A Sold Painting and Toulouse Lautrec

Ballerina  #43 recently sold from the Roux and Cyr Gallery in Portland, Maine. Thank you so much, Susan Roux - you are the best! This painting went to the same collector that bought my crab with lemons painting last year. It's so nice  and an honor to have clients  come back to purchase a second piece and I am thrilled.

Here is #43 (and I can hardly believe that I painted this many ballerinas)!

Ballerina #43 /oil on linen panel / 16 x 12

Kathryn Ragan,  a wonderful watercolor artist and one of my long time blog followers, commented to me that my first ballerina at the circus painting reminded her of Toulouse Lautrec's circus themed drawings. So of course, I immediately went to Amazon and found a book originally published in 1953. The book  has very little text but each page showcases in beautiful color one of his 39 circus drawings. The reproductions are high quality and it is a a pure delight to leaf through, each drawing showing his deft and incredible draftsmanship.

The cover

And a peek inside.

Lions! Oh, my!

Oil on cardboard / 53x45

Strangely enough, this piece of cardboard handled oil paint much differently than the first piece. The surface was slightly rougher and much more absorbent. I do like the subject and the composition but I certainly struggled with the paint application. Here are a few photos from the work in progress:

Initial drawing in thinned oil paint and the beginning of color.

Working on the first white lion.

More progress. At this point I decided to delete the trapeze figures in the background as they were too distracting.

The foreground figure.

The lady and her lion

The finished painting.

In between working on this large picture, we had a few spring like days and I was able to get a little gardening done.

A pink flowering succulent called Calandrinia Spectabulis from the mountains of Chile. I hope it is hardy enough for Reno, Nevada!

And my snowball bush with the flowering plum in the background. It was covered with pink flowers just a day or two before I took this photo.