painting at home, anniversary flowers

I moved the beautiful flowers I received last week up to my studio so I could paint them.   I started working on them this afternoon, I hope they last until I get the painting done!

Model No-show, daffodil still life

The model didn't show up today in the studio, but I had lugged my painting gear and I figured I might as well get something out of my now infrequent painting times.  I'd brought a fairly large canvas, 24 x 30, and had about 2 1/2 hours to cover it with paint.

Model in the studio

I haven't been in the studio for a while, as I've been figuring out how to manage with an injured knee and limited mobility.  The good news is that I've got the up-and-about to rest ratio figured out now and I'm in much less pain, able to do more.  In the studio class today, we had a model who was young,  beautiful and large.  I started to work on a portrait, avoiding painting her body, and decided instead to go for it and work on a painting of her torso.

Beach Sketches

I didn't bring paint to the beach last week, and ended up using a pen and copier paper do to some sketching.  I've got the sketches back in the studio and I'm thinking about how to use them.   There's so much information in the sketch about shapes... and so little information about everything else.  That's the challenge.

Here's the beginning of a painting based on that last sketch below.

Valentine's Day Flowers, Revisited

I scraped down the painting I'd started in the kitchen and worked it back up today.  The result is looser, more luminous and is a much more emotional painting.  Better.

Valentine's Day Flowers - Painting in the Kitchen

It's snowing, it's cold, and I have a huge bouquet of flowers fading fast from Valentine's Day.   I set up today in the kitchen since I couldn't get the flowers to my studio.

It got dark as I was getting a sense of where the painting was going.  Depending on how the flowers survive the night, this may be all I get of them.

Ties, Hat

I think it's time to send the ties off to the donation bin...

Shirt & Tie

I started on a new shirt & tie painting today in the studio..  It took me some time to figure out how to tie the tie and I didn't get it quite right, but I think it's a fine match for the wrinkled shirt.

Ties of the 1990s

Painting Ties

There was a pile of ties destined for a donation bin and I've decided to paint them before sending them on to their next life.  As I was hanging them up, I was thinking that I must have seen a painting of ties, couldn't place it at first.  A Google search for Thiebaud and ties came up with his 1969 painting Row of Ties.  He painted ties hanging on a rod and the 60s wide ties with swirling patterns were definitely more vivid than the drab 90s ties my husband was taking out of circulation.  I'm a bit sorry that I looked up the Thiebaud ties, but I plan on painting these and making the image my own.  Here's the start in the studio.