At the lake house

My high school friend Bobbi's 2 beautiful girls! Just like their mother, they love Canada and the water.

All of the drawings I complete will be posted on The Sketchbook Project's website.

More Holiday Minis

This weekend, I painted some more holiday mini vignettes. After I took photos of these three, I painted three more, which I'll post as soon as I can get good photos of them. These are so much fun to paint I may not ever stop.

I dare you

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Palette Knife Demo

This past week, I was asked to do a palette knife painting demo for the Blackstone Valley Art Association meeting. I was so pleased that everyone came out on such a busy holiday week. I learned so much from the experience.

Here are some photos from the evening.

Members assembling... eager to ask questions. I actually sliced myself with the palette knife I had in my hand at the time as I was talking. Who knew they were that sharp?

I introduced the group to my palette knife family.

Two members wanted to paint along with me.

One painted flowers...

...while the other painted an figurative abstract. I think they both came out great!

One member wanted to get an up close view of the painting technique.

Afterwards, the others came up to take a closer look.

While I didn't finish the painting, this is where I stopped.

And here is my palette by the end of the evening. I'd say it was time for a scrape!

This Thanksgiving week, I want to thank the BVAA for allowing me to share my passion for palette knife painting. What a welcoming, enthusiastic group.

I'm getting into the Holiday spirit

Snow Family

Poinsetta

Barn Door Wreathe

While I'm not quite ready for snow, I am getting into the holiday spirit already which is unusual for me. I had this idea of creating hand painted gift tags and after looking through some old Christmas cards for inspiration, I sketched out a whole sheet of ideas onto canvas paper. After painting these first three in painting class, others thought that they would make great little paintings instead.

Who knows what I'll end up doing with them, but they sure were fun to paint. And I have ideas for several more sheets of holiday paintings to come. So stay tuned for more holiday spirit spilling out onto canvas via the palette knives soon.

Favorite Dress and Licorice

My friend Robin wrote that this was her "favoritest dress ever!" I think those are licorice sticks they are holding, probably given to them by the photographer to get them to smile. Doesn't look like they needed a lot of help. Can't you just hear the giggles?

These are the same sisters that appeared in this black and white painting I did awhile ago.

She and her sister wearing twinsy outfits is so adorable.

All of the drawings I complete will be posted on The Sketchbook Project's website.

Young Paul

Thanks to Paul for the photo reference of his younger self I found among his FB photos. A classic!

All of the drawings I complete will be posted on The Sketchbook Project's website.

Mabel

Sweet Mabel. The photo I used as reference was taken at her dad's marriage to my good friend, Wendy.

All of the drawings I complete will be posted on The Sketchbook Project's website.

Dennis and Dad

Another drawing done from a photo stolen, I mean borrowed, from a friend's Facebook photo album. This is Dennis with his dad. So cute.

All of the drawings I complete will be posted on The Sketchbook Project's website.

Tim's Gang

I saw this photo of my friend, Tim, among his Facebook photos and just had to add it to my Boys and Girls sketchbook. That's him in the glasses and plaid shirt. Looks like something out of Our Gang, right? They just need the Petey the dog to complete the image. What fun this was to study and draw each "character".

All of the drawings I complete will be posted on The Sketchbook Project's website.

Things are still Looking Up!

Looking Up
Oil with a palette knife on cradled artist panel

8" x 8"

I painted this in one session from a reference photo I borrowed from our instructor, Kim. During critique, everyone said that this should have been my "Looking Up" submission for the November show at Gallery 9. Ah, well. too late.

But the First Friday reception for the Looking Up show was a great success. All of the paintings were so interesting, I couldn't stop looking at them. Here is a shot of them all hung up together.

The gallery also had a canvas set up at the show and artists were encouraged to paint a portion of the painting. The painting will be auctioned off to raise money for the Norwood Food Pantry. What a great idea. Here is Polo adding one of his signature apples to the painting.
Here is what the painting looked like at the end of the evening. My contribution was the wallpaper.
Check out more photos from the event here.

Meet Skippy

I realized after my last post that I don't believe I ever posted this palette knife painting I did a few years ago of my famous cat, Skippy. He was my best pal for 17 years, a graduation gift from my college roommate. He was quite the talker, very social, and made many friends in the neighborhood. I had to put him down about, gosh has it been 9 years ago now? I never replaced him and miss him a lot. It is incredible how these little creatures can become part of who you are.

So, go hug your pets today.

Skippy meets Nikki

My nephew Nicholas as a baby in my apartment meeting my cat for the first time. I love how Skippy is checking him out, not quite sure what to think.

The young apprentice

The budding artist, Edda, watching her uncle paint with pen and ink.

All of the drawings I complete will be posted on The Sketchbook Project's website.