Category — Art

Still having a great time with my figure drawing class. I feel like I have improved a lot since the beginning and I am getting more done in the sessions of the same amount of time these days. It’s interesting how when I am drawing I don’t even notice that I’m on my feet for about an hour and a half standing in the same place, it feels so short. Normally, if I had to stand somewhere for an hour and a half, I would find it tiring, but I could definitely do this for twice as long and not notice.

Session Five

This was a surprisingly difficult pose, and also was a lot of fun. This was 30mns, but I could have spend at least an hour.

[Read more →]

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.

$80 | Original | 12" x 12" | Oil on Linen Panel

[Read more →]

I am now half way through the winter figure drawing session at the Durham Arts Center so I thought I would post some of the sketches from the last two sessions. Still very much enjoying myself. I acquired some new pencils with some birthday gift money I received and I had fun working with those. I am also finding that I enjoy working with two types of charcoal: willow and compressed. It’s an easy way to get different values as you might notice in the session four sketches.

Before I move on to the sketches, here are some daffodils from my back yard the other day. They seem to come up around my birthday every year, which is a nice treat. However they always seem to get a cold shock and  whither quickly. I like the focus in this photo on just one flower thanks to my amazing 50mm prime lens I got for xmas.

[Read more →]

I brought my camera on the Buckquarter Creek Trail last week. My intention was to find the two trees my mom and I saw in October that she wanted a photo of. I could not find them. All I have to say is: you try going into the woods and finding the same trees twice!

[Read more →]

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.

[Read more →]

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 →]

In April of 2009 I visited Washington DC and luckily bumped into a great orchid exhibit (although I can’t remember which museum we were in). I wanted to do a few art pieces for xmas gifts and waited too long to let the oil paint dry so I decided to do some ink drawings of some of the orchid photos I have on hand.

Each received a light watercolor wash for color and the ink was applied on top. I have also included the photos that served as inspiration.

The Art

[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.

[Read more →]