Christmas Commission

This is another Portrait I painted in the past month for a Christmas gift. Hope his son liked it.

Female Venetian Mask

This painting is now for sale in the Christmas Catalog of Xanadu Gallery at xanadugallery.com
  I am now officially represented by them. They advertise in The Art Collector Magazine and will further promote my work.

Silver Birches at Fisher Lakes

 This is my most recent painting. It is at Fisher Lakes in Rockwood Park,Saint John ,N.B. about a twenty minute drive from my home. It was done with a limited palate. I used miskit   to save the trees while I painted in the sky and the background. On the other side of this painting I tried to negative paint and leave the white,but it was painful and very unsuccessful. I did have a problem with my masking though as the blue colored miskit I used remained a bit tacky and was not easily removed when the time came to paint the trees. The leaves were done with gold leaf flakes. I had previously done a painting this way that sold right away. Hopefully this one will as well.
  Currently I  am also working on another Portrait of an elderly man for a Christmas gift.(Commission).

Joyce & Jim's House

This is my latest house commission that I painted for one of the nurses I work with. It is a painting of her home that she gave her husband for his 65th birthday on Nov.22nd.

Child's Poitrait

This is my latest commission. This little boy has beautiful brown hair and brown eyes.
 Colors used were, burnt umber, cad red, windsor blue,cadium yellow,sepia,vandyke brown and ultra marine blue. The flesh tones were made with combinations of these colors.

Leslie's Birthday Gift

Today is my baby sister's Fiftieth Birthday. These are the paintings I did as a surprise gift for her.
  I did them from photos they posted of their trip in Hawaii.  The first painting is Leslie's wife Colleen walking on the beach and the bottom one is my sister Leslie. They are presently celebrating in the Dominican!

Fall Art Sale

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Annual fall art Sale

Everyone is invited to my Annual Fall Art Sale!

Spike & Puffy

This is a watercolor painting of my cocktails, Spike & Puffy

Happy Thanksgiving!!

I did this painting several years ago from a thanksgiving table arrangement that I made. Hope you like it.
 The glass vase could stand some improvement but this was one of my early paintings.

September at Duck Pond Beach ( WIP)

I woke up this morning and decided I wanted a day to play. I have not done any plein air painting all summer  and really needed an outing. I phoned my friend and college who usually paints in oils or watercolor to see if she wanted to go with me.
  We went to this beautiful beach on the Fundy shore not far from where I live and although there was a strong breeze off the water we had a great day out.
  we picked up a pizza and came back to my place and worked on them some more.
 We also took time to stop into another artist's home and look at some of her works. What a great day out.
  Will post more when it is done. I also need to finish my Pastel birds.

Gingerbread House Framed

This painting is ready now to go to its new home. I have to say I have become attached to it myself. I love this house and the gardens and I am actually pleased with it. I am often critical when I finish a work but I do love this one myself.

Ginger Bread House finished

This is a painting I have done this past week. I have loved this house for a long time and have been fortunate enough to be asked to paint it. The property is so well kept and has alot of character as well as beautiful flowers accenting it.
  It is 8inches by 16 inches in size so it makes it hard to take an accurate photo of it.

Lilacs

These Lilacs I have just finished. I was trying to loosen up some after being so detailed with other works.

Sax Player WIP

This is a small5x7 of a sax player that I started back in Jan. and have decided I will work on it again now. I often have several sizes on the go.

Floral Study now called Cheer Bouquet Finished

I have now finished this Floral Study and named it Cheer Bouquet.
  I have taken it to enter in the Exhibition this week in Saint John along with my Painting of Griffin & Bear.

Griffin & Bear Finished

I have now finished Griffin & Bear.
 Tonight I refined some of the details with Griffin's eyes as well as more detail to his hair. I also finished the details in Bear. To pull the painting together I added various shades of purple to bears fur and used White Gouache to do the fine hairs that overlap Griffins shirt. I did not wish to put too much detail into bear as I did not want to draw the attention away from my beautiful grandson's face. This will be a great memory of when he was two and liked to ride Bear on his toy four wheeler.

Griffin & Bear Step 7

 Sorry ,it has been awhile since I posted but I have been busy with getting my house back in order after we had the interior painted. Then I had to get my flower gardens in order and protect them from the deer.
 Now back to finishing Griffin. Since Purple is Griffin's favorite color I decided to use it in the background. I also wanted to make the background fun not just my hallway wall ,where he was riding, I used Ultra Marine blue along with Alizarin to make the various shades of purple.
 While the background was wet I dropped in coarse sea salt and left it until the following day to remove the salt.  Over nite texture !
        Now I have to go back in and soften the edges and add some more detail to both Griffin & Bear.

Molly finished

I re framed Molly's portrait with a white outer mat so I took another photo to post on my blog. The last Molly finished photo was too dark and did not really do it justice.

Floral Study 1 WIP

Here I have put the under coat on the whole floral bouquet but still have to work the values.

Floral Study1

    

I have also been working on a floral painting while I have been painting Griffin. This one is of  orange roses,tulips carnations and others.

Griffin & Bear Step 6

 I have been away so just got back at my painting of my grandson Griffin and his Bear. Griffin loves bear and he is a usual companion with him. I owned three white teddy bears and I have given them to Griffin so he has one at both his mom & his dads as well as one here at Nana's. They are quite similar but this one seems to be his favorite. It is fun to see old pictures with bear in it and hear Griffin comment on them as he doesn't seem to realize I had bear before he existed.
   Last night I worked some on lightening Griffins hair as it is really more blonde than red but looks different in various photos and now a darker blond than last summer. I have also started to define Bear by using some blue greys and yellow. I am now trying to decide on background before I put the fine touches on his face and eyes as the background may lighten it enough. I need to do some value studies to determine what I should do for the background as I don't want to ruin it now.

Griffin& Bear Step 5

Here I have worked some more on his hair which looked quite red in the photo but is actually blonde so I will need to lighten it. I used Yellow ochre to try to lighten it but will need to work on it futher . I have also added more color to his face & ears.

Griffin & Bear WIP Step 4

Here I have worked so more on Griffins Face & hair. Bear has been outlined by the shirt & four wheeler. I have also added a pale wash of Lemon Yellow to bear.

Griffin& Bear WIP Step 3

Tonight I worked some on darkening Griffins shirt as well as building up the skin tones on his face. I have also started defining his nose and his eyes.

Griffin & Bear WIP step 2

Tonight I finally got back to my watercolors. I have added some yellow undertones to the skin and done the rest of the first layer of Griffins shirt.

Temby, South Wales

This is a watercolor painting I did for my Step daughter Sharon's  fortieth birthday.(July 29th)
 I just gave it to her when we visited Wales in Jan. She seemed very pleased with it. Temby is one of her favorite places and she hopes to live there one day. We went for a drive with her and her oldest daughter Lauren to visit Temby when we were over.
  I did this from a photo she had on Facebook.