"Lilac Basket" (watercolor on paper; 8" x 10")

click here to buy

A basketful of lilacs under a lilac bush on green grass.  Ah, can you smell the perfumed air?

"White Tree Peonies" (watercolor on paper; 11" x 8")

click here to buy

In this loose and fresh watercolor painting, my intention was to capture the essence of glorious white tree peonies.  Do you think I succeeded?

"Gardenia Love" (watercolor on paper; 6.5" x 9") sold

sold

Gardenias, I love the perfumed, white flowers!

"Pink Peony and Love-in-a-Mist" (watercolor on paper; 9" x 6.5") sold

sold

I cut a pink peony and delicate love-in-a-mist from my garden and put them in a white porcelain with blue patterns for a fresh floral still life.  In case you haven't seen love-in-a-mist, I included a recent photo of my lovely garden. When blue, pink, white, and deep blue flowers fade, they become attractive seed pods, first green then dried, which last the whole season.

Love-in-a-mist is blooming!

Love-in-a-mists seed pods

"Robin's Nest" (mixed media on paper; 6.5" x 9") sold

sold

It's a risky thing to do, but who can resist peeking into four vivid blue robin eggs in a beautiful nest up the tree!  The painting is a mixed media of watercolor and oil pastel.

"Red Fox" (oil on stretched canvas; 9" x 12") nfs

nfs

I asked my husband, whose birthday is coming up soon, what I could do for him.  He said: "Paint a fox for me".  None of his fox pictures in our backyard came close to the one I found on the internet--a healthy-looking fox staring at you in a snowy landscape.  I hope he likes the present!

"Birthday Cake" (oil on stretched canvas; 14" x 11") nfs

nfs

I don't know why, but I have always been shy about painting myself.  But as a practice, because only practice makes perfect and I need models, I decided to paint a self-portrait, using a photo my daughter took on my last birthday.  I am looking at a candle-lit chocolate cake.  Don't I look happy?

The hardest part was naturally the mouth, as the famous John Singer Sargent said, a portrait is a painting with something wrong with the mouth!  I am not sure whether it is exactly me, but it must be close enough.  All the people who saw it knew immediately that it was a self-portrait.  Below are some of the step-by-step pictures.

 

 

"Iris Glow" (oil on stretched canvas; 10" x 8")

click here to buy

I celebrated the first iris to bloom in my garden with its portrait.  After a week of working on portraits, it was fun to paint loosely and expressively!

"Man in Salmon" (oil on stretched canvas; 11" x 14") sold

sold

Back to Danni Dawson's portrait painting class.  Last Saturday was the beginning of the five-week pose, but the model couldn't make it.  We had instead Ed for one week as a substitute.  Lucky us!  I love his don't-mess-with-me look. Put a helmet and armor on him; he will look like a Renaissance-Italy general!

Step 1: After 40 minutes!  I used a gray-toned canvas for this portrait.

Step 2: I got this far during the class.

Step 3: The drawing was off, so I corrected the drawing and color temperature errors from a photo I took.

 

 

 

 

 

"Springtime Warbler" (oil on stretched canvas; 8" x 10")

click here to buy

It took a while to paint a male prothonotary warbler perched on a tree branch on a sunny spring day.  Why?  It was tough to achieve the feeling of the sunlight streaming through the budding, tender leaves.  Do you think I got it?

The Collage of My April 2015 Paintings

The Collage of My April 2015 Paintings

April went by so fast amidst flowers!  It may appear that I haven't painted as much as usual, and that's quite true.  I was busier collecting reference photos for the hot days, rainy days, cold days, etc.  Besides, the beautiful weather was hard to resist!