October 2009 Workshop- Painting Flowers

The workshop was held at Pedro Point Creative, in Pacifica, California. Pacifica is about 15 minutes south of San Francisco. Pedro Point Creative's web address is: www.ppcreative.com.

I chose white plumeria flowers with yellow centers as the subject matter. We focused on painting the shadows in the flowers first, creating depth. We used five different colors in the shadows to create interest. Next came the yellow centers of the flowers, followed by indigo in the background. After glazing over the indigo, the lush green foliage emerged. Here are some of the paintings of the participants:

This weekend's workshop was a huge success. We had a great time painting and the results were fantastic. Here are a few photos from the end of the last day.

I still have a few spaces available in my December 4-6, 2009 workshop. The subject will be "Painting Waterlilies and Lilyponds". If you are interested, please email or call me. Contact information is on my website.

Grapes Done!

I ended up removing the little green plastic tape that was fluttering on the left side of the painting, and painted in one of my white highlighted leaves in the upper center of the painting, and it was much improved. Thank goodness for the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser! My lighting is bad in this photo; there are areas in the grapes in the original paintings that are more dark like the grapes in the right hand side. I'll be hanging this painting at Viewpoints Gallery in Los Altos on November 2, and will be having a reception on November 13, from 6-8pm.

Grapes

Just added another coat to the dirt at the bottom of the painting and lots of little details in between grapes on the left.

Grapes

Grapes seem like such a nice subject to paint until you realize you have to paint every single grape. Argh!

I'm using cobalt blue, indigo & perylene violet.

I do like all the interesting shapes in the leaves. When I paint them, I just try to paint the shapes I see in my reference photo and don't try to think of the shapes as leaves. It all seems to work out in the end.

Tropics on hold-- Going Grape!

Hi, I've had to put my tropical paintings on hold temporarily. I'm having a show with another artist at Viewpoints Gallery in Los Altos, CA beginning November 2. The theme is "Fall Into Color", so I'm painting fall related subjects. Here's one of my new paintings:

I've begun a new painting of grapes on the vine from a photo I took at a winery in Kenwood, CA. It's very large, 38 x 25". I'm using a 40x30" sheet of 300lb Fabriano cold press. It's nice not to have to stretch the paper. The pressure is on. I've got to complete a lot of new paintings in time for the November 2 show because I don't have a bunch of fall themed work laying around. The reception for the show is November 13, from 6-8pm, 315 State Street, Los Altos, CA. Please come!

Kings Mountain Art Fair

I've been getting ready for the Kings Mountain Art Fair which is held all three days of Labor Day weekend, so I haven't been painting. I've been updating my website, framing & putting together small prints & greeting cards to sell at the festival. I'm lucky that I live so close to Kings Mountain, which is in Woodside, CA-- artists come from all over the country to be in this art fair. It's just beautiful, up in the redwood trees in the coastal mountain range here in the SF Bay Area. If you're doing a "stay-cation" this weekend, please visit the art fair!

Here's a new painting from last month:

Working on Demo Piece

I've been working on a demonstration for my Watercolor Artist Magazine article for the past couple days. The painting is going well, but I hope the photos come out okay. I had to use the grown-up settings on my camera. I have a nice Canon camera, but I usually just use the "mountains" or "flowers" or "man running" settings, and let the camera figure out the f-stops and aperture. I get surprisingly good photos this way. Here's another new lily painting from the past couple weeks. (This isn't the demo piece). I've been getting pretty productive with my festival season looming ahead. Next weekend I have an art festival in Palo Alto, Labor Day weekend (Sept 5,6,7) I have the Kings Mountain Art Fair in Woodside, CA; and the weekend of Sept. 12-13, I will be at the Capitola Art & Wine Festival. If I'm lucky maybe I'll lose 5 or 10 lbs. from the stress!