Gamblin Gamvar

Rock Creek Winter, oil, 8 x 10 inches

The two things on my calendar today are 1) Finish tax prep for meeting with our accountant and 2) Apply the final varnish to my oil painting Rock Creek Winter so I can send it off to its new home. I was dreading spending the day working on taxes in a cloud of varnish fumes but I found a new bottle of Gamblin Gamvar. Nearly odorless and I love the semi-gloss finish. I'm having a cozy rainy/snowy Northwest  day in the studio.

Here is a link to a YouTube Video on how to apply this varnish.

NYC show

Bells, oil, 6x6 inches

I'm happy to post that my painting, "Bells" is now in NYC at the Prince Street Gallery. It will be shown in the Women Painters Coast to Coast Show - opening reception is March 2 and the show runs to March 25. Available

Homeward Bound 15 years later

Homeward Bound II, pastel, 10 x 8 inches

Backstory:
Last week I was inspired by Facebook's "Throwback Thursday" to compare my first landscape to my most current landscape. Then, to entertain myself I was curious what the 2002 painting - titled "Homeward Bound" would look like if I repainted it today. The result is not as abstracted as I expected (or as I would like) but I'm pleased with it and I can see the maturity in my marks.

You should be able to click on this image to go to YouTube for the video

The long road home

Morning Creek, pastel, 10 x 8 inches

Available

The Backstory: It was nearly time to leave for my Friday painting group and I wasn't ready to go. I quickly found a reference photo on my computer, opened it in Photoshop, slid the color bar way over to warm and hit print. I grabbed it and a piece of Uart and headed out knowing this was not going to be my favorite way of painting. I like to start with an oil under-painting of a complementary color or a dark value. I do not like to start with a blank piece of light value paper.

Reference photo for Morning Creek

This is my easel, Uart and b/w ref photo. I sketched the scene with a red pastel pencil.

This is the long road home part. It seemed to take forever to get to the place where I would have started if I had applied an oil-wash under-painting before adding any pastel. The scene wasn't inviting when I stuck to the cooler colors in the reference photo, it needed lots of nuanced color to add warmth and depth. But, adding warmth changed it from a spring scene to summer or autumn. Here's a very quick video of me beginning to add some warmth. Link to YouTube Morning Creek Nuance.

One more time!

Rock Creek Winter, oil, 10 x 8 inches   sold

One more time. I have been painting the streams and creeks in our area and I thought I was done with the Rock Creek - but then I started working in oil instead of pastel and couldn't resist painting this scene. It is available for purchase on my Daily Paintworks Gallery. Oil on hardboard panel, it is wet now but will be ready to ship in about 3 weeks. At that time I'll post it to my other online venues. I like to post available paintings on Daily Paintworks first for fellow-artist collectors.

Another creek, this time in oil

Grinder Creek, oil, 10 x 8 inches

Available now, will ship when dry. See the backstory below.

Last summer I was playing with acrylic paint (again!). Today I found this 10x8 inch panel with the first steps of an acrylic version of my colored pencil painting, "Sweetness and Light." A good surface to paint my first oil of 2017.

I mixed Burnt Sienna and French Ultramarine Blue and began laying in the new painting. After that, it was so fun to be painting in oil again that I forgot to take more photos. Below is the finished painting with the reference photo.