I felt like tinkering with jewelry today because painting takes more brain power than I cared to use. They are both sterling silver with gemstones. On the left, the bottom beads are topaz and the top are ametrine. On the right I’m not sure what the top beads are, they came from an assorted bead dish, but the bottom is coral. It’s kind of nuts how long I will spend picking out the beads and then making them. Productivity is definitely not the goal.

I painted this lemur after the tour. There are also some photos below.

I only took about 90 photos while I was there because I wanted to just watch for some of the time. I got a few good ones.

I had to take most of them using manual focus which is still sort of new to me, so I am impressed with how well the focus was on some of them. The reason for this is that while cameras are pretty good at knowing what to focus on when you are taking a photo of a person relatively close up, they don’t really understand what you want to focus on with wildlife. If you wait for the camera to figure it out, the animal will often be gone.

I think this is my favorite photo.

This is one of my top two favorites.

These photos are completed pieces shown in chronological order. There are a few other things I have left out which are not done yet.

I am pretty happy with how some of them turned out and anticipate being able to make even nicer things next time. Keep in mind that the photos make the items look much nicer than they are…because I take pretty good photos.

7" x 5" | Pencil on Paper

I only had two goals yesterday. First was to take some photos of butterflies and second was to do some pencil drawing; both were completed.

The female house sparrow you see was inspired by a photo I took in Washington DC April 2009. Somehow she seems to be an expression of how I have been feeling lately, but I won’t elaborate on that.

Butterflies are surprisingly difficult to get good photos of. Here are a few of then decent ones I caught. I wasn’t particularly happy with any of them, but that might be a sign that one of them should become a painting. Generally, my paintings are inspired by photos that are not particularly good. I almost never want to paint a great photo, because it is already in its ideal form.

I also discovered a vine down at the end of my driveway with some really neat flowers.

As always, I had to snap a few of the dog. Phoenix is really photogenic. Chewing on sticks in the backyard is still one of her favorite things to do.

And finally, I think this next one is my favorite photo of Phoenix ever. I particularly like it in sepia as seen:

I learned that blackberries are pretty hard to take good photos of…so most of them were bad. However, I did get this one really awesome photo, so I thought I would post it.

This photo has not been adjusted, edited, photoshopped or tinkered with at all. It is straight from the camera.

I love macro photography.

This is the first painting I’ve done in 2010 that is larger than 5×7.  This one is 12×16 oil on canvas. I am mostly done, but I do have one more session planned for the kind of tweaking that can’t be achieved wet on wet.

I am happy to be getting faster these days. I used to spend a lot longer working out details. Partly I think the figure drawing class I took helped, and partly just experience.

The inspiration flower came from my back yard. Not sure what it is so if you recognize it let me know. I enjoy over saturating and adjusting colors in my paintings as you can see. It’s fun.

I feel kind of cliche painting so many flowers…but they are fun and more importantly they are easy models to find, especially this time of year. Plus, flowers are pretty.

Peeking Pink Petals | 7" x 5" | Oil on Linen Panel

One of the fun things about this painting is that I actually took photographs of this piece and different stages to share.

the inspiration

This bush lives in my backyard. I like to paint things I meet personally.

the sketch

I don’t always sketch before I paint. But if I want detail, especially in things like flowers, then I do.

stage one

stage two

stage three

stage four

the final version

My concentration for this painting was adding drama. That’s why the shadows are more heavy than the inspiration photo above.

I actually had a lot of trouble that evening because I initially picked a difficult angle, and then I moved probably 15mns in and had to move a lot of the lines…so it really cut down my time. You can tell that my focus area was on the legs, and in particular the lower bent leg. The upper body looks strange because I didn’t place the fabric she was laying on which covered some of her skin. Without seeing what is covering some of the skin, the shape looks kind of odd and too narrow. Anyway…some days things click, and some days they don’t.

Week seven I was mainly experimenting with different kinds of lines. I don’t think either experiments were particularly successful, but they were interesting all the same.

I am in the middle of a painting I will try to finish and post in the not too distant future. It’s of some more pink blossoms and a glass. These days, all I am interested in painting is flowers and glass. But I think it’s just that time of year.

There are some really great buds on a bush at the back of my house right now. I am trying to decide which one of these I will paint. I’m leaning towards the second one. I really love the drama of the lighting…not that I couldn’t add some to the first…we’ll see.