Tiny Pre-Raphaelite Sophie l

Oil on Board, 4" x 4" $50.00 SOLD

This tiny painting of my daughter was done from a

photo I took of her quite a few years ago. I manipulated

the photo in Photoshop - something I love to do - using

the lighting options, so that I vignetted her into this

circle. I just thought it had an unusual, "times past"

look. With her flowing hair, pensive expression, and

colorful kimono, she struck me as very similar to some

of the models used by the Pre-Raphaelite painters, who

seemed to favor extremely pale, long haired, pensive

women. My daughter is actually bright and and happy -

she's just a good model. I've done many paintings and

prints of her. She wanted to be an actress for a while,

and can be quite dramatic, which makes her a great

person to draw and paint!

This is just a quickly-done

painting, but there are things about it that I like.

A Lazy Pear and a Turquoise Background

Oil on gessoed rag board, 6 1/2" x 5 3/4" $100.00
SOLD
I had fun painting these pears. I actually started them
yesterday, so I was able to use some glazes, which deeped
and enriched the colors in the way that I like. There aren't
many shadows, because that is just the way it was set up.

I use bosc pears to teach in my painting class. We do
a really fun exercise, because the class is one in indirect
painting (like they did in the Renaissance and in the early
days of oil painting). The students first paint a grisaille,
which is a black and white underpainting, and comes from
the French word for "gray".

After that dries, they cover that with a very, very thin
layer of a glaze made up of Liquin and Gamblin's Transparent
Red Earth. Voila. Pears! Well, not exactly. They blot the
glaze off here and there, because they have to keep painting,
using a limited palette, and painting into the pears and
background with opaque paint, using little or no medium.
It's amazing the results they come up with, though. Pretty
sophisticated - and some of these people have really never
painted before.

Indirect painting - that's what Jeff Hayes does, if you're
familiar with his blog and all his excellent sequential photos
of his paintings - is really the easiest way to paint. You
basically separate the drawing from the painting part.

Well, it's not quite that simple, but if you're a beginner,
it's worth a try. I'll be teaching it next year at The Art League
School in Alexandria, Virginia, if you happen to live near there.