SOLD

Guess who has a turquoise mug? Correct - a gold star for YOU!

Thank you for the many warm comments I received regarding the
DPW Spotlight interview
I have completed a painting every single day for over a year
now. Not always easy, but the friendships I have made and the
fellowship of many of the other daily painting bloggers have
added a dimension to my life I would not have thought possible.

Artist Note.

I usually paint from life, but the pansies are gone so I went back
to when I did a series of pansies and picked a couple of views
in the same light source, and copied only the flowers.  (I did set up new props.)
If I say so myself, it was a great idea.
How come I have not thought of it before?
How many others do it I wonder?
Try it and I bet you find an improvement over the older version.

Last Rose of the Season

Last Rose of the Season

Egg Tempera  9x7in  on museum board
For sale at gallery only
M.Phillips Fine Art Gallery

This is painted in Egg Tempera. (Not to be confused with the tempera paints you see used by children.)
It is a process of layering the paint in thin layers of powdered pigment to which the binder of egg yolk has been added. After encaustic it is the oldest painting medium. Fine examples of egg tempera from the 1st Century AD still exist. It was used by most artists until some genius thought of adding oil as a binder to the pigment...making oil paint.  Believe it or not, oil paint is believed to have been used in Afghanistan somewhere between the 5th- 9th centuries but was not adopted by the western world until 1500AD. Anyway, back to egg tempera.
 Andrew Wyeth  was a 20th century giant in egg tempera and lived long enough to see a renewal of interest in his chosen medium.
 Egg Tempera is without doubt my favorite media, but unfortunately you need excellent eyesight do do it justice. I can only do a few pieces a year so they are usually pieces I have strong feelings about. The shawl appears frequently in my ET pieces as I feel a huge, emotional bond with it.  Made by my Aunt Claire many years ago, it is the family Christening Shawl and has gone back and forth across the Atlantic to England for each new birth.

The Shawl

The Shawl

8x6in oil on canvas board $100.

This is another fast painting. We had two hours to paint the model... including her breaks.

It was a warm light source so I knew the shadows had to be cool but there was a lot of light bouncing around making it hard to work with the white shawl because there were no dark shadows to help show the folds. The model was very beautiful with a red rose in her hair but I chose to leave it out. Hard enough to do the face fast and this small, never mind a rose too!