Two Yellow Pears

I can't resist pears. I've painted green pears, yellow pears, red pears. They have such an attitude and personality. They cozy up together, stand alone, or try to take center stage. When you paint a group of pears, it's so easy to imagine their conversations. This is a small oil on canvas still life, 5" x 5", framed in an 1 1/2" simple gold frame. The pairs are nestled on an antique napkin that was passed down in our family. It has just a slightly scalloped edge and is a soft, off-white.

This would be very nice in a kitchen, pantry or dining area with it's warm, sunlit look. I will be creating an auction for this piece in a day or two.

Here's the auction link Click to view or bid

Lilies and Hydrangeas I

In the middle of the winter, when I'm craving sunshine and flowers, I like to go to the Flower Show and walk through the spring-like displays. At the last show I attended, there was a beautiful floral arrangement of lilies and hydrangeas just begging to be photographed. I knew I wanted to do a large painting of these gorgeous flowers, and the painting above was done as a study for that. I was pleased with the results of my study and continued with it to turn it into a finished piece. The large lilies are the "stars" and the hydrangeas their quiet backdrop. I try to use this combination of "important and less-important" for my compositions.

This is an original watercolor floral on Arches paper and the painted image is 8 1/2" x 11 3/4". I offer it double matted to 14 1/2" x 18". The mats are always acid-free and are usually Bainbridge or Crescent.

I've created an auction for this piece with DPW Auctions; the link is below.

Click here to bid

Rose of Sharon

This is a colored pencil floral painting that I did a while ago. Right now, my garden is blooming, and the Rose of Sharon is getting ready to open. The beautiful and interesting thing about this plant, is that it can have several different colors of flowers on the same Rose of Sharon bush. Sometimes, white, pink and purple.

Colored pencil is an nice medium to use, layering like a watercolor to create blended colors. It's also great since it's so portable--just bring along your pad and pencils and you're ready to go!

The original is not for sale, but prints are available. See the link to FineArtAmerica on the right at the top of the page under "Links". The original painting is 9 1/4" x 8 1/4".

"Out of the Bag"

This is a playful piece, oil on canvas, done from a still life set-up. It's really showing the green/red palette juxtaposed to the neutral background setting. I've tried to make the green apple the "star" by keeping the red pear more of a backdrop for the apple. This 8 x 8 piece was fun to do. I wasn't sure about handling the paper bag, so I just looked for shapes of shadow and a few brighter edges to pull out. I just "smooshed" (a very technical term) the background and liked the effect, so I left it without further reworking. I liked that it gave it some interest and direction.

This painting is up for auction, starting today, for 7 days. You can click on the link below to view.


Click to bid

Just One Red Tulip

Final of the series!  Did a bit of tinkering to get warm neutrals inside the tulip to "pop" the lightest areas.   I tried to keep this fairly simple to just let the flower speak.  I hope it speaks to you! 

A Pair of Tulips

This is the second painting in my Tulip series.  I was looking for a different composition in which I could use some interesting lighting.  I just happened to lay these down on my surface with the light on, and there it was!  I liked the sweeping angle and the interesting shadows thrown by the tulips.  The tulip colors vary slightly from my first attempt (previous post), but this series was also designed to explore "reds", so I felt more free to vary the color.  Let me know what you think!

Two Red Tulips

SOLD

Where does the time go?  I can't believe it's almost a month since my last post!  But Spring has finally arrived and I find myself enjoying my garden and the spring flowers.  Flowers have always been a love of mine and I could not resist painting some red tulips.  I do seem to have this "red" thing going for a while now.  I"ve been exploring different reds, different backgrounds and various red objects.  I haven't really painted a series before, but this is the first of three paintings of red tulips.  I'm sharing this one today, with the others to follow soon.