New Still Life

Have continued my eclectic jaunts. Finished another grid painting and still life so posting the latter. Also creating some impressionist style work with the wax medium. I found that working small provides the depth and variety I like. Will post these new works soon.

The flower still life is from a bouquet I had at home. I took several photos to use after the flowers wilt. The still lifes give me the chance to really emphasize the paint and texture. This is one of the thickest paintings I have ever done. It's 8 x 10.

Local Seattle Scenes

Finally, a hot weekend. Was 80 yesterday and will hit that again today. Here is a painting that is a view from Golden Gardens beach, on the west side of Seattle, on Puget Sound. Water is a little too cold to swim there but sunbathing on a nice day is popular. It's an 9 x 12 inch oil.

Green Lake Path

This is another small, 9x12, painting I refreshed by going over it with the palette knife. The image was satisfactory but needed more texture. I have quite a volume of Seattle's Green Lake work and will have to set up a separate area on my Website for all these. Still have a large project in mind once the weather improves and can go out on the lake for new photos.

New Arizona work

I've competed several new paintings from my recent Arizona trip. I've kept more of the colorful red rock theme here. Hope you like them.

These are both 12 x 24.

Drawings

Here are some new drawings from my life sessions. Model was tall and slim.

Also have been working on some Southwest landscapes but taking a while so no finished results to post. Some works take longer in the oven to bake...

Also took a class on encaustic or hot wax painting. I'm looking for depth and translucent surfaces however in this class we melted the wax with a small iron and with soldering type irons so while the effects were interesting, it wasn't quite what I was looking for. Did create a couple of nice swirls style works postcard size but I was able to do these with markers before. Only advantage with the wax is the immediate drying and the depth of the wax so automatic texture is added. Also, the metallics were nice and give a jewelry like look. Will see if I do more of this but always good to learn a new technique for future reference.

California sunset

This is a small 8x10 oil painting of a truck stop during a trip to California. It's one of my favorite urban scenes.

Have started a series of new Southwest landscape paintings and will post the results soon. Still deciding on the style, that is, how far from realistic can I get and still get the scene right? There is a range of photo-realistic to realistic, to impressionist, to very stylized or almost abstract. Each landscape has its best place in that range and the challenge is ending up with the best for the particular scene. It's what makes painting fun but also frustrating at times.

New Grids

Here is a grid painting I have been working on for a while and I am getting to the finishing touches. It reminds me of reflections in skyscraper windows, hence the title. I have several more works, including a series of red, yellow, and blue grids that are also almost finished. Will see if I do any more as am getting back to landscapes for a while.