"Parrot Talk" (watercolor on paper; 6" x 6") sold

sold

A pair of parrots perched on a tree branch are talking to each other.  I wonder what they are gossiping about.  Or, is the one on the right (male?) asking the left one (female?) out on a date?

"Sunrise Quietude" (oil on linen; 9" x 12") sold

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A couple of loons glide on a mirror-like lake on a sunrise. Peace and quietude reign.  After the last-minute grocery shopping on Christmas Eve, working on the piece was like meditation!

The Collage of My August 2015 Paintings

The collage of my August 2015 Paintings

I guess I was in the mood for flowers last month.  Look at how many florals I painted in August!  Which painting is your favorite?

"Goldfinch on Coneflower" (oil on linen; 7" x 7") sold

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My summer garden of wildflowers is often visited by a goldfinch or two.  The tiny yellow bird looks even more exquisite on a purple coneflower!

"Chesapeake Bay Tranquility" (oil on stretched canvas; 11" x 14") sold

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I once saw a lone house on an inlet to the Chesapeake Bay. I imagined tundra swans flying over the house. In my mind it was the dusk with the mauve sky and the dark, choppy water.

"Guarding Alcatraz Island" (oil on linen; 8" x 8") sold

sold

A seagull takes a break, while eating the famous San Francis sourdough.

Alcatraz Island is located in the San Francisco Bay, 1.5 miles offshore from San Francisco.  It is home to the abandoned prison, the site of the oldest operating lighthouse on the West Coast, early military fortifications, and a seabird colony (mostly Western Gulls).  Today the island's facilities are managed by the National Park Service.  As far as I can tell, due to the recent budget cuts, the island seems to be guarded mainly by the seagulls!

By the way, the seagull population is skyrocketing and the birds are taking over San Francisco. Don't feed the gulls and pigeons!

"Robin Bath" (oil on linen; 8" x 10") sold

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I was taking a walk when I saw a scruffy-looking robin at a shallow brook the day after a heavy rain.  Charming!

"Spring Robin" (oil on linen; 7" x 7") sold

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We have a couple of robins who live in our property.  They behave as if they own it during the nesting season.  One year they nested in a holly bush in front of our front door.  Oy! Whenever we approached it, there was a rush of flight, a loud squawk warning us to back off, etc.  We were glad when the baby birds flew off and we got our house back.  The bird in "Spring Robin" is not our male robin.  Its posture happens to remind me of the Intimidator.

"Piping Plover" (oil on linen; 7" x 5") sold

sold

While taking a little break from my California series, I did a bird painting.  According to Wikipedia, the piping plover is a small sand-colored, sparrow-sized shorebird that nests and feeds along coastal sand and gravel beaches in North America.  The bird I painted must be a baby since it doesn't  have a black band across the forehead from eye to eye and a black ring around the neck.  If you are a beach goer, you must have seen it running in short starts and stops.

It was fun to paint the lovely avian creature.

"Sunrise by the Lake" (oil on linen; 7" x 5") sold



sold



It is summertime.  Time to go to the lakes.  Like Boundary Waters, if you live in Minnesota.  Make sure to get up early to witness a spectacular sunrise or two.  A duck glides on the mirror-like water that reflects what is unfolding in the sky.  

"Poppy Field" (oil on linen; 16" x 12") sold



After
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"Poppy Field" before revision

"Evening Island" (oil, 14" x 11")
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I have a tendency of quitting a painting too soon.  It's not because I am lazy.  It's because of the fear factor--if I continue working on this pretty darn good painting, I am going to ruin it!  Last week, in his first class of the winter term, John Murray told the students to be brave: "No one is going to die here.  We are not performing a brain surgery.  So go ahead, use big brushes and lots of paint, and knock yourself out."  Or something like that.

We got a good laugh at his encouraging comments, but they got me thinking.  I have a few paintings that are supposedly finished and framed.  Whenever I look at them, however, I am bothered.  Yesterday I decided to do something about this nagging sensation and unframed a couple of the guilty paintings.  There was nothing to lose, you see?  Just as when a painting is a knock-out, it is a knock-out; when a painting doesn't work, it doesn't work.  No judges will like them; nobody will buy them either.

"Poppy Field" was too wispy.  It looked good only when I turned on a lamp next to it.  So I turned up the chroma (color intensity) of the poppies and greens in the foreground.  For "Evening Island," I increased the value scale.  The sky along the horizon was lightened and the grassy foreground was deepened.  I also added texture with a rough bristle brush, dipping it into pure paints and mixing colors directly on the painting.

I am happy to report that no one died in the process and I just rescued two paintings from the ignominy of mediocrity.  Not a bad reward for courage!

"Cardinal in the Snow" (oil on linen; 8" x 10") sold

After
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Original image

Speaking of Photoshop, I learned something very valuable during the workshop with Bobbi Pratte on Monday.  I have lots of paintings with a white background.  For instance, in "Cardinal in the Snow," much of the painting is the snow-covered ground.  Sure, it is about the red cardinal looking for food on a winter day, but if the bird had been standing on a dark ground, the painting's impact would have been completely lost. 

So it is imperative to show in the photographic image what I had captured with paints.  Unfortunately, whenever I take pictures of paintings with a white background, they come out looking drab.  Whites just are not white enough.  They might reflect too much of the blue sky, turning bluish; or they turn out dull, dirty-looking.  Sigh.

Hoping that Bobbi must know what to do, I asked her.  She did indeed know how to correct the problem with Photoshop.  Go to "Enhance," "Adjust Lighting," then "Levels."  In the dialog box, you will see the Input Levels in the top half.  There are three buttons.  The far right button controls the highest values.  Drag it to the left until you find the satisfactory light value.  That's it!

I could have done some more cool stuff even before I started painting "Cardinal in the Snow," too.  I had to use two different photos while painting: one for the pine tree in the background, the other for the bird's pose.  If I had taken the workshop before, I would have combined the two pictures with Photoshop and worked with just one printout.  If I had wished so, I could have flipped the bird's direction, so that it would look the other way.  You get the idea.  I have just entered the wondrous world of Photoshop!

"Ducks and Geese" (oil on linen, 8" x 12") sold

sold

Reference photo

When I showed my teacher, Diane Tesler, the above picture I took at Solomons Island, MD, she told me to keep it as a photo.  Apparently, it was too cute for her taste.  But she is in Indiana on vacation, and I am free to paint whatever I feel like.  So I painted "Ducks and Geese" today.

How can you resist the charm of this tableau?  Three geese decked in bright yellow rain gear were so jaunty that I and my friends burst out laughing when we spotted it while driving by.  The house owner obviously had a terrific sense of humor.  What made it even funnier was the two real ducks that happened to be there, as if they were checking them out.  I could almost hear one of them saying "if they are real, I am Donald Duck!"

"Winter's Arrival" (acrylic on paper, 10" x 14") sold

sold

It was very foggy the night before, which reminded me of this painting.  It is one of the first pieces that I painted in an opaque medium--in this case, acrylic.  I remember being amazed by the covering power of this fun medium.

In case you are wondering why I have been uploading entries about old paintings lately, here is why.  I am busily setting up my online gallery and can't find much time to paint these days.  You know the feeling of wishing there are more than 24 hours a day.  Teaching, parenting, and trying to launch an online art business all at the same time sometimes get too much, and it is painting that ends up shortchanged sadly.  Today I am determined to work on a new painting that I started yesterday.  Wish me luck.