Don't Get Hooked

This painting for sale.  Watercolor.  9 x 12.  $30

I'm calling this painting Dad's Tackle Box.  It is one more painting of something I am trying to elevate to art.  Looking at it, you just see a bunch of fishing lures, but  when displayed in a box like this, they do achieve some semblance of art.  Each of the lures has a white tag tied to it.  Obviously dad isn't gonna go fishing with these any more.  Too bad, I think I've caught fish on lures just like them.

Well, this one was much more technical than I am used to.  I Lots of tiny little places to paint, and trying to get all those strings in there was a bit much.  I hope I was able to stretch my abilities a little bit here.  I am going to have to try to do some more detailed paintings like this in the future.

Hope you enjoy this.  It certainly was fun to paint.

Keep it Reel

This painting for sale.  Watercolor 5 1/2 x 8 1/2.  $20

Well, in my attempt to elevate different everyday things to an artform, I give you the simple fishing reel.  Most of us probably have one or two sitting around in the basement or in the garage.  If you have ever gone to a garage sale, you've seen them. They get so unceremoniously tossed in a box and forgotten about for years and years.  Then one day you are doing your spring cleaning and..... Bammo..... there it is, and you have no idea what to do with it.  A quick search on Ebay to see if the reel is worth anything results in an overwhelming number or items that are tough to differentiate among.  Some are worth nothing, most worth a little, and a very few worth quite  a bit.

Well this humble instrument that allows us to have fun and catch our own dinner once in a while deserves more than that.  With this painting I hope to give it a little bump in the prestige department.  Hopefully viewing this reel will make you smile and feel good about your reel when you find it next spring.  Enjoy.

No More Monkey Wrenches

This painting for sale.  Watercolor 5 1/2x 8 1/2.  $20  

Part of trying to elevate everyday things into artwork.  I saw an image of some wrenches and couldn't help myself. I probably made the ratchet in the front a little blue, but somehow it doesn't seem to matter to me.

I am happy to say that this was drawn and painted in one lunch hour.  I used to do this a year or so ago.  Then I tried to do bigger pictures or more detailed pictures, and my rate of painting slowed way down.  Part of what I really liked and still like about painting is seeing things come to fruition in such a short amount of time.  I know that the subject is rather simplistic, and the handles don't have names on them, and I could point out lots of other flaws, or drawbacks with this painting, but I really like it.  I think maybe it is the simplicity of it that I really like.

Its a bunch of straight lines, with a few circles and arcs thrown in, but if you've ever worked on a car or bike or something, you will immediately look at this and it will bring back some memories for you.  Maybe, in the end thats why I painted it.  I saw the photo and it brought back a fond memory and I wanted to relive that as long as I could.

Anyway, enough of my rambling.  Hope you enjoy the painting.

The Next Drawing

Ok, here is the next drawing.  I even managed to erase the gridwork over her face.  I know you need to put dark next to light when drawing.  It helps to add form to what you are drawing.  I tried it with this.  Not sure if it is working for me or not.  Well, I think this is a good effort none the less.

Lunchtime Drawing

So, I am determined to become better at drawing.  So, today during lunch, I drew a face.  Here it is.  As you can see I used a grid to make sure I had all the proportions and everything right, and set apart to draw it.

Well, as you can see, it helped, but not enough to make it look great.  I guess there is still a lot more to learn.  I'm gonna be sticking with this whole grid thing for a while at least in order to figure out proportions and what not.  I've got a grid draw on the photo I drew this from so you may see this one again at some point.

Hope you enjoy looking at this slightly cross-eyed girl.  lol

Pin-up Girl

Well, I wanted to get a quick painting in yesterday during lunch, and decided to paint a pinup girl.  As you can see, some good and some bad came out of it.    In general, I think its a pretty good painting.

I think I like her legs best of all.  There is some color to them, but they didn't get too yellow, or too red.  And the shadowing worked out pretty well.  Her stomach is ok, but her arms are way to yellow, and probably her face too.  Actually I had a lot of trouble with her nose, and mouth.

Her left palm is facing the viewer and also up.  I dind't quite capture that, and as a result her hand just looks odd.  And talk about odd, what is up with that pinky?  Well, I guess that's why they call it practice.

I thought as I was painting this that the background would show more blue and yellow in it.  As it turned out, it seems all green.  That's not all bad, but could be better.

Well, I had fun, and hope you all enjoy it.

Better 1, or Better 2. Better 2 or Better 3

If you were at the optometrist, you would hear something like, "Better 1 or Better 2."  In this case, you have three to choose from.  I was asked to do 3 paintings of the same thing.  It just so happens it was the doorway I previously did in blue.  I was also asked to do it in cranberry.  Now, I get cranberries in a baggie at Thanksgiving time like most people, and they all seem to be slightly different colors.  In that vein, I made the doors with mottled colors.  If you look, you can see reds, greens, blues, and terra cotta.

Tried to make the foreground just a bit darker than the background.  Also tried to be a little brighter at the top and a little darker at the bottom.

In general, I like the way they turned out.  I have some definite favorite parts of each, and think grab all those and put them on one page, it would be a knockout painting.

I hope you all enjoy them, and more than that,  I hope their future owners like them.

Santorini Sketching

 A couple of quick sketches I did in preparation of my previously posted work.  Each of these took about 10 minutes to do.  They were just to get an idea of whether or not I liked the picture, and whether or not I'd be able to paint a decent picture of it.  Obviously, I chose the second on to use as the finished painting.

Also, this is a good way to use the backs of those older, not so great paintings that accumulate around the house.

Enjoy.