Nelson

6 x 6" original oil

commission

Thank you Gallery MAR for another dog commission! I love this guy. Look at that face. He's staring in my soul. He looks like a darling muppet version of a pet dog. He's so funny looking that he's adorable! This face. I can't get enough of it. 

Dancing Light

20 x 50" original oil

commission

This large painting is a commission for a new collector, one that I am very excited about having met. She seems to have a natural love for the arts, and I really appreciate her supporting me by commissioning this piece and opening a door with other potential collectors. 

The colors in this piece are delicious. Pinks, oranges, and the whole shady/sunny spectrum in between, creating those lovely lavenders, purple-grays, greenish-oranges, and other little tertiary colors so important to creating the overall effect of sunlight and warmth. 

Easter

6 x 6" original oil

commission

In January I met with my sister-in-law who is going to be coming out with an Easter product next year. She asked for a lily painting as part of this new product's development, and we collaborated a bit to come up with this finished product. 

With the light shining through the lily, it feels more majestic, and since this is an Easter piece, symbolically I like that the light is coming through the lily and the lily is pointed slightly upward. 

I bought two stems of Easter lilies a couple of weeks apart and took over a hundred photographs in different angles of light and different blooming stages. Lilies are surprisingly hard to get a good angle on as their petals are "spidery" and can be very asymmetrical. 

Last Thursday, blessedly, the morning sun was strong and there was no wind, so with my left hand I held the lily up to the light, and squinting into oblivion I looked through my view-finder to snap the photo with my right hand. In the photograph I used, my hand was all over the reference and the stem created a really awkward shadow. Lucky me, I got to just paint that stuff out. 

Leo

4 x 4" original oil

commission

Leo is an English Bull Mastiff puppy. In December, one of my galleries sold Stocking Stuffer to a new client, and this new client loved the little 4x4" size so much, she commissioned this piece of Leo as a gift to Leo's mom, her daughter. So thoughtful. I love it when people gift original artwork. Thank you HC for being so patient and waiting for this piece. 

It makes me snicker to call anything Mastiff a "puppy." Those are some big dogs. 

Camilla

 30 x 36" original oil
sold

This is my first painting of peonies. They were growing at my neighbor's house last summer when I stopped by and asked if I could putter around with my camera. If you've ever been a neighbor that's said yes, thank you. 

I love painting white flowers. Grays are such beauties, especially when you get warm and cool grays next to each other. 

detail of lower-right blossom

Passage

24 x 46" original oil

sold

Three reasons for this title:

1) I imagine the rain sweeping across the horizon from left to right, and the sky afterwards clearing and brightening.

2) When life's storms arrive, conditions change. They pass from serene to chaotic, but they always pass again back to the serene.

3) Being granted passage allows you to travel to another place. Think about it. You can take that literally or you can take that metaphorically (which is my intent in painting seascapes) and go to a better place spiritually, remembering that trials pass, storms pass. Art can transport you.

I was recently at an art show where three smaller seascapes very similar to this piece (my Change series) were displayed, and the buyer commented that there is beauty in the storm, both in the painting and in his past trials that have shaped his character. That may sound cliché to you, but for the buyer to see what I the painter intended was a beautiful thing.