Gone Sailing?

The blog has been quiet because I have been off installing floors. I have been so busy at it I don't even have any paintings to share. Well, maybe it wasn't all work...

Jefferson Memorial at Night

14" x 11" Oil on linen.
Sold.

This is a nighttime scene painted from a Different Strokes challenge photo from Karin Jurick. I really enjoyed the various colored grays that I saw in the reference. I also liked the photo's composition so I didn't crop it much except to move the building edge over to about one third from the right. Click the image above to see a larger version.

Dot at the Great Wall

11" x 14" Oil on linen.
not for sale

This was a fun portrait of my wife standing in front of the Great Wall of China. It was a nice photo that I worked from. I was after a loose feel with the color pushed a little. The above is the final version after some touchup around the eyes. (Of course there is still something wrong with the mouth...)

Snow and Rain

I have been working on our washed out road. After the piles of snow and snow blowing, we are now having a couple of days of heavy rain (not typical Seattle drizzle). There is record flooding in the area and we are currently cut off from Seattle.

I did snap this interesting pic of the roof snowpile sliced by the rain drips. It has never been this dramatic before and is even more interesting in person. The pile and trench are more than 4 feet deep. Click the picture for a closer view.



Time to go do some manual labor.

Different Folks Portrait

8" x 10" Oil on mounted linen.

Well, the 12 days of Christmas are over, so time to post my assignment for Different Strokes. I would not call myself a portrait artist, so this really was a challenge. Did I get the likeness? Are the colors okay? Did I make her look too fat or too thin? What's "wrong with the mouth"?

Another great quote from Sargent sums up my feelings, "Every time I paint a portrait I lose a friend." It's probably just some healthy self-doubt.

I did take a peek at what Sheila did with my photo. She got the likeness. (I think I have had enough of that snow now.) Of course, she has some more experience with faces. Check out her blog post with my portrait.

So, this is my part of the "group self portrait".