Lake Reflections and the End of Summer

Lake Reflections

16" x 16"  -  acrylic on canvas  - SOLD

I actually finished this painting at the end of August, but never got around to posting it - so here it is - a reminder of summer, being near water, rocks and trees, of warm air and summer sounds. It's already feeling like long ago! 

Tulip Close-Up

Tulip Close-Up

24" x 24"  -  acrylic on canvas

I love painting objects on a larger scale than they appear in life and single flowers or bunches lend themselves to that approach as many many artists have discovered.  I used to paint a lot of single tulips, and particularly liked them at the stage where the flower head has opened up and just before they begin to swoon. Of course the other view is looking inside, close-up. 

Still Life With Flowers: Harmony in Yellows and Reds

Still Life With Flowers: Harmony in Yellows and Reds

36" x 36"  -  acrylic on canvas

I haven't painted flowers in a long long time, yet I continue to take photos of them and every once in a while I draw them, and then think about painting them.....but don't.  In the past I tended to paint them in a 'contemporary realist' manner, but my current tendency towards simplification and abstraction in landscape, prevailed in this painting as well. 

I cropped the photo to a square format but did not change the arrangement of the flowers in the composition as I thought it was a good one. I drew the flowers  on the canvas with a brush and black acrylic paint and a brush, then began to 'fill in' in the colour, slowly eradicating the outlines and adding expressive marks with pastel. I maintained the actual colour of the flowers, but simplified the background elements and palette there.  I really like the finished work, it's larger than life scale, overall composition, surprise shapes of colour and marks in the background. It presently hangs in my kitchen dining area, on a wall that receives late afternoon sun, and when it falls on the painting, the warm ochre, yellows, reds and pinks, glow. 

Catching Up

It has been awhile indeed. Life has been busy with travel, socializing, visiting and just stuff.  I finally got back to the studio and painting about 2 weeks ago after a 4 week hiatus - and started some new paintings, and tinkered with some old ones too.

Island Retreat  

(formerly called 'Blue Pines')

24" x 24"  -  acrylic on canvas - SOLD

I first posted this painting last September and called it Blue Pines . At the time I felt it was finished but more recently I began to feel that the palette was not quite right, particularly in the foreground rocks. I experimented with the image and colour in photoshop and decided on the changes that you see here - pushing the blues and yellows towards green, adding complementary reds, and giving the rocks more definition - and I was quite happy with how it turned out.