These streets will make you feel brand new...

New York from the High Line

Oil with a palette knife on artist board

12" x 12"x 1.5"
SOLD

I'm gradually trying bigger sizes of city scenes hoping to avoid the intimidation factor going to a really large canvas size all at once. Reminds me of when I was in art school and the drawing teacher would have the models come into each class with less and less clothes on. I guess he was breaking us in so that life drawing class and naked bodies were not so intimidating all at once.

Before we left for recent trip to New York, we kept hearing that song in our head by Alicia Keys and singing it around the house.

New York, concrete jungle where dreams are made of
There’s nothing you can’t do
Now you’re in New York
These streets will make you feel brand new
Big lights will inspire you
Hear it for New York, New York, New York

Perhaps, I am also inspired by the start of the new season of Mad Men tonight?

Ideas and works in progress

I started this painting last week...

It was inspired by this photo I took while in NYC walking on the new High Line, a great new park created from an old elevated rail line. I knew instantly that I wanted to paint it.
 I also knew I wanted to paint it in a square format, so I did this sketch first.
Then I had an idea. Since I seem to be fascinated with both NY and Boston city scenes, why not play up their rivalry and do paintings of similar scenes from both cities?

So, I then did this sketch from a photo I took while walking around Boston during my lunch hour. New York from the High Line vs. Boston from the Finish Line (think marathon). I actually sketched this while looking at the photo on my iPhone. Which sparked another idea...

I paint from photos that I take all the time. I usually print them out, but am always disappointed by how much vibrancy and detail is lost. So, what if Apple created an iPad app for artists where you could upload your photos, plug in the size canvas you're painting, zoom in, crop, even overlay gridlines if you want, and it would illuminate your photo for you as long as you are painting?  Of course you could get an accessory that clipped to your easel also. What do you think of my idea? 

More Chunky Deliciousness

I love taking these close up shots.You can really see the texture. Like butta.

Flower Shop

Flower Shop

Oil with a palette knife on artist board

10" x 8"
SOLD at The Red Inn

I was having one of those nights during Thursday night painting class where I felt the need to organize my painting supplies before I could get into the right mindset to paint anything worthwhile. So after organizing my reference folder, scraping clean the palette, squeezing down all of the tubes of paint using my fabulous paint tube wringer, (trust me, spend the extra money and get the metal one!) then setting out a fresh new array of pretty dollups of paint, I finally settled down to paint. Thoughts of the anal retentive chef from SNL come to mind? Yes-sometimes I am the anal retentive artist.

So with the shortened time I had left, I started this painting from a photo reference that Kim had on hand. I hadn't painted flowers in awhile and it's nice to change things up every now and then isn't it? The blue flowers and vase were not in the original image, but the composition needed some color down there. It's always difficult for me to "make stuff up" but I think this came out pretty believable. If you look closely, I actually painted the green color and then scraped it away to make it look like a glazed pottery. Kim has been encouraging me to try some new techniques with the palette knife such as this type of subtraction. I think it's a good idea too and can keep the paintings interesting and fresh.

When it rains...

Just this past week:
the computer won't turn on
the iron won't heat up
the dryer won't tumble
the toilet won't stop running

I'm posting this from my iPhone hoping it doesn't decide to break too!

Hope you are having a better week than us!

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