The latest Dancer

I love the pose in this painting. I painted from one of the photos that we took of Naomi after the life painting.
"She could Dance" 16 x 20" oil

Naomi and Friends

Here is our lovely model, Naomi, at the end of our painting session, with Blue and Gracie. She and the dogs made an immediate bond.

The day flew by and I didn't manage to finish my painting. We all took some photos though so I should be able to resolve it later.

It was fun to see everyone's different approach. I will post Alan's painting in the next day or so.

These two paintings are small. The ballerina is 9 x 12" and the lamb is 8 x 10". Both are oils.

I did the ballerina pretty easily, except for the face, which took many tries to get it looking ok. I painted the background in the ballerina in a few minutes. I never questioned it- just popped it in. Nice when it goes that way.

I panted the lamb in acrylics first and over painted in oils. I was considering leaving it as an acrylic but I wanted a really rich looking background. Then of course I couldn't get the background looking the way I wanted it at all. After fighting with it all afternoon yesterday, I left it alone.

Today I went in the studio, wiped out all the paint on the background, and started from scratch. Now it looks more like what I had in mind originally. Good grief!

We're hiring a new model and painting with some artist friends in my studio on Sunday. I'm looking forward to it, with a little trepidation. Working from life is still nerve wracking for me. However, this is my year to challenge myself so we'll see what happens.

We will have my husband, Alan and our friend, Kiff Holland there- both excellent figurative painters, so they can show us how it's done.

New River in oil

This is a big painting- 24 x 48". It's an oil and I have to say it was a bit of a struggle. My comfortable acrylic techniques for rocks don't work in oils. Some of the rocks were painted over and over. Still so much to learn............sigh.

Today my friend, Jeannie, arrives for a couple of days of painting and visiting. It will be great to have company in the studio.It can be a lonely place at times. On the weekend, Alan and I, and a couple of artist friends are going to paint from a model. Really looking forward to that.

The sun just came out, the bulbs are poking up and life feels pretty good at this moment