Playtime!

Playtime
8x6in oil on canvas   NFS

This is my friend's  granddaughter.
I painted this from a photograph which,
as soon as I saw it,  knew I had to ask
permission to paint her.
It turned out well so I thank my
friend and her daughter for allowing me to
publish it on my blog.
What a lovely shaped head she has.
Totally relaxed she is completely
involved with brushing
the shocking pink mane of the yellow
animal she is holding. My own, 5 year
old granddaughter has a collection of them
so you would think I would know its name.
Just been informed:  seahorse from

the mylittlepony collection.

Birthday Roses and a New Technique

Birthday Roses

8x6in  oil on canvas panel  $125.  SOLD

I first want to thank everyone who sent those 
absolutely fabulous birthday wishes. I was touched.
You all made me very, very happy. 

My son and his lady gave me these lovely roses
on my birthday.
The Daily Paintworks Challenge is Something Blue,
so I popped the roses into a vase made by my mother
and a little one into a blue vase given to me by my
daughter and thought what could be better than
a "family" contribution.

Artist Note.

When I started to paint (instead of illustrating...such a difference)
there was an artist whose work I adored, and I wanted to use
her technique. I did not plan on using her subject matter,
but I really studied how she painted.
Her name?  Susan Hertel. She recorded her life in paint.
She died at 63 from Cancer and true to form, she painted herself
wearing her scarf after she lost her hair,
I have one of the paintings. 48x 60" BIG!

Technique.

This one is for artists who love to draw.

Her drawings were outstanding and the basis of everything
she did.
She drew with charcoal, fixed it and scrubbed
a color I called paper bag brown over the canvas.
She was very influenced by the simplicity of
oriental design and it shines thorough in her
amazing compositions.
She reduced things down to simple shapes
and would do three value changes at the most.

This is a crude example. I lined up the tangent of the apple
and red hills deliberately because she would do things like that.
She rarely put shadows in so I did this before I realized.

But, you ask, why am I not doing this technique if I liked
it so much? Ah...good question. I was really into it and
someone said my work looked like Susan Hertels
and overnight I found I lost my joy for it.
I did learn so much though
and her painting in my home still gives me the most pleasure.

Notice the color of the pomegranates linking to the red
New Mexico hills. She played around the meeting of
tangents in a painting and I learned when I could and
couldn't use them because she threw away the rules.

See how the horses backs repeat the shapes of the hills.
I hope you click on these two painting to see her work
more closely.

Susan was an animal lover. She had goats, horses, cats
and dogs and painted  them all.
She was also an amazing poet. Her three daughters published
them  and I have the little book. - All this Change. Amazon
Robert Redford wrote a wonderful comment on it.
Here is a poem which touches me.

I am a dog person, a hawk person, a hill person
but I am not a person of the people tribe.

I am an immigrant among the animals
We communicate imperfectly.
Still I am welcome.

I know the language of the people tribe.
It hurts.
I know the customs and ways
but I have become an exile.

I live as a foreigner
among the animals.
Maybe God will find me there.

Matisse Copy

Matisse Copy

6x6in oil on canvas board   $85.

Detail:  Still Life with Oranges ( Nature Morte aux Oranges ou Corbeille d'oranges) 1912

Doing this copy by Matisse - the greatest of all the Fauves - reminded me of what a master he was of pure design. Every area of the painting I made this detail from, is perfect.
Doing the research for this small painting I was interested to learn that when he was hospitalized as a young man, the other occupant in his room was copying etchings in color so Henri asked his mother for colored pencils so he could  try his hand at it. He loved it and the rest is history. He started his art career at 20 years of age which was late in comparison to  Picasso, (his future rival)  who, when at the same age, will have already completed almost a thousand works.
Like Picasso, Matisse was a great experimenter with paint application but he knew early on the basic structure the direction his art would go and wrote: " Everything that is unnecessary in a painting is detrimental to it." He was true to this principle from his first to the last of his works.

Matisse used the flat color technique  and would often repaint these areas in another hue. It may look simple but the complexity is profound and I value what I learned during this research.

Cezanne Copy

Cezanne Copy

6x6in oil on canvas board  85.

It is apple and pear harvest time where I live and I thought it would be a good learning experience to copy how some of my favorite artists paint fruit.
This first one is by Cezanne. (Hope it is obvious!)
This is a detail from, Still Life With Compotier. (1879)
It is a little stiffer than his later works but the artist Gauguin owned and passionately admired this still life -  even reproducing it in the background of a portrait.
Obviously the colors are determined by the reproduction I copied from and as I cannot buzz over to Paris to see the original, I stayed as true as possible to the printed colors. I was able to learn how he saw and did his brushwork, value/color plane changes and how he introduced some of the neighboring colors into his mixtures.