Category — Oil Painting

This radish is inspired by a photo of one I pulled out of my garden. Very pretty, but I didn’t really like how they tasted so I’m not growing them this year.

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Yesterday was my birthday. I took the day off from work to read Discover magazine and paint. It’s funny that I’ve never painted a cardinal before considering how much I like them. This guy is peeking into the picture to say “hi”. This will not be my last cardinal I’m sure.

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The other week I felt inspired to paint some pistachios. Not sure if I’m done with the painting yet, but it’s been a while, so I thought I would post my progress. If I work on them some more, I will probably post the revision. But I didn’t really intend this 5×7 to be a drawn out process. Pistachios have an amazing range of color and at the time, the sun was hitting them in an interesting way. [Read more →]

I am finally done with the frog. Earlier versions are documented in this earlier post. It still doesn’t have a name though. This is one of those paintings that I just need to declare finished so I don’t work on it until the end of time. I added some spots, and then I got rid of them. I added a glaze in the background, and then I rubbed it out. The main difference is some added highlights and shadows…plus the tree that the frog is sitting on: that’s improved.

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The most recent thing I’ve been working on (aside from some touch ups) is a frog. It’s actually inspired by the earlier post I had with a photo of a frog. He’s a friendly little guy. This is the current progression. I’ve been documenting the stages. I will also post the final when I’m done.

Stage One

I painted the background and did an underpainting of the frog.

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I visited Washington DC in April with my dad because his old college hockey team was playing in the Frozen Four. While I was there, I snapped a lot of photos, many of the resident birds, which everybody made fun of me for. Most people come back from DC with photos of buildings (boring) and I come back with 2/3 photos of: sparrows, starlings, ducks, gulls, and of course pigeons.

Final Painting: "Unappreciated Beauty"

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I had thought this painting was finished a couple months ago, but I added to it again a couple days ago. Originally, the background was quite a bit lighter with more blue and green in it. I took this into my painting class and it is a good example of how the useful feedback enhances my mostly finished work. The instructor suggested I glaze the entire background with a darker color but leave some highlights above the bird. This way, there is a nice contrast because the bird is dark on top and light on the bottom, so the background looks nice being dark on the bottom and light on top. I totally agreed with him and am pleased with how it has turned out after the new enhancement. [Read more →]

Last week, I finally finished this painting of some flowers I photographed at the Duke Gardens. It has yet to be named.

Final Version of Flowers Painting

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