Category Archives: Painting

Fresh Start ~~ Rita’s new pose, on linen

A Second Painting for the Writers Center Exhibit

Here’s another of my paintings to be featured at the Writers Center exhibit, opening in late June. A ‘plein air’ painting (done in the great outdoors) painted along S Street, NW, DC, in a workshop offered by Carol Rubin, another wonderful artist.

three colorful bushes on S Street, NW, DC

S Street Lollipops. Oil on Linen Panel.

Another Upcoming Exhibit ~~ Ten Paintings at the DC Writers Center!

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The wonderful DC-area Writers Center regularly hosts art exhibits in its large space, featuring the works of local artists. Ten of my paintings will be included in the next show, scheduled to open in late June. This exhibit is organized around the works of those who have painted with Gonzalo Navarro, a fellow teacher at the Yellow Barn Studio in Glen Echo, MD. I have enjoyed Gonzalo’s teaching expertise — it’s always good to practice skills under the tutelage of an expert in portraiture and figurative painting. It’s great to have Gonzalo at the Yellow Barn, as well as Maud Taber-Thomas, supplementing the excellent portraiture teaching of Gavin Glakas.

Here is one of the paintings I’ll show in the upcoming exhibit. More to follow.

Pensive Ballerina. Oil on Arches Oil Paper.

Upcoming Juried Exhibit – Second Year Selected

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I’m honored to have been selected again for inclusion in the second annual Hill Center Regional Juried Exhibition. The judge this year is Philip Kennicott, Art and Architecture Critic for The Washington Post. Here’s my painting, one of 65 works selected from over 450 works submitted by almost 100 artists. I must admit – I was surprised!

Blazing Canal. Gouache on Paper.

Portrait Workshop with Bill Schneider

Painting a Memory of Jeremiah’s Wedding

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Before Ingrid & Jeremiah’s wedding recedes into fond memories, I wanted to paint a tangible memento, based on a photo taken by my niece Tess (Jeremiah’s sister). Actually, a number of photos of the beautiful flower girls captured my artist’s fancy. Here’s the first one I tackled. Maybe there will be more.

Wedding Flowers. Oil on Paper.

Starting to Work on a Series of Abstract Paintings

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Apart from my iPad doodles, I haven’t done many abstract paintings. Here’s the first I’ve done in long time. I hope to make a series of variations on this theme. Like good abstracts should be (I’ve heard), this one is based on real world information. I’m not going to tell you (yet) the source of my inspiration. Any ideas??

Abstraction in Blues #1. Oil on Arches Oil Paper.

We Share Our Color Learnings

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Post-show doldrums are a great time to share insights from prior workshops. Several of us ‘7 Palettes’ have been sharing new color mixing techniques this week. Here’s what I passed along from the fabulous Terry Miura workshop my sister Ceci and I attended awhile back.

Here’s a glimpse of Terry’s palette:

Terry Miura’s Limited Palette

And here are insights about painting the figure using a limited earth-tone palette:

Select one of each ‘primary’ color, plus white: yellow ochre; transparent iron oxide red (‘earth red’ in some brands) , ivory black (standing in for blue) and Titanium white.
Using a palette knife, make two ‘puddles’ of paint consisting of a bit of each of the primary colors (in varying proportions, obviously): a light-toned puddle for use in painting light areas of the figure and a dark toned puddle for shadowed areas.
To add variety to the light and shadow areas of the painting, ‘push’ each puddle toward other colors and values by adding relatively more of desired dominant colors and less of the subordinated colors. For example, mix into part of the light puddle a bit more yellow ochre & some black to make a greenish variant.
Make sure that none of the darker values in the light puddle is as dark as the lightest light value in the dark puddle and vice versa. Imagine a line down your palette between the two puddles to keep them strictly separate.
Paint the light areas of the figure using only the light puddle and its variants; and paint the shadowed areas of the figure using only with the dark puddle and its variants.
Assuming you’ve drawn the figure fairly well, you’ve got a fine looking painting!

Here’s Terry’s beautiful twenty minute demo!

Terry’s nude.

Our 7 Palettes Exhibit is Over and We All Did Fairly Well

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Our two-day exhibit at the Yellow Barn drew steady streams of visitors as well as pleasantly crowded scrum for the Saturday evening reception. I believe every one of we Seven Palettes sold one or two framed paintings, along with ‘bin art’ (unframed originals and prints packed with mat and backing), and greeting cards based on our art.

A framed print of “The Red Hat”, an archival giclee of one of my favorite iPad paintings, found a good home, as did “Red on Yellow, C&O Canal Autumn”, one of my gouache paintings. I also sold several matted giclees and a print on tempered glass from my “Fruit, Veggies & Flowers” iPad series. I don’t think I’ve shown you what the glass printings look like. Here’s a snapshot of several (the black around each is padding to protect the tiles during shipping).

Some iPad Prints on Tempered Glass

Many of the visitors asked questions about the ins and outs of iPad art, as well as gouache, so maybe there will be further opportunities to teach those techniques,