Auction: "Winter Blues" Oil, 8" x 6"

Early morning in the winter...a single daisy sits on the windowsill illuminated by the kitchen light. The white daisy picks up yellow tones from the light while the snow looks blue in the early morning.  If you would like to bid on this painting, click here.

Opening Reception " Reality and Metaphor II": Friday, January 23rd

My oil painting, "Grace", has been accepted into the "Reality and Metaphor II" juried exhibit sponsored by Six Summit Gallery in Ivoryton, CT.  The exhibit will be on view until March 22nd at the Valentine H. Zahn Gallery at the Shoreline Medical Center.  If you are in the area, come to the Opening Reception on Friday, January 23rd from 6-8pm.  You will be able to meet me in person and see amazing artwork, like the whimsical photograph below taken by artist Adrien Broom.

Photo by Adrien Broom

Reality and Metaphor II
Jan 23rd-March 22nd, 2015

Reception: Jan 23rd, 6-8PM

Jurors: Adrien Broom and Jerry Weiss 

Valentine H Zahn Gallery@ 

Shoreline Medical Center in Westbrook

Inspiration for Art

Getting back to work after the holidays is always tough for me.  This year it took me almost a week to recuperate.  I've realized that the best way to get the creative juices flowing again after a brief hiatus is to jump into the work again.  Chuck Close sums up what I think is so true..

        

     "I always thought that inspiration is for amateurs - the rest of us just show up and get to work.
If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightening to strike you in the brain,
 you're not going to make an awful lot of work."  

For now, I'm focusing on painting household items.  Some of these items can be tricky to replicate in paint - porcelain items, ceramics, metals...  I'm currently working on a small painting that depicts a porcelain sugar bowl and brown cane sugar.  In this painting, the slightly transparent nature of  the sugar compliments the opaque, shiny smoothness of the sugar bowl.  Stay tuned for the finished product.

Auction: "Snack Time", 8' x 6", Oil on Linen Panel

  

I painted "Snack Time" on an oil-primed linen panel.  First, I carefully blocked-in the drawing in pencil. Once the drawing seemed accurate, I erased the extraneous lines and thinned out the lines that I wanted to keep as a guide. If you would like to bid on this painting, click here.

Auction: "Vintage Corkscrew" , Oil, 8" x10"

I've finished my painting, "Corkscrew" that I've been working on this past week.  I could've touched it up forever, but it was time to let it go.  I painted the corkscrew on a 1/4" thick birch plywood panel.  It comes ready to frame.  I suggest a wood, floater frame to match the wood panel.  If you would like to bid on this painting, click here.

Paiting in Progress: "Corkscrew"

This is the second lay-in of color on "Corkscrew".  I  painted the cast shadow, which makes the corkscrew pop off of the wood.  Since shadows are transparent, I added a diluted mixture of color, which allows the grain of the wood to show through.  I'll touch up the shadow later to add in the darkest, darks and lighten-up some of the edges.  The corkscrew looks more realistic at this point.  In the final stage, I will soften some of the color transitions and give more contrast to other areas that need to come forward even more. I'll post the final product in the next day or two.

Painting In Progress: "Corkscrew"

When we bought our house, we were pleasantly surprised to find this vintage corkscrew hiding in a kitchen draw.  Because it's the corkscrew I use every time I open a bottle of wine, I decided to pay homage to it in a painting.  I've wanted to paint directly on wood for some time, but I was worried that it's almost impossible to correct any paint-stroke that goes astray.

 For this painting, I made sure to have a precise drawing in pencil first.  I measured the height and width of the actual corkscrew in order to make a life-size drawing.  Then I drew a plumb line and centered the drawing on the line.  Once the drawing was in place, I started to paint a base coat in titanium white mixed with mineral spirits.  The base coat was applied only to the corkscrew part of the painting and not to it's cast shadow since I wanted the wood grain to show through the transparent shadow.   The next day I started the initial lay-in of color. Stay tuned for the finished product.