"Monet" in Green

This is part of my tribute to Monet  as a pond series.  I did a lavender pond and then a blue and now a green. Their all unique and interesting.  If you've seen the Monet pond paintings you know that he used multiple colors one on top of another and some of the paintings were about 1/2 inch thick. Others weren't thick with paint but they had so many colors, it was head spinning at times. 

My actual favorite painting of his is a snow scene of Giverney, it looked so peaceful. 

  It was a beautiful day here in South Carolina, the lake was full of boaters.  I would venture to guess not nearly as many as in previous years, perhaps the high cost of gas is hurting some folks and they decided to just  have a cook out and bar be que some dogs or burgers out in the back yard.   I was invited to canoe down the Catawba River but decided to work in my yard. Usually I just have to put in a few days and its good all year.  So far Its coming along.   I’ll take some more photos of it so you can see how things are growing.   I fell asleep for a few minutes out on the back deck this afternoon.  The sound of water bubbling and the birds, it was really calm.  I repotted the plants I bought yesterday and fed all my plants.   My dogs thought it was too hot so I sent them in the house.  They love the good ole AC.  Who doesn’t!  I’m going to work on my larger project tonight its coming along too.  I’ll post it’s progress in about an hour.  I worked on it till 11 pm last night and would have worked on it longer but everyone wanted to go to bed.  

Ancient Ritual 127 "Looking In"

Five inches by five inches acrylic on illustration board.  $35.00

This is matted in a white mat and looks great!

This little painting is an abstract and is part of the ancient ritual series.  This series if you don’t know and aren’t a regular visitor, is basically about how we mark the passing of time and the events in our lives with ritual.  I thought I was finished with this series but every now and then another one just appears on my easel. Like magic.    

 

I had a wonderful day today, it started out with me getting up at the crack of dawn to go into Charlotte NC for a life drawing session.  The session went very well and I hung around the gallery talking to the host thinking that perhaps a customer may come in to view and possibly buy one of my larger works.   That didn’t materialized.  Just down the street from the Art league is a small farmer’s market so I walked down there and wouldn’t you know it, a sudden squall came up and luckily they had tents, so I walked thru the tables of flowers and cakes, vegetables and of course fruit.  I bought some organic lettuce and some other vegetables, talked a bit, the usual “wow isn’t this weather crazy?” and  just like always the storm blew over almost as fast as it came in and it was only sprinkling as I walked back to my car.   

Flowing Waters

This is a small Koi Painting that I did today and I tried to make it look like the water was flowing all around and over the fish.  At first I detailed the koi and water a bit to much so I pulled back the color and softened the lines and now I like it much better.

$40.0 5.9 by 5.9 inches

My condo back yard water feature

This is a photo of my back yard, its a bit small so I put in a little water feature I made out of a metal tub.  I may bury it, but it looks pretty good next to my deck.  You can see by the pots along the fence... Its still early spring here, most of my flowers haven't grown large enough.By the end of summer they are tall and growing up the fence.

  The water is blue because I put in a  special non toxic coloring.  Its so the algae won't grow.  There's a small bubbler which keeps the water moving.  I bought another water plant it looks like a caterpillar.

Blue Waters ACEO

This ACEO is for sale for $15.00 plus 1.00 S & H Mixed media on paper 2.5 by 3.5

blue on blue

7.5 by 7.25  45.00 Acrylic on gessoed masonite.

I need to cut up some more painting panels. I run out of them pretty fast. Usually I buy the masonite myself and have someone cut the wood into different sizes.  Being thrifty I have had them cut by folks who have trouble figuring out how to cut a straight line.   This is why the odd sizes.  For instance this piece was to be 8 by 8 but he, (I’ll keep his name anonymous) kept having to cut another bit off here and there.  I guess I’m lucky I didn’t end up with a 3 by 3. 

This painting is part of my “Monet” series.  I like these blues, and greens with the brown and white.

Its very soothing.

Of course…

I think I’ll paint another with the colors using ( yesterday’s painting) the palette of ancient ritual 126.   

 

I’ve been thinking about buying an Internet card for my laptop, u know so you can go anywhere not just where they have wifi.   Are they worth the money?  my cell phone is with A T&T so should I buy theirs so I can get a  possible discount for bundling my service plans or should I get a different brand because they work better.  Any ideas on this folks? 

Ancient Ritual 126

This is also part of any ancient ritual series. It explores the ways in which we mark the passing of time and events in our lives with ritual.

I love these colors. and may do a pond scene with them.    I was pretty sleepy last night and I went to bed and didn't post this painting.  It rained here in Lake Wylie and this morning every thing is wet and beautiful.  South Carolina is really green this time of year and if you ever get the chance you should come here in spring. Its nothing short of vibrant! 

Ancient Ritual series

7.5 by 8 mixed media on gessoed masonite.

This is part of my ancient ritual series. It's a series in which I explore the way we mark the passing of time and events in our lives with ritual.   After Art's mom passes away last week I painted this piece

Perserverance 08

11 by 14 Acrylic impasto on Canvas panel 150.00

This painting is done impasto which refers to the thickness of the paint. Its very thick and can give the look of oil without using oil paints. I combined a golden gel medium with the acrylic paint to increase the body of the paint. It tends to paint like whip creme, which is a little hard to control but is very smooth. Also, it gives the paint a slight gloss which is similar to oil paint.
Artist Tip:
When using these gels its best to use a pallet knife and mix the paint into the gel uniformly because if not mixed well the gel will look translucent white. Sort of like dried glue, not a look you really want.

A crazy weekend, hope yours is going well. Its windy here in SC and cool, unusual it seems for May.