The Gift of Art- Holiday Painting Swap

For the past 3 years it has been a pleasure to host the holiday painting swap for my Painting Challenge Group, The Mavens.  Each artist paints a 6x6 painting and we pick names from a hat to see which artist's painting we will be taking home. Here are the artists and their gifts.

Shelley O'Brien holding a Lauren Falls

Deb Corbett holding a Marylou Waterman

Lisa Tiemann holding a Jeana McNeil

Lauren Falls holding a Deb Corbett

Marylou Waterman holding an Ellen Rolli

Jeana McNeil holding a Shelley O'Brien

Rosalie Sadowski holding a Nancy Roll

Nancy Roll holding a Sue Dragoo Lembo

Sam holding a Lisa Tiemann

Ellen Rolli holding a Rosalie Sadowski

Negative space painting

I am still at a bit of an impasse with my usual work so I'm continuing to re-work older paintings. I started this painting as an experiment with acrylics and have finally taken it to the end. My goal was to find familiar shapes within the abstract background and carve them out by painting the negative space white. Can't wait to try this again. 

Never become too attached to a painting

Lately I have been reworking paintings that just never quite felt right to me.  It's a great feeling to be able to paint over something and give it a new life....and you learn so much along the way. Once again, I have reworked this painting from an older post. The finish is reworked in palette knife.

Thought a white background would make everything stand out...and it did.

Decided to add the watermelon because I loved the color and it pointed to the flowers.

Background felt cold so changed the color of both background and table. I still felt that everything was too tight, too perfect so......

I worked with a palette knife to start taking away. I wanted to say more without the tight detail. It was an experiment and the jury is still out but I can't wait to rework more paintings.  Also, keep in mind the glare on the wet paint does not do the painting justice.

Semi Abstract

Sue Dragoo Lembo

Marylou Waterman

Nancy Roll

Rosalie Sadowski

Deb Corbett

Lauren Falls 1

Lauren Falls 2

Lauren Falls 3

Lisa Tiemann

Nancy Brincheiro

Sam Gilford

Ellen Rolli 1

Ellen Rolli 2

Jeana McNeil

Summer Creations from Media Mavens

Rosalie Sadowski

Shelley O'Brien

Nancy Roll

Nancy Roll

Deb Corbett

Lorrie Dicesare

Jeana O'Neil 

Sam Gilford

Lisa Tiemann

Lisa Tiemann

Marylou Waterman

Going Back to your roots

Every now and then I like to go back to a formal academic style of painting. Below is my granddaughter, my latest muse.

Work in Progress

I'm often asked about my process. Below is a painting in Progress. One more session and I'll be finished.

This is where I start. I actually watched a utube video on how to arrange fresh flowers. 

I paint in oil but I start by toning my canvas with acrylic paint.

Once the drawing is down, I begin from the middle and paint outward.

When working with a neutral background in my set up I'm never sure what the end color will be.

I was eating Watermelon on my break and thought the color and shape would be perfect in the design.
I'm alway playing with the design and moving things around.