Under A Loggia

This was my morning's work. Our Monday morning model session. And what a beautiful morning we had here in Austin. We went to Laguna Gloria - a historic home on Lake Austin - and had a delightful young lady pose for us. I laugh a little each time I think of my temporary title "Under a Loggia" - reminds me of Elenore Lavish in E.M. Forster's A Room With A View.

I am really so excited about these regular, on location figure painting sessions. And the lovely weather!

Three New Messages

18x14 oil on linen

Gallery info to come.

On Monday, I got together with a group of artist friends to paint a model at a local coffee shop. Its something I've wanted to do for a very long time. Its a little difficult to paint strangers in a cafe... people become uncomfortable when you study them for a long time. And they tend to finish up and move off before you are done. But I want to get better (and quicker) at painting from life.
Several friends are interested too and we're forming a group to regularly hire a model to pose in a public setting. Not your traditional model sessions; the nude bores me frankly. And I want to paint the setting and atmosphere as much as the figure.

And boy do I need to work on painting from life... even with her longer pose, I was baffled. I had more than a few distractions though and I will now throw out a few excuses for not posting any of my sketches. My daughter was "sick" and had to stay home from school, so she was bounding around feeding the ducks, turtles and fish in the lake. I didn't have a tube of white to "travel" with. I had my tiny pochade box which is really useless... I can't paint that small. It was overcast. And I didn't have the right color choices on my palette. There! Is that enough excuses?

I did get great photos though and look forward to next Monday for more practice from life. I'm scheduling it now.

Birds of a Feather

9x12 oil on linen

Gallery info to come.

This title seems quite appropos since I am going to invite you to a check out the new Artist's Way blog. I'm done with the book now but want to create a community of inspiration for artists who are, well, drawing a blank.
I'm going to have guest artists share ideas for managing their time, their business, and their creative blocks. Please feel free to start or join a discussion, comment and send me a paragraph or article of your own! Contributors are welcome and wanted!

Drop by the block - The Creative Block. Also on Facebook.

Moses Botkin Monthly Challenge

Our challenge: Paint it Red! We were to use red, red violet or red orange to dominate our paintings. I took it literally and used nothing but those colors, with a little sap green mixed with alizarin for the darkest darks and a little white mixed with orange for highlights. My palette was really just a big splotch of varying reds. I wanted to try to abstract the figures and almost lose them in the brush work. Its harder to do than you might think. But fun to try!


"Red Dance"
8x8 oil on paper
©2010 Robin Cheers



From Jerome's Paris Window
aka "La Basilique du Val de Grace illumine'e la nuit"
14x11 oil on panel

©2010 Vicki Ross

"Sultry"
16x16 oil on canvas
©2010 Suzanne Berry



"Red Brush"
6x8 oil on canvas
©2010 Aaron Cordell Johnson




"Red Pitcher on Blue Cloth"
8x10 oil on canvasboard
©2010 Diana Moses Botkin

"Arrangement on Red"
6x6 oil on panel
©2010 Elizabeth Blaylock

Passion Tea and Talk

12x16 oil on linen

Gallery info to come.

I really enjoyed painting all those people on the lawn and this painting is one of the larger ones I painted last week. I wanted to lighten the palette again because I didn't want the shadowy areas to get too heavy or oppressive. On a sunny day, lots of light is reflected into the shadows and I wanted a more glowing look.
I've been taking care of business lately. All those behind the scenes things like catching up with my galleries, redistributing work, bookkeeping (ugh!) and ordering supplies. Today I painted my monthly challenge painting. Check in tomorrow to see the group's project this time. It was a fun one for me.

City Beat 12

7x5 oil on panel
$100 + s/h

I've actually painted this guy before in a larger canvas, and no matter how careful I am, the arm looks awkward. Its the perspective and his angle.
I am currently struggling to get my calendar all figured out and get my business stuff organized. Its amazing how busy one gets when school starts. There are like 5 school events in the next week, registration forms due, etc. etc. And then I am trying to make contact with all my galleries and update work for them and paint new ones. And I always seem to have side projects and ideas that want attention. It sometimes makes me want to run and hide. With a nice hot chocolate.
But, as my mom would tell me, time to pull up my big girl panties and get to work!

City Beat 11

7x5 oil on panel
$100 + s/h

Its been a long time since I've done some of my bird's-eye-view paintings but I felt the desire to play with this perspective again. Its fun to experiment with the simple design and flat ground of an aerial view - and the shadows almost tell more of a story than the figure - in some cases.

What I am learning about these small paintings in general, as I begin doing them again regularly, is to paint something simple, and to allow my brush to just touch the panel in places and not blend or scrub too much. I practice just laying on the color, sometimes almost blocky. It carries into my larger pieces too and I like the effect. In the larger works, I use this technique to put in those final highlights, the "money shots" as Skip Whitcomb described them!

Summer Read

10x10 oil on panel

Ask Tidewater Gallery about this painting.

So, its not on a green lawn like the small series I've played with this week, but its definitely thematic. And its heading to Tidewater Gallery in North Carolina first of next week. I'm glad to hear that the storm has passed over there.
We've had rain here this morning which meant no biking and no dog walking for me. It was kind of nice to take it easy today. Just working on two more gallery scenes - with green lawns. I am getting a little tired of green actually.

Daily Distraction

5x7 oil on panel
$100 + s/h

This might be my favorite. So far. I'm working on a couple of larger pieces along these lines too and can share those tomorrow. I think next I will begin to update my ETSY site... its totally empty! And I need to update my website. The trouble there is that I have too many images to put in the galleries! Lots of work available. The economy is understandably causing people to put off such luxurious purchases. But I do want to remind people that galleries are often willing to work with a customer and will offer "layaway" plans and discounts if you ask. And even if you are not local, they can ship and will guarantee your satisfaction with the painting.

Barefoot in the Park

5x7 oil on panel
$100 + s/h - sold

Felt I ought to give some time to the male of the species. :-)
I thought I would also tone down a little from the intense greens and aim for more of a washed out background which might give more of a feeling of heat.