May 30, 2010

Dupont Circle -- A Gorgeous Morning

I'm encouraging artists to submit works for a juried show of Dupont Circle paintings sponsored by the Foundry Gallery (www.foundrygallery.org). Submissions are due by June 26, so this is a great time to paint. As a gallery member, my work isn't part of the show, I'm just encouraging others. This morning, Ruth Becker and I -- we didn't find Don or Lou, although they said they'd be there -- had the pleasure of painting in the circle.

I was agonizing about painting the roller bladers who sat on the circle and if they weren't a great compositional element, I don't know that I would have stressed myself with getting their images down in the 2 minutes they sat there. But they were, and I did.

May 26, 2010

From Fresh to Overworked in 45 minutes!

I got out to Poolesville late today and had 45 minutes to paint. The idea was a flash of inspiration and it started out as good as it gets for me. Within 45 minutes, it was almost high noon, shadows completely changed and the poorly mixed colors on my palette made the flowers in the hot sun look tired.

I'm going to scrape this down and repaint it -- the idea still works and much of what I was trying to do still makes sense, just didn't come through in my haste to get something on the canvas. Check back.

May 23, 2010

Foundry Man!

I conducted a painting demonstration at the Foundry Gallery yesterday and our gallery president, Ron Riley, posed for me as "Foundry Man."

As for the mini cooper painting from Wednesday, it was snapped up at an event where painting buyers were donating to Partners in Health to benefit their work in Haiti.

May 19, 2010

Good Day to Paint a Mini Cooper

Yet another gray day -- so why not a fun subject for a painting?

May 17, 2010

rainy at Sumner Place

It was raining and my view from under the shopping center overhang was a series of arches I was looking under. I pushed a lot of paint around on this one.

May 10, 2010

High Contrast Farm

Too high contrast? Maybe. I painted this in 50 minutes on a gesso board and stopped as both the shadows shrank to small sizes and the paint was too slippery to adjust without some drying time.

May 3, 2010

Raining Down

This was a real mood painting -- it was gray and rainy. I painted this from a walkway that was above where the umbrella holder was standing.