Chucks and a Yoyo

I thought my son's Chuck Taylors would make for a fun nostalgic image, especially if paired with a Duncan yoyo. I remember in the 3rd or 4th grade a genuine "Duncan Yoyo Master" came to my school and put on a show. My 9 year old self was amazed. I've played with them ever since and can do a few tricks like Around the World, Walk the Dog, or Rock the Baby. So this painting gave me a good excuse to go out and buy one…it only took me a few hours to break the string.

Oil on canvas board. 8" x 8"

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Pears and Tea

I picked up some cool mugs at the thrift store and managed to work it in with these pears. I wasn't terribly jazzed about this when I finished it, but it's growing on me. I'm looking forward to using the mugs again though.

Oil on canvas board. 8" x 8"

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Man Down!

I should probably change the name of this blog from "…Daily Painting" to "…Striving for Daily Painting." September was a busy month of freelance graphic design work, so I didn't get to paint like I'd prefer. It's wild how much a month off can mess with your skills. This one felt off while painting, but I was pleased with the end results all the same.

Oil on canvas board. 8" x 8"

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Plums and Peach II

I needed to paint these before they became too ripe or were eaten, whichever came first. The grayish film that covers a plum also seems to fade over time, that or too many folks have been handling them and rubbing it off.

I really enjoyed my approach to getting the translucent deep red of the plums and also trying to get the fuzz of the peach without looking moldy. This was my first time using a well toothed masonite board rather than the canvas boards I've been using. Great stuff that! I'll definitely be using that more often.

Oil on board, 8" x 8"

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Plums and a Peach

Here I tried to keep things loose and painterly, and I also wanted to let the toned canvas influence the final color a bit. I'm happy with the results. Whatever that blueish film on a plum is it's fun to paint! I also enjoy painting peaches. The colors and patterns are challenging, but fun.

Oil on canvas board, 8" x 8"

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Thrift Store Bottles

I can't say I'm totally pleased with these bottles, but then again there are elements within it that I like. That's how it is I guess. There's stuff going on with the bottle on the right that I like and the rest gets a "meh." Fun challenge all the same.

Oil on canvas board, 7" x 9"

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Twinkies

To go with the cupcake from the previous painting I rendered a set of Twinkies. These were tough to get as they have an almost uniform golden color inside and out. I had to slather the paint on with an impasto technique on the filling as it just wasn't looking right otherwise.

Oil on canvas board, 8" x 8"

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Cupcake

Who doesn't like whipped lard and sugar?! This painting, while kinda tough, came together rather quickly. I think I finished it in about an hour and half. I was particularly pleased with managing to capture the creamy center, crumbly cake, and smooth icing. Unlike painting a vegetable, I look forward to eating up the subject matter when the painting session is over.

Oil on canvas board, 8" x 8"

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Trout on Newspaper

I live on the north end of Colorado Springs. In nearby Monument the state stocks the town's reservoir with plenty of rainbow trout, which I like to go and fish for. I caught these guys and before I cleaned them up my wife, a photographer, snapped some photos of them. I painted this image from those shots. They have so much color going on, which I pushed a bit farther in paint. Fun stuff!

This was my first time using a smooth mason board and I wasn't much of a fan. I like the finished image just fine, but I didn't like the surface at all while painting. Perhaps something with a bit more texture, but not quite full on canvas? I'll try that later.

Oil on gessoed board, 9" x 7"

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Daisies

We've had a wet spring and early summer in Colorado, so there are wildflowers popping up all over town. These daisies were growing alongside the road I was walking along, so I snapped a quick pic to paint later. Nothing groundbreaking, but they were fun to create and I've got other flower pics waiting in the wings.

Oil on canvas board, 8" x 8"

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Watermelon

Not much says Summer time better than watermelons I say. These were fun as I tried to keep them simple. It fascinated me how much they looked like watermelons only after the seeds were painted in. Prior to that they seemed rather oddly non-watermelon-ish.

Oil on canvas board, 8" x 8"

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Cherries on Paper

Simple arrangement of some spring cherries and trying out a square format for the first time too. I came really close to wiping this one out a few times during the painting of it. The reason is that I'm currently painting in my kitchen, which is normally well lit day or night, but leading up to this evening's painting a lot of bulbs had all of a sudden gone bust. I was pretty frustrated with not being able to see well, but decided to soldier on.

I'm glad I did, because I really like the finished piece!

Oil on canvas board, 8" x 8"

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Eggs and Fork

I had a bunch of fun with this one and am mostly pleased with how it turned out. All this white on white was a bit intimidating, but I tried to be as direct and confident as I could.

Oil on canvas board 9" x 7"

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Indian Paintbrush

I wanted to get pretty loose with depicting these flowers--they're called Indian Paintbrush in fact. I was loose on the flowers, but spent a lot of time trying to get the Mason jar right. I like it, but I was frustrated about that. I really should have thought more and reversed things, making the jar more gestural and placing more detail in the flowers. Not thinking while painting is a problem for me. It's too easy for me, and a lot of other painters, to just put things on autopilot and not think about what the painting needs.

Oil 7" x 9"

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Denby Dishes

When my wife and I married we registered for these great Denby dishes because we both loved the vivid colors. Turns out, after painting bright colored fruits, they aren't as vivid as I thought when it comes to painting them. I didn't originally like these when I had finished them, but over time there's enough going on that I am starting to enjoy them. I think what frustrated me at the time was how I was laying down the paint. I wasn't as accurate with each brush stroke as I wanted and needed to work over areas multiple times. I guess the time away from the painting has helped to soften those feelings and I can just judge it as it stands.

Oil 7" x 9"

Ice Tea With Lemon

I was pretty pleased with how this one turned out. All those colors and shapes seemed pretty daunting, but I just decided to be as bold as possible and get at it. I was especially pleased with get the ice right. I took a photo with my iPhone just prior to starting because I knew that the ice would pretty melt before I was done--I'm glad I did!

Oil 7" x 9"

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Crochet

My wife likes to crochet to help herself unwind. She even had an Etsy account for a while where she sold some incredibly cute crocheted animals she made. So I had her in mind for this one.

When I first painted this I wasn't too terribly jazzed about it, but it's starting to grow on me. My six year old son tells me it's his favorite because, "It looks real." I'll take it!

Oil 7" x 9"

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PB&J I

So here's the painting from which my banner comes from. I'm pretty pleased with how this turned out and I'm especially pleased with managing to get the strawberry jelly's color both right AND capturing that transparent quality jelly has. That's also my homemade bread!

Oil 9" x 7"

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Peaches

OK, so this painting is the first one up till this point that is headed in the direction that I would like to see my paintings go. When I look at it I'm seeing, what I believe, is my style starting to develop, rather than me aping some of the things I see in the work of other artists I admire. It's not that I believe that anything here is revolutionary, in fact it's all been done before, but this painting was just me laying down brushstrokes that felt natural to me rather than me thinking about how I can get a certain look that other painters achieve. Does that make sense?

It's not a perfect painting, but I'm fairly pleased with it all the same. There's something about the way I laid down the paint on that peach in the upper right in particular that has me pleased. It also helped that I started using a painting medium with this one. In prior sessions I had been thinning my paints with just mineral spirits, but after trying this medium of stand and linseed oils, I'm hooked.

Oil 7" x 9"

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Tomatoes on Tea Towel

For this one I challenged myself with the plaid tea towel and honestly found it to be a lot easier and more fun than I had anticipated. I'm not entirely happy with the shapes of some of the tomatoes, but I'm still learning.

Oil 7" x 9"

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Lemon Lime

This one is tricky for me, there are things I like and things I don't. I'm still getting my confidence in laying down paint, so I see the areas where I didn't do what I was thinking I would in my head. Then again there are areas where I think I did great, such as the colors in the limes. There are so many subtle translucent colors in citrus that it can really throw you. I didn't wipe it out, which means I was happy enough with the finished result. I signed it and it's time to move on.

Oil 9" x 7"

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Apples on Foil

Since I had so much fun I went with the subject on foil again. For this one I really kept things loose as best I could. I wouldn't say this is an indicator of the style I'd like to pursue, but rather me trying to loosen up as best I can for the sake of the exercise. It was fun.

Oil 7" x 9"

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Avocado on Foil

Here's a trick I learned from another artist, I placed this avocado on foil. I didn't wrinkle the foil too much, so it created a bit of a distorted mirror appearance. The original setup had a blue background, but early on I thought pushing the blue to a cool green worked better with the color scheme.

Oil 7" x 9"

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Sliced Banana

I painted this banana one night after dinner. At first I set it up as just the banana peeled, but then my wife suggested it looked a little like something else--if you know what I mean. So then I decided slicing it up would be visually interesting, though a touch unsettling after my wife's initial observation.

When finished this one struck me as being somewhat Cézanne-like, with the rough strokes and line work. I wasn't intending that and don't really want to take my painting style in that direction, but since it happened I went with it.

Oil 12" x 9"

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Apple Confrontation

Well here's my first painting to kick things off. Just a simple arrangement of apples on a white surface. I tried to keep it loose and painterly. I hated that Apple in the lower right almost the entire painting till the very end. Then with a couple of strokes I liked it ok.
Oil 12" x 9"

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