Little Ballerinas

This is a painting of my cousins grandaughter and some friends from ballet class. i just loved the way the light spilled across the floor toward the group of three while backlighting the little ballerina who sits apart. The body language, facial expressions, disheveled hair and mischevious smiles all made this a very special piece for me. 16x20 oil on canvas.

New York City Thaw

Painted alla prima from a photo taken looking down from the fifth floor condo of a friend who lives in New York. I like the perspective and the color of this one.

A Single Cow

The last of the herd to be painted! 6x6 oil on panel.

Cattle - This time in winter

Trio of Cows

I love the sweet gentle expressions on their faces, the way they are so comfortable standing in the warm sunshine and are tenderly curious about the viewer. 11x14 oil on canvas

Zebra Baby

I love painting horses and lately have been working on a series of steeplechase paintings. I wanted to do something a little different today and this little guy just begged to be painted! It was quite a challenge to paint the light effect across the pattern of stripes. He is 12x 12 oil on canvas. I am continuing to try out the new Escoda brushes and am afraid I am becoming addicted to them. I really like the mix of natural bristle and synthetic, they clean up well and are holding their shape beautifully.

WAOW - Women Artists of the West - is holding their 40th National Exhibiton called "WAOWing the Golden State" at the Olaf Wieghorst Museum in El Cajon, CA, this year. I am so fortunate to have had 5 paintings accepted into this show and am very exicted! Three of the pieces are the result of a day spent at the Del Mar Racetrack. This one is 16x20 and is called In the Paddock. I have a wonderful frame for it and it is one of the paintings in the show.

Trying out some new brushes by Escoda - I really splurged on these. They are part natural fiber and part synthetic and I must say I love them. The have just the right feel for me. So I did a little 8x8 copy of a Thomas Buechner portrait. I learned to paint a long time ago by reading and re-reading his book "How I Paint". I once sent him an email and told him how motivating and inspiring I find this book. He was gracious enough to answer me to thank me for telling him and to remind me to enjoy the act of painting more than the result. Words I try to follow every day.

Portrait

Keeping my brushwork free and spirited in trying to capture the essense of a moment.

Another earthquake and a kitten

Had another earth shaking moment this morning a little after nine am. The experts say there have been over 900 aftershocks since the big quake on Easter Sunday - and I think I have felt everyone of them! The one this morning was 5.2. This is a 20x20 study of oil on cardboard for a community project (painting electric boxes). It was not accepted but I like it anyway!

Shire Horse

12 x 12 oil on canvas panel

Earthquake - San Diego

Wow - San Diego has been my home town for about 15 years now and the earthquake yesterday was definitely the biggest I have ever felt. It happened about 3:40 pm. I was in my second floor art studio when the house began to bounce up and down. I have been in enough earthquakes to immediately know what it is - after a few seconds the shaking generally dissapates and life goes on. But this was different, the intensity kept building and my husband shouted upstairs making the suggestion to me that I might want to come down and get out of the house. I ran downstairs with paint brush still in hand - it was a strange feeling, running down with the stairs moving under my feet. We rushed outside and our tall palm trees were swaying as the ground seemed to lift and slam back down. The whole world shuddered for another moment. And then it was over. We walked around the house be be sure there was no damage and as you can see from the photo and the view down the street, all is well. A short time later my kids showed up for Easter dinner. Both my son Adam (a tall handsome paramedic and web designer), my daughter Kimberly ( a smart beautiful CPA) and her husband Ted (my adorable District Attorney son-in-law) all had experienced it just as violently as we did and perhaps more as they live in downtown San Diego, a few miles closer to the center of the quake. At first, news reports said the earthquake registered as 6.8 but they shortly upgraded that to 7.2. Inside the house, some things were knocked from shelves, a painting I had drying on a small easel had jumped onto the floor and all the paintings on the walls were askew. There have been so many after shocks that I have lost count. The most recent was this morning at 4:15 am - that one got me up out of bed and I see on the internet it was a 5.1. I am feeling very very lucky and my thoughts now are with those people at the epicenter - I hope the damage is minimal and the injurys few.

Bathing Beauty

What a joy it is for the artist to capture a moment in time, to convey to the viewer through dabs of paint using color and value, the essence of the subject - that is the satisfaction found in painting. The subject is secondary to the impression the artist has and strives to convey. This piece appealed to me on so many levels - the beautiful light across the water, the expressive attitude of the woman, the voluptuous figure, her obvious hesitation and that glorious pink bathing cap. As Robert Henri stated, " It is more the gesture of the feature than the feature itself which interests and pleases us. The feature is the outside, the gesture manifests the inner life. "

Sunset at the Beach

This little oil (8x10) is a study in catching the back light on a figure. One of my favorite colors lately is vermillion and I used it mixed with white and a bit of alizarin crimson in this study. Vermillion is a color that the masters used in their skin tones. It was originally formulated from cinnabar and I have tried several brands - Winsor and Newton which is a deep pink, Rembrandt which is close to a cadmium orange in hue and Senneler which is a cross between the two - not as orange as the Rembrant and not as pink a the Winsor & Newton. The differences in hue are apparently due to the size of the ground particles. The larger the crystal the more the color tends toward red. I like them all but keep going back to the Winsor & Newton.