Turtle and Snake Painting, Painting Pets III

Is your pet a turtle or snake? If so, then I just painted your pets, or at least something like them. Painted from a photo, 5x7" canvas board.

Cloudy Sunset Painting

A very quick and small, about 5 x 7", painting of a cloudy sunset, a nice excuse to paint the pinks and purples found in nature.

Water Lillies Painting a Day

These white water lillies are not a Monet knockoff, but rather painted from a photograph, and just to be different (or to save canvases), it is painted on the acrylic-primed back, or verso, of a previous 5 by 7 canvas.

Painted simultaneously, an orange friend for the octopus the other day:

Peacock, Painting a Day

Painting of the day: peacock head closeup, painted from photograph, oil on canvas 6" by 6", painted in one hour. 

Octopus, Painting a Day

This colorful octopus is the first in a series of small 6" x 6" canvases of simple subjects to be painted in under an hour. Painted from a photograph, the creature had the loveliest bright pastel colors of light orange, blue-green, blue and purple.

Animal Paintings: Squirrel, Horse, Fish

You could call these small paintings "studies" because they are all small and very quick little paintings all on the same canvas and all done in the same sitting, or you could consider them each finished miniature portraits by themselves. They are all good considering their size (6" wide) and the speed they were rendered in. The best part is the superb turquoise water around the fish.

Old Pewter Candle Holder, Copper Candle Snuffer

These metal objects are old, dirty, oxidized, chipped, and full of beautiful character. They were a delight to paint all the myriad colors including all the warm grays, ochers and a shade of pale blue-green verdigris. More objects for Painting a Day to follow...

Candle and Roses Painting of the Day

An oil painting for painting-a-day: A candle on a black candle holder lights up a few roses in a blue vase. A rose glows as the flame flickers, the wax shows its translucency, and strong shadows are cast on the petals.

Painting a Day

This is the 6x6 inch miniature winter edition of the same plant I painted in early autumn. It went from life to death, black of night to snow-white day, dark abyss of a background to a sprawling forest of sticks and dead or dying plants. The sun shines brightly on this cold day.

Atlantic City Miniature

 

To escape the winter weather, let's go to Atlantic City for today's painting subject. This beach scene was painted on a 5 by 7 inch canvas board, which might not seem miniature when painting life-sized strawberries but it is quite another matter to capture the shore on such a small space. Antonio Mancini did it on his 6 by 9 inch panel, and I strive to emulate the masters.

There wasn't a cloud in the sky that day; the air was breezy and hot. I cooled off in the casinos that night. Maybe tomorrow I'll paint myself getting back the stacks of chips that I lost.

Mango in the Sun

It's back to the fruiture in my studio, which means I painted fruit for the painting a day project after a short hiatus (or it means I combined fruit and furniture as subjects, you decide). I can't remember the last time I painted the effects of sunlight, and never such strong beams of it. Hopefully I conveyed the sun's rays on surfaces well and that my studio time today was fruitful.

Painting a Day

Today's Painting a Day is brought to you by the shiny spirit of Christmas.

Painting A Day

At this festive season of the year, it is more than usually desirable for painters to paint holiday subjects in their "Painting a Day" themes. This will be my first holiday season doing the painting-a-day project, so I could start the tradition today.

The star of today's painting: the color Viridian: a cool and deep blue-green that is second only to turquoise in terms of beautiful blues, and this wreath's hues were full of it. Always a visual pleasure to see so much of it on the canvas. As for an actual star, we'll save the star atop the Christmas tree for a later picture.

Painting of the Day: Caribbean Fish

The change of scenery for the painting/catch of the day comes from the Caribbean. I snorkeled with this fellow in the BVI and snapped a shot along with hundreds of other pictures with an underwater camera, many of which may become source photographs for paintings.

Fresh Strawberries Painting

On the menu for today's Painting a Day is fresh fresas (Spanish for strawberries), a simple subject but a chance to break out the vermilion paint tube and portray these berries brilliantly against a complementary green background. Although it seems I'm obsessed with fruit, I like to paint things I've never painted before and the idea behind the painting-a-day project is to get practice by painting readily available objects and scenes, much of which is from the kitchen.

There was no painting-a-day subject yesterday, but I reworked part of an old self-portrait with my dog Archie, whose face is now much better:

Onion Painting a Day

Finally, a vegetable! After most of my other small Painting a Day subjects were fruit and a plant (and one oddball cup of espresso), I have finally painted life-sized on a 5x7 canvas board a favorite subject amongst painters-a-day (and for good reason), the red onion.

And now into an omelette it goes.

Pineapple Painting A Day

Of course, the title means that this pineapple is part of my on-going Painting a Day experiment, and not that I intend to paint a pineapple every day. I'm learning that I love impasto painting, which is laying on thick slabs of paint. Just like my last painting, Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwich, I can sculpt the paint in the shape that I want to protrude off the canvas to give a 3D effect and to fool the eye (tromp l'oeil) into thinking the object exists in 3D space.

PB&J Painting-a-Day

One thing I've realized is that sometimes nothing can be more difficult than simplicity. How can I portray a simple slice of bread realistically when there's hardly anything to "grab on to" with my eyes? I have to say painting the impasto slathers of peanut butter and strawberry jam was the most fun I've had painting in a long time.

But really, when am I going to paint the also-obligatory slice of pie so I could say the day's work was easy as pie? Or a "piece of cake?"

Painting a Day: Tromp L'oeil Plant

After a series of indoor still-life subjects such as a grapefruit, espresso cup, peach, apple and orange, my "Painting a Day" project continues outside on the deck at night to paint a potted plant and vine. I may be a bit presumptuous, but I hope this attempt is worthy to call a "Tromp L'oeil" painting, which means to "fool the eye" by painting something as realistically as possible and showing the objects as if they "jut out" from the canvas. 

Painting A Day- Apple and Orange

Continuing my "Painting A Day" project, I present two juicy fruit ready to eat. The apple was much easier to paint as its texture is smooth and the color mostly uniform, so it was in essence just portraying a semi-spherical object. The orange was trickier as it has a very rough rind and pitted with little dents all over it. In the end I hope it shows the orange in real 3D space and giving the impression of the dimples without over-painting it. I could compare and contrast the final appearance of both, but that would be like comparing apples to oranges.

I've been painting every day since I painted the succulent grapefruits, which started the whole one painting a day project. However in between painting the espresso cup and saucer, the peach, and these apple and orange, I painted the Caravaggio tribute and my little Puss in Boots illustration. I think a pattern emerges: I will paint as close as I can to every day for these simple "Painting a Day" pictures, with each getting done in two sittings with a break in between each, completing 3 or so a week. Sporadically I can be more creative and work on larger formats.