Just for fun

I painted these to take down to a little gift shop in our town. The owner took two of the four paintings I brought to show to her partners.

They are 5x5 and 1.5 inch deep acrylic on canvas.

I have not sold any paintings on ebay [except for a couple of ACEO's that my fellow bloggers so kindly bid on].

I'm going to give it a try.

The Honu listing is here.

The Peace sign listing is here.

There are little 2x2" mini-canvases that I put magnets on the back. What do you think of them? What would you pay for a little painting like this?

Confounding Cupcakes!

I thought this would be fun. I had missed a couple of challenges for Karin Jurick's Different Strokes from Different Folks blog. I thought....o, yummy ...a subject near and dear to my heart, "this should be easy." HA!

I have never spend so much time on a challenge piece! Four separate painting sessions, correcting most of the time and trying to keep from scraping it all off and starting over.

I thought I'd be clever and flip the image so the shadow was on the opposite side and then line them up vertically because the majority of the submissions were horizontal. [also because my fav artists had already painted my previous ideas of close ups and other lay-outs]

I started out with a off white background on a burnt sienna toned canvas. Wasn't happy with it, gave it a yellow wash; REALLY hated it and then gave it a green wash and then finally a bright green layer.

The cupcakes didn't turn out the creamy way I wanted like some of the other challenge artists did. They remind me of the display food Japanese restaurants have in their front window for customers to look at that can look a little dusty after time. Learned a lot though...[patience for one]

24x8 oil on canvas

This is Thizz....

8x10 oil on RayMar board

This is "Thizz" . A memorial piece for a friend's "first baby" as she describes him.

8 Seconds

18x 20 oil on canvas

I have been following Michelle Burnett's Challenge Blog ever since she started in April. It has grown rapidly in just the few months she has started it. I was always a little intimidated because of the caliber of artists submitting their work and the subject matter seemed very complex.

When I checked on Following the Masters this time, the challenge just cried out to me, "DO IT!" with a subject near and dear to my heart. Her blog is also educational and I loved the website she listed on her lesson plan which directed the viewer to the works of Western Artist Maynard Dixon. Seeing his paintings again tipped the scale.

I grew up on Roy Rogers, Dale Evans, the Lone Ranger and every Western [movie and TV] out there. When I was growing up in Japan, I would accompany my dad to the Army Base movie theater and watch every 'spaghetti western' that came in.

Some of the few American TV programs that Japanese TV Stations ran were Rawhide, Bonanza and the Rifleman. I grew up thinking that the Cartwrights were fluent in Japanese.

So thank you Michelle... this little cowgirl had a great time painting this image.

Portrait Quandary

Someone wanted to give a memorial piece for her friend. Her companion Bandit passed away and she had mentioned she always wanted a painting of him. This person asked for a photo of Bandit and the top image is what she got. When asked about any other images, she said the only other photo she had of Bandit was with him under her arm with his head facing the other way.

I immediately noticed Bandit didn't look too happy in the photo. I don't know about you but I wouldn't be too thrilled if my mom brought herself and another family member into your close quarters. I'm not an expert in animal body language but I worked enough with Animal Control officers when I the director for the local shelter to know that ears back isn't a happy dog.

So I asked if I could paint Bandit with ears propped up a bit. Since she has seen Bandit, I had her approve a little sketch to make sure it look okay before I painted it. I sent her the finished image today and she is very happy with the end result.

Anyone else deal with these sort of issues? How would you have dealt with it? Would you have just painted the image as it was?

8x10 oil on gessoboard

Second "Posterized" family photo

This is the second set of siblings on the family photograph of members I need to do some research on. I like the term R. Garriott used to describe my previous painting of it looking "posterized."

18x24 oil on canvas

I'm back....

I apologize for not posting on my fellow bloggers sites. It's been an overwhelming several weeks. I'm still not at my full stride but I plan to hit most of the blogs today.

I won't go into the gory details but some of the things involved losing my phone, having the electricity turned off and dealing with the ex again.

In the meantime, I delivered this commission the other day.

This is Max. 24x30 oil on canvas.