"Cat-in-a-Bag!"

Well it's been a while since my last post, lots of changes in my life, but still the one consistency of creating art keeps both my feet on the ground. It's true when the mysterious "they" say, the more things change the more they stay the same. The time has come for me to get serious about my paintings, decide on a medium and subject matter and stick to it. I love all mediums, water color for it softness, pastels for the brilliant color, oil for the creamy consistency and of course I am addicted to the smell! So I have made a decision. . .drum roll please. . . and the winner is oil! I may still dabble in the others on occasion but I will be working mainly in oils on stretched canvas. Now on to the subject matter, again I have never focused on any one type of painting, preferring to follow the whimsy of the moment. Granted I have a large body of work to show, but it has no direction. So, for now I am going to be concentrating on still life paintings. Hmmmm you say to yourself as you look at the painting above. . .what kind of still life it this?  This is Albert, aka BadAlbert, my studio assistant and budding model. No still life is complete until inspected and approved by Mr. Albert. In some  cases he feels the addition of his rather ample girth is needed to bring my still life up to his standards. So on occasion, to keep him purring, more portraits will be forthcoming.

Those of you who have had the privilege of being owned by a cat have seen that expression staring at you out of a discarded bag or box. It's a "let's play" expression, and a furry projectile is about to explode into a mad flight around the room. No matter how many very expensive toys are purchased, an empty paper bag is definitely more fun!!  This was a fun painting to do, I smiled all the time I was working on it. It is on a 6" x 6" wrapped canvas that is 1-1/2" thick. When I say it is a wrapped canvas that means the canvas is attached in the back leaving the sides unmarked with staples or tacks. The sides are painted with a continuation of the bag, it hangs flat against the wall or can sit on a table top and does not need a frame. I found that people who have limited wall space use the smaller paintings to tuck into book shelves, on top of desks or end tables to add interest and color. 

I feel eyes staring at the back of my head, ah yes, he is such a slave driver! Albert much prefers me sitting at my easel so he can relax in his cat tree and supervise. Back to work!!

Yellow Roses

This is one of my favorite watercolors. These flowers are from a rose bush in the front of my house, all of the flowers were on the end of one long stem. I went out in the morning and the stem was almost bent in half with the weight of the flowers. The largest flowers were about 5" across. I took several photo's of the flowers from different angles, but ended up doing the drawing for this piece from the live flowers. Unfortunately the tag from this bush is missing so I do not know the name, but it is one of the prettiest in the rose bed.

This painting is 11" tall and 13" wide on Arches #140 watercolor paper. I use Winsor Newton and Daniel Smith watercolors. It is double matted, quarter inch yellow inner and two inch dark blue outer matt.

Pepper Tree #1

Yes I am still painting peppers! My friend Rick brought me this beautiful pepper plant, perfectly shaped, loaded with peppers of every size and color. I was enchanted! All the paintings I would do were dancing in my mind, every way I turned the plant a new idea came to mind. Oh how the best laid plans of women and mice are thrown to the wind when Bad Albert is around. For those of you who do not know, Bad Albert is my cat. Now when he first came to live with me his name was just Albert, but as time has passed his name has grown to be Bad Albert, love him dearly but he really is a bad Albert. The first night the pepper tree was dumped over and all but one branch was broken off. I was able to get three 5 x 5 x 1-1/2" paintings done using the broken branches as models. 

Still using the gallery wrapped canvases that are 1-1/2" thick and continuing the painting down the sides. The first one I did like this was just an experiment but I really liked how the painting seemed to get a 3D look from an angle, so now all the pepper paintings  are done this way. I got to use every tube of red and yellow paint that I own in these pepper paintings, now how fun is that!! Hope you enjoy these pepper paintings as much as I enjoyed painting them!

Peppers #3

Well as you can see I am still in love with peppers. I now have friends keeping an eye out for the unusual. The huge green pepper was a gift from a friend. I don't know if it was truly a green pepper or just an unripened orange pepper. It eventually turned  totally orange, but more of a reddish orange than the orange that is in the painting. The two purple peppers were the most unusual color, again a gift from another pepper lover.

One of the fun things that I have been doing with these paintings, is continuing the painting on the sides of the canvas.  I have been painting on gallery wrapped canvases that are 1-1/2' thick.  When I was painting Peppers #1, I continued painting the peppers down the sides of the canvas. The nice thing about these canvases is that they do not have to be framed and in the past I would continue the back ground color along the sides. These canvases have a 3 dimensional look to them when viewed from an angle. Something a little different and quite a conversation piece.

I have just finished 3 more pepper paintings and am waiting for them to dry enough to take photo's. I think they are the last of the pepper paintings for a while. The produce section of the grocery store is a treasure trove of painting subject to explore!!

Peppers 1

Grocery shopping has become much more exciting of late. Not being one of my favorite things to do, it has always been a dash in, grab, and get out the door. One very early morning I rolled my cart into the produce section as they were unloading boxes of peppers in every color imaginable. They were fresh, at the peak of their existence. I was captured!! I have since traveled to farmers markets, vegetable stands and grocery stores around the Puget Sound area. At times some of the stores personnel wondered what I was doing as I went through the entire pile of peppers to find the exact one I was looking for, but after explaining what I was doing they joined in the hunt for the perfect peppers.

This particular painting was done on one of the beautiful sunny days this last summer gave us. My friend Nancy came by and we set up a still life on my porch. The way the sun shines through the peppers to give them a translucent effect was fun to capture. Although the set up had the peppers in a basket, I chose to only do the five pepper close up, 2 red, 2 yellow and 1 orange. 

I will be doing more peppers, the colors and shapes are wonderful!!