Slim, our Abyssinian

Sketch of Slim – 6" x 8" Oil on Canvas Panel

Slim is our Abysinnian cat, she is a wonderful and precocious companion. When the weather is good, she begs for walks and likes to be outside. Because she is a very small kitty, 6.5 lbs full grown (7 years old) we do not like to let her outside unattended. So she gets to go outside with a leash, which she handles very well, almost like a dog.

This painting was a memory exercise. She kept her pose for the few moments I could sketch it out, she then moved to another area on our patio. So with the initial sketch I completed this painting, and checking her out every so often to verify I got the right colors and values of her. It was a fun little experiement. This weekend is going to have good weather for a while, so I think I will try it out again… have a great weekend!


Here is a photo of Slim on a walk behind our apartment building

Yellow Flowers

Yellow Flowers – 8" x 6" Oil on Canvas Panel SOLD

I think these flowers are a hi-bred of black-eyed susans. Which are one of my favorite wild flowers, unfortunately they do not grow wild in the northern Virginia region, so I rely on Trader Joe’s to supply me with this beautiful palette. The deep brown of the flower center was a deep red almost purple hue. I love the complexity and simple forms of these flowers and the natural complementary colors. I hope you enjoy this little painting…

Thanks, Liz

Tomato on Stripes

Tomato on Striped Dishcloth – 8" x 6" Oil on Canvas Panel SOLD

Sometimes it is fun to revisit an experience and to see if with the passage of time, maybe some new skills have been gained and maybe there is even a sense of improvement being accomplished. This experience was encountered here in this painting where I revisited painting a striped dishcloth. A tomato is the focal point while in a previous painting a blood orange was the central focus. Thanks for dropping by and being part of my painting journey!

Sunflower

Sunflower – 6" x 6" Oil on Gessoed Masonite Panel SOLD

In January and February I purchased several masonite panels to paint with. A few months ago every painting I attempted turned into a muddy mess because the surface is more smooth and slick than the canvas panels and stretched canvases I typically paint on. Today on a lark I picked up a panel to try it out again, and this is the painting that was accomplished! I was very pleased with the results; I like the energy and variety of the brush strokes. I feel this painting was a right of passage for me, it proved I am growing with posting these paintings on my blog and I am glad to be going on this journey. Though I have found that posting paintings daily has been a profound challenge while also maintaining a full-time career in residential architecture, I do enjoy the process, and I always aim to post approximately 3 times a week.

Of the daily painters out on the web, I admire Karin Jurick’s work the most for the quality and energy of her paint handling. I think she has such a great knack of capturing the spirit of her subjects, and I love the variety of the themes she paints. She is accomplished in painting still lifes, cityscapes, and figures (anything she decides to focus on actually). I believe of her paintings those of people viewing art in museums most capture the spirit of art and how it affects everybody, young and old. I feel lucky to have such artists to look up to and admire, to keep me going and enthusiastic about painting on a very regular basis.

First Plein Air Painting of the Year!

Jefferson Memorial – 8x10 Oil on Canvas Panel

Yesterday, Steve and I went down to the national mall early in the morning to celebrate Memorial Day weekend. I wanted to kick off the plein air painting season and Steve wanted to get out on his bike and ride around the monuments. It worked out great, as I am not a morning person having Steve involved with the scheme it ensured I would get out of bed and get some painting done.

While we were at the mall, we went around to the WWI and WWII monuments, then sat and watched the Rolling Thunder parade go by. Here is a picture of the various motorcycles we saw drive by…

Then we had a laid-back lunch of hot dogs and ice cream, the ducks at the Tidal Basin are super friendly as long as you are eating some form of food with bread. A mallard drake and a mallard hen were our lunch partners along with two small finches. The female duck was more aggressive about grabbing all the choice crumbs, leaving the drake to occasionally obtain a morsel or two.

Happy Memorial Day!

Single Lemon

Single Lemon – 6" x 8" Oil on Canvas Panel SOLD

Here is another 6" x 8" painting of a piece of fruit on a deep blue background. It was not until painting these three paintings (the oranges, the apricots, and this lemon) the realization hit home for me about how to create a sense of visual depth. By employing “atmospheric haze” with still life paintings visual depth can be emphasized and help the background recede and the foreground come more forward.

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Three Apricots

Three Apricots – 6" x 8" Oil on Canvas Panel

This is the second (completed) painting I worked on yesterday. Lately I have been having a love-hate affair with apricots … All this past weekend paintings were started and scraped down, all depicting apricots and even yesterday I think this was my third attempt. It was not until the end when adding the affects of the fuzz did the captivating soft pastel colors of the fruit start to glow. This is what I was enamored with, trying to capture the richness and the softness of this fruit all at once.

Since the weekend I have been looking at other artist's depictions of apricots to get an understanding of how to maybe depict them, some of the paintings I have come across are just beautiful. Here are a few other artist’s take on apricots, it is wonderful how the same fruit can be intrepeted and presented in so many different ways.

J.L. Fleckenstein - great close up with a beautiful aquamarine cup to complement the warm yellows and oranges of the apricot.

Mati Karlwein - very complex compositions, I admire the patience of the artist for undertaking such ambitous projects!

Vitali Komarov - I love the texture and energy of the way he captured the fruit! Especially the play of the cool green areas with the hot red-orange areas.

Two Oranges

Two Oranges – 6" x 8" Oil on Canvas Panel SOLD

Today worked out for me when it came to painting. I started the day slowly and feeling a little under the weather, our milk was past the due date so I had to run to the store to get fresh milk. While I was out shopping I picked up some new fruit to bring home to eat… Well now some of it ended up on my still life stand. All I have been doing is painting since I got home. I just wanted to focus on what I had found, and playing with a new painting technique of getting the background to fall back into space.

So here is the first of three paintings I completed today. I will post the other two in the following days.

Busy weekend, alas no paintings to post...

Photo of a few booths at the Reston Arts Festival on Saturday, May 17th.

This weekend I just did not come up with anything I liked. I spent a fair bit of time in my studio (our converted breakfast area) where I scraped down four small paintings, worked alittle on a freize painting, and contemplated what I should do next... I typically use the weekends to catch-up and paint some of the small paintings that get posted during the week. I always hope to find some time during the week in any freetime I have outside of work and life commitments to get some painting in as well. However this past week was a crazy one, I was only able to sketch in my sketchbook and paint in my class taught by Danni Dawson on Tuesday. So I do not have any drawing or painting to share right now.

Even though my time in the studio was somewhat less productive than I had planned this weekend, I did find time to visit the Reston Art Festival on Saturday. It was a fun time and the weather was very nice. I found a lot of rest and relaxation in just walking among the artists and visitors. Listening to local muscians and getting some refueling. I am planning on finding the time and energy to make the most of this coming week.

Three Pears - Separate and Together

Three Pear Frieze - 5-1/2” x 12” Oil on Canvas - SOLD

This is the third frieze composition I have completed. It was a lot of fun working to capture the variations of the colors on the skin of the pears. To me the pears seem to glow. I have included some detail photos to show the brushwork of the more tricky areas.

Thanks, Liz


I have recently started using DaVinci Maestro 3 hog bristle brushes, these brushes are more springy then the previous brand I was using . Making it possible to paint wet in wet and skim the rosy red colors over the wet yellow-green underpainting on this pear.


This pear was closet to my model light, so between breaks I would have to shut the light off to prevent "cooking" it!