Andy Schleck #2

18" x 24" Oil on panel

Another Andy Schleck painting. This time I kept details at bay and worked on top of an abstract blue and yellow background. Unfortunately, the photo of the painting has some glare in it.

Nice Doggy

11" x 14" Oil on linen.
In a private collection
Lynnwood, Wa

Victor is a very docile dog. He doesn't really get bothered by a good pat (Bonk!) on the head. Here Carmen is giving him a pat goodbye. Compare this to Bye Bye Victor where Carmen is reacting to a slight scolding for being a little rough. I enjoyed visiting this set of reference photos again. I wanted to capture the moment and motion of that vigorous pat. The amount of details involved quite a bit of time.

Compositionally, there are a lot of interesting points to draw your eye. The sharpest contrasts and the natural focal point of a face are toward the top, but the pyramid of the figures anchors the painting. Her swinging hand is near the center of the picture, but not quite; the motion helps your eye to Victor's head. I liked playing up the relative motion of her arms and the tip-toe on her left foot that she has from the good back-swing.

You can lean on me - Pears

14" x 11" Oil on panel.

$125 - Shipping to US included.

These pears were approaching ripeness, so they needed to get painted to memorialize their great blushing color. I arrived at a nice setup where one is leaning on the shoulder of the other. (Maybe not a new motif, but I like how my take on it turned out this time.)

Compositionally, the highlights on the fruit are the focal points with a nice warm shadow acting as a third character as you eye reads the painting left to right. The format in the larger version gives some space, but the tops of the pears cross into the upper half of the painting. I was careful not to place anything important right on a centerline. Unfortunately the darker paints have a bit of glare in these photos, so the painting looks even better in person.

The smaller version is a "little buddy" that I painted first as a warm up study to the larger painting. Here it is with the larger painting to compare the sizes.

Christmas Cactus Bloom

7" x 5" Oil on canvas.

Our Christmas cactus is bursting with flowers this year, so I could not ignore painting a study of its blooms. I really like the progression of the buds to the fully expanded flower. I'm not sure why it has so many more blooms, but with one on every branch this year it is going to be really laden.