Plum, Fig, and Grapes

     It took me quite a while to finish this one and I had totally given up on it at one point.  The problem is that it often takes me several sittings to complete a painting and the objects sometimes deteriorate before I'm finished. This happened to me with a painting of pink tulips I've been working on recently. This painting is     6 x 8 inches and is painted in oil on a masonite panel.

Two Figs

I finished this a few hours ago.  4 x 6 inches on a hardboard panel.

3 Pears with a Purple Drape

I've been working on this for about a week or so.  It's 12 x 18.  It's painted in oil on a gallery wrapped canvas.

Salvia

I started this painting of home grown Salvia last Fall and finished it just a few days ago.  About 2 days after finishing I sold to a nice couple who stopped by to visit my studio.  It's painted on an 8 x 10 canvas in oil.

Grapes on a Pedestal

This is another still life that I finished recently.  It's 8 x 10 on canvas and painted in oil.  100% of the proceeds from the sale of this painting will go to the Red Cross to help those left in need after hurricane Sandy. To bid in this auction please follow the link on the top right to my Dailypaintworks gallery.

Red Pear with Purple Drape

This is a study for a larger still life I'm working on.  It's 5 x 6 inches and is painted in oil on a canvas hardboard panel.

Barn on Turkey Hill Rd

I've been painting quite a bit recently but I've fallen behind on photographing my work. I did this painting last Monday at the intersection of Turkey Hill Rd and Stevens.  I went out painting with a local group called the Fair Weather Painters.  I had a blast!  I hadn't done a plein air painting since Bill Hawk's painting class at Washington U.

Myers Lighthouse Summer Morning, Finger Lakes New York

This is called Myers Lighthouse Summer Morning.  It's 36 x 24 inches and painted in oil on canvas.

Salmon Creek Falls Late Summer

     I haven't posted in a few weeks because I've been working on some larger landscapes of places close to my home in upstate NY.  This is the first that I've finished from the group and it's a painting of Salmon Creek Falls.  It's 10 x 20 inches and is oil on canvas.
    I have an open studio today and tomorrow, as well as next weekend in connection with the Greater Ithaca Art Trail. This painting and many others will be on view.

Cherry and Plum

Sunflower

I painted this sunflower from my garden last Fall but have been reworking it over the past few days.  It's painted in oils on a 4x6  inch masonite panel.

Lemon with 2 Vases

This past Spring I purchased Still Life with Oysters and Lemon by Mark Doty and I'm now reading it for the third time. His descriptions are wonderful and among other things have lead  me to try my hand at painting a lemon.  I'm including a passage here from page 6.

     "That there can never be too much of reality; that the attempt to draw nearer to it-which will fail-will not fail entirely, as it will give us not the fact of lemons and oysters but this, which is its own fact, its own brave assay toward what is.
     That description is an inexact, loving art, and a reflexive one; when we describe the world we come closer to saying what we are."

Myers Park Lighthouse Study

I painted this today. It is an oil painting of the lighthouse in Myers Park on Cayuga Lake.  It is 6x9 inches.

Cherry, Plum and Fig

     It's been a busy summer and I haven't posted anything in a while, but I did get a few paintings done over the past few months and this is one of them. I'd never painted a plum or fig before and I really enjoyed painting the deep blacks and the cool, dusty blueish tones in the lights. Not only had I never painted a fig before, I had never even looked at a green fig closely. I was genuinely surprised to see that it's pink inside and pleasantly sweet.  I'll have to paint the inside of one another time!

Green Pepper, Grape and Sungold Tomato

Eggplant with Sungold Tomato.

I finished this painting today.  It's and eggplant and a Sun gold tomato  that I grew in my garden.  I will be painting more from my garden as the summer goes on.  I have my fingers crossed in hopes that the deer leave me something to work with.  So far they've eaten all of the beets, carrots, cilantro, broccoli, collard greens, cucumbers, Russian kale, and what was left of the arugula.  Yikes!

This painting is 4x6 and painted in oil on a canvas hardboard panel.

Kip's Barn

I've been working on this painting for several weeks and finished it 2 days ago.  It's an old barn at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology called Kip's Barn.  It's oil on canvas, 18x24 inches . It will be showing in the CAP Art Space in downtown Ithaca ( 171 The Commons) from July 3-31.  The opening is Friday July 6th from 5-8 p.m.

Daisy

I just finished this a few minutes ago.  It's done in oil on a 4x6 canvas hardboard. We have hundreds of daisies in our yard right now.  They make a good subject for painting because they keep well after being cut.

Asiatic Lily #1

     I've been working on this for the last three mornings.  It's in oil on a 4x6 canvas hardboard panel.  I painted this asiatic lily from a photo I took in my garden. To photograph it I went outside in the shade and tilted the painting down about 45 degrees. I'm happier with this photo than the photo I took indoors with my light set-up which often distorts the color and adds lots of reflective spots.

3 Cherries

This is my latest painting which I finished today and it's title is 3 Cherries.  It's 4x6, painted in oil and it's on a hand prepared canvas hardboard.  I had more difficulty with this painting than I anticipated and it took me 3 sessions to get it right. I think it's partly because a few of the reds I was using are fairly transparent and it was hard to get the reds deep enough.

Wind-up Chick

I won't be painting today so I am adding a painting that I did earlier that I will auction.  I listed yesterdays painting this morning and there will be more soon.  To start things off and promote my blog, I will be auctioning several of my small paintings. This painting is from 2011.  It's 6x6 inches and is painted in oil on a hand prepared masonite panel.

Pear and Cherry

 I though I was done with this Packham  pear but it called out to me one more time.  I am happier with this than my other 2 attempts.  I have been trying to add more cools to my still life paintings.  Last week I  painted my studio a cooler color because it seemed that the tan walls were throwing off my color perception and my paintings were getting hotter than I like. I also cut down some trees that were outside the window on the north side of my studio.  Therefore, I can now light them in north light from the window!

Tide Pool

I did paint the Packham pear again today but it came out so badly that I don't want to post it. I did want to post something though so here is one of my older paintings that I'm fond of. It's oil on a 16x 20 wood panel.

Packham Pear

Barn

This is the view looking from my yard to the end of my driveway.  I painted it from a photograph that I took on a foggy day in the early spring.  I don't often paint with watercolor but I thought that they could help me create some of the subdued tones and soft atmosphere that I was seeing.

Apricots with Pitcher

Day Lily

This is a day lily from my flower garden which I started yesterday and finished up this morning.

2 Apricots and a Cherry

     I finished this painting today and started another larger painting of a spot in Sapsucker Woods.   I was thinking about intensifying the color in this painting and I am fairly happy with how the colors came out.   I had a hard time photographing it though because the camera wanted to make the drape blue.  When the drape was blue the color of the fruit looked acurate though.  I think it's time to get a better camera!

     So this painting is called 2 Apricots and a Cherry, it's 8x10 and painted on canvas in oil.

Orchid

     I worked today on another painting with apricots and a cherry. It's bigger than yesterday's so it's not finished yet but should be by tomorrow.  I'm really enjoying painting from life these days.  In college and grad school I always painted from life,  but once I started to paint in job situations photographs were always standard and I got used to it.  I had forgotten how much more interesting working from life can be!

     I painted this one this past winter.  I had set this composition up for my class to paint, and I liked it so much I decided to paint it too.  It's 6x7 inches and called "Still Life with Orchid"  it's oil on canvas on hardboard.

Apricot and Cherry

I painted this today from life in one 2 hour sitting.   It's done in oil on canvas.  The canvas is mounted on hardboard.  It's 4x6 inches.

Duck

I Finished this one last week.  It's from a series of wind up toys I've been doing.  It's 11x14.  Oil on canvas.

Bubble wand

Skater

• This is an ink drawing.  I used sumi ink and diluted it to make a gray scale.  I then use the gray scale to paint in layers and also add detail with a quill pen.   Here are a few other examples of drawings I did in this technique

Toy Car in the Window

Red Tulips on maroon background

Here are some more red tulips. I think that all of the red tulips for now.  On to pink maybe?
We'll see.  This is 6x7 inches. It's painted in oil on masonite panel.

Daffodil

I've been trying again to paint Peeps and for some reason they just don't work out for me.  So instead I'm posting some of the paintings I've done over the past few weeks.  It's 4x6 inches It's painted on a hand prepared canvas hardboard.

3 Red Tulips

I finished this painting today.  It's 6 x 9 inches, painted in oil on linen supported by masonite panel.  

Red Tulips Framed

     This painting will be in the East Shore Festival of the Arts also.  I picked it up from the framers this morning.  I get my work framed at The Frame Shop on Buffalo Street.  They do really good work, have great prices and gave me a show in their shop a few years ago.  The painting is oil on canvas and is 11 x 14 inches.
     I've been interested in painting cut flowers in glass recently.  I enjoy the challenge of depicting the distortions within the water and glass.

Myers Park painting and study

Here is the full painting, and a study for the painting done in watercolor.  The watercolor is about 16 x 7 inches.

Myer's Park detail

     I joined a group today called Daily Paintworks with the goal of painting daily and posting images of my paintings to my blog as they are finished  Wish me luck!   I am not tech savvy or one to talk a lot about my paintings but those are two things that I would like to change about myself.
     So this is a detail of  my most recent painting.  I finished it a few days ago.  It is a spot in Meyers Park, which is on Cayuga Lake in Upstate New York.   It is 39X18 inches and it's oil on canvas.  I painted it to show at the East Shore Festival of The Arts.
     In the near future I will be posting some of my smaller works on Ebay.