db mid-century

Placing a mirror on my large easel has given me the opportunity to do a self portrait. This view of me with my favorite stack of lamp shades. The lamp had one shade as most do, but the bulb seemed to intense; rather than changing the wattage of the bulb I found placing an second shade on the lamp solved the problem. The top shade having no other place to live (if this can be called living) ended up on top on the other two. I liked it there! With a mid-century star clock like the sun rising (or setting) above it all.

8" x 5.5" oil on board

I cut off 2" of hair from the back of my head yesterday, it was time.

I just posted for the first time in many months at a:

db-artist.blogspot.com 

old enough to need glasses

A mannequin head adorned with costume jewelry, layers of hats and a outdated pair of spectacles is the subject of this painting. This collage of objects stands aside the mantle with a stem of Moneyplant. It seems easier to paint a portrait of a living person than the features of this stationary bust. Sometime in this head's past silver spray paint was used on it. No longer peaches and cream, it's completion more painterly than actual skin, making rendering it  a little more difficult.

10" x 8" oil on board

still lives

Most recently I have been painting more on 10" x 8" panels. I need to guesso more of the 8x8's, but that has not happened yet. These still lives are of things that surround me where i paint. Above the weighty tomato and the vintage postal scale are the only placed objects in this composition. Surrounded by subjects of previous paintings; the old scale and ripe fruit seem to expound a story yet to be told.

In this one, the objects are as they sit across the room from my easel collecting dust. Included in this arrangement there is a found painting on a block of wood I found over a decade ago when I moved into a studio in San Francisco. Objects tend to stack up around me including these vases and glass balls, one of them topped with a cocktail monkey. The branches with dried pods in the background were fresh three years ago when in my studio in Modesto.

bountyful

This view from my easel features a pair of figures engaged in the reward of the harvest. The quantity of things that pile up around me makes me wonder how ever they could come to harvest. I've had this pair for at least 25 years, this is the first time they ended up in a painting. With such an accumulation of things amassing around me, it is a challenge to show there relations to each other.

10" x 8" oil on board

plum trees

This was painted plein air along the route from Halfmoon Bay to Palto Alto. I drove for miles looking for a spot to paint. I forgot my hat and my painting umbrella was not in the car (actually it has not been there for a while, I meant to pack it like the hat). I drove the coast north from Santa Cruz, it was to cold and foggy then to hot and shadeless. I love driving that area and have not been there in years. I was being followed to closely by a monster pickup on a windy stretch of route 84 when I pulled over as soon as the shoulder was wide enough. There was shade just behind my car and a eye catching vista. The shade lasted only long enough for me to get started but I stuck it out.

8" x 8" oil on board

While painting this painting I was reminded of a painting I did in high school. It was a landscape that had trees growing up a hillside. My Father helped me out with the trees. I could envision the brushstrokes he made on my field of hooker green that represented the trees. 

It felt like I was not painting alone.

hot shoes

Recently visiting a creative friend; commiserating about how things just seem to pile up around us. We both tend to collect. As artists we see the potential in things or we admire the aesthetic of an object and seem to have the need to possess it. Others recognizing our needs and reaching out to aid us, often as a drop off point for there no longer desired objects. These shoes given to Cloe because they could not be worn comfortably. What's comfort has to do with it when these suede Guess stilettos are this luscious persimmon color. I had to borrow them to include in a painting or two. Shades of reddish orange are Hot.

Toe to Toe    8" x 8" oil on board

Heal to Toe   8" x 8"  oil on board

I love the shoe's color. They work so well on the painted table top. I especially like the way the art nouveau vase is rendered in this one. This vase has made it into many paintings already and this may be my favorite rending to date.

jingle bell

The white satin ribbon tied to a ball of a bell. Sitting on the edge of a painted table the reflection of the ribbon within the shadow caught my attention first. The cool tones of the table and ribbon make the warm reflections upon the silvery bell appear golden. This caught me by surprise, I knew it's chrome surface I typically see as being cool. I studied the painting realizing that I captured the actual color relationships and not a preconceived notion of what it should look like. Maybe, I pushed the warm tones to enhance the overall color harmony of the painting. Guess I like that way.

8" x 8" oil on board

Trumpet's bud

One of my favorite flowers Angels Trumpet has large trumpet shaped blooms that hang down from it's branches. A friend gave me a cutting of his angels trumpet with a small bud hanging under one of the leaves. The flower began to form but fell off before it developed. I hoped it would open more but found the star shape of the closed flower intriguing enough to paint. My cutting seems to be taking root, but it may be a while before I get to paint one of these again. The vase is sitting on a leaf shaped Royal Haeger plate.

8" x 10" oil on board

back yard

This was painted from my back porch on Mother's Day. The last time this corinthian capital showed up in a painting was a couple of years ago while my Mom was visiting. This was a way for me to honor her in my heart that day. I have bowling balls in my yard, close to a dozen of them most in shades of blue and purple, though there is a dark red and a gold in the lot. A white soccer ball joined the bowling balls showing up in my lawn back in January. This week I noticed that some of the balls were getting lost in the grass. Today's post is to celebrate the fact that I just finished mowing the lawn. All balls are again in view.

8" x 8" oil on board