Wilting Away

I did this painting after being inspired by a student in a painting class I was teaching recently. She was using an interesting combination of greens and violets and it seemed like a strange combination, but looked really interesting in an organic setting. I love making shapes appear to pop out or recede by using hard and soft edges to shade and glaze with watery layers of pigment.

Among the Leaves

This is the painting that was selected for the RSVP show at the Maitland Art Center this month. It's one of those that started with abstract washes and the forms suggested flowers and bugs so that's what it became.

Little Ellie

This is my recent favorite. I worked from a photo from years ago that I saw in Ellie's scrapbook while visiting. I photographed the photo and worked from that changing the background entirely as the original was all dark. Hope Ellie likes it!

Here is one in strong contrast to the carefully drawn and painted flowers. This was a "just for fun" starting with no plan and see where it goes - any ideas for a title?

Here are two new florals from recent efforts. Both were begun in a class I was giving at church (Willow Creek Church in Winter Springs, Florida). Both were started by drawing from actual flowers brought to class, unlike some previous ones begun with no planning and little or no drawing.

Here are three paintings from the Joe Fettingus workshop I attended last week. We worked from photographs in a step by step format.




I was reminded of some important compositional cues like the strategic placement of repeating dark, medium and light values.





We worked very "wet in wet" most of the time and I was reminded of the aproximately 3 minute window of opportunity that once shut, requires one to let things dry before continuing.

University Club Show

Wow, it's been a long time since I posted. Here are a couple of photos of the show at the University Club in Winter Park. I had 28 paintings in the show - all watercolors. It ran through the month of September.