Petrov

Oil on canvas panel, 6x6"

My wife used to live in Cambridge, just off Massachusetts Avenue. There was a cute little Asian crafts shop on Mass Ave that we were always curious about. We went in one evening, and discovered that their main product was an amazing line of handmade lamps. They looked like something you would find growing in a forest, but with a light inside. There was a little white dog living in the store who was very cute. But his tongue was too big, and about a fourth of it hung out of his mouth at all times. In typical dog fashion, he didn't seem to mind, and was still very generous with his kisses to strangers. Suffice to say, the lamps were all pretty expensive for our budget, but we wanted to support the local business. We found this little terra cotta statuette that reminded us of the white dog with the funny tongue. So we bought it, and my wife named him Petrov. And little Petrov has been with us ever since, sometimes traveling with us when we go on vacation.

Speaking of travel, I'll be in Minnesota most of this coming week, interviewing for a job. So there likely won't be any new posts till next weekend. But I should be finishing some of my Renaissance style paintings soon, so there will be more paintings to share before long. By the way, Petrov will be staying here. Someone has to protect my wife while I'm away.

Do you think he likes it?

Sagittarius

Oil on masonite, 6x6"

The instructor of my Renaissance Painting class has said several times that it's a great technique for painting night skies. Intrigued, I thought I'd give it a try. First I looked up the constellation Sagittarius online to find a star pattern (it's my birth sign). From there, the painting started out in the same way as others: A layer of transparent earth red with white egg tempera in the lightest areas. Then a layer of yellow ochre went over the whole painting, with more tempera for the stars and astral clouds. Over this layer, patches of red and green were painted in thinly, with more tempera in the brightest stars and lightest parts of the nebula clouds. At this point, the painting looked like some crazy galactic Christmas story. Finally, two layers of ultramarine blue with more tempera went on. And that's when it really started to look like a night sky. Even though the "distant" stars are only behind a fraction of a millimeter of paint, they do appear to recede by light years. The tempera got a little too thick in the middle section, but the overall effect came out pretty neat and now I have a funky new (but very old) approach to painting a night sky!

Full Glass, Empty Bottle

Oil on gessobord, 5x7"

I started this one about a week ago and worked on it for an hour or two at a time since then. I haven’t done many paintings of glass before, so it was an interesting challenge. Of course, this was a pretty simple glass. Because I worked on it over the course of about a week, I was able to paint in layers and build the color up over time. This was helpful for making some of the reflections in the bottle and in the light shining through the wine.

Little Pepper

Acrylic on stretched canvas, 2.5x3.5"

I've had these tiny stretched canvases sitting around for several months. Last night I didn't have much time to paint, so I decided one of these mini-canvases would be perfect. I pulled a little red pepper out of the fridge and went to it. I haven't been using acrylic paints much lately--they dry so quickly that the paint on one side of a shape is dry by the time I've gotten to the other side, which limits color mixing on the canvas. But when making such a small painting, the quick drying time is not much of a concern. I had fun making this little guy, and I've got a stack of these mini-canvases on the shelf. Perhaps there will be more tiny paintings down the road.

Hawaiian Glow

Oil on canvas panel, 10x8"

While on our honeymoon, we took a helicopter tour of the island of Kauai. It was pretty cool, flying over the tops of mountains and into the depths of valleys. It had been quite rainy, so there were waterfalls everywhere as the rainwater made it's way back to the sea. Also thanks to the recent rain, the air was pretty misty. So as the sun got lower in the sky, it created quite a glow through the valleys. That's what I tried to capture with this painting. The lush green in the foreground shadows and the misty glow as sunlight hit the mountains in the distance. Not sure how successful I was, but one thing about this blog is that I post all my paintings, the hits and the misses.

Three Clems, Two Stems

Oil on masonite, 6x6" SOLD

My wife was out of town last weekend so I filled my time with a bunch of painting. I worked on a couple layers for paintings for my Renaissance class and did a couple complete paintings, too. Sadly, it's taken me till today to start getting anything posted. As the title suggests, two of these clementines had stubby little stems, but the third must have been a divine creation. When I was about 90% done, I put the painting up on a shelf so I could step back and see what needed some tweaking. Well, the masking tape that held it to a larger support board decided to quit it's job, causing the painting to fall onto the ironing board, then onto my shirt, then my pants, then onto a button down that was hanging on the ironing board, before it finally came to rest on my foot. Wet paint clearly marked each step of this path. Needless to say, the painting was not looking so good, either. But the funny thing about oil paint is that it is a forgiving medium, if you ask for it. Not one to give up, I went back to work (with stronger tape) and managed to smooth out the smudges and recover what was left of my painting. That button down shirt, however...