The Source

oil on canvas, 24" x 24"

This is a somewhat abstracted painting of a rose in closeup.  I loved the light emanating from its core, giving the outers petals an intense, multicolored glow.  I may abstract it further at some point, but I'm giving it a timeout for now, unless and until I know my way forward with it.

Backlit Nude

acrylic on canvas panel, 14" x 11"

This painting was fun to do, using only Indian yellow, terracotta (a muted orange color produced by LUKAS), ivory black, plus white.  The mix of black and white to get gray in semi-shadowed areas like her upper right arm look bluish next to the warm colors of her skin in direct light.

Study in Yellow and Gray

oil on wood panel, 8" x 8"

Another favorite color pairing of mine is yellow and gray.  I drove by a building recently done in those two colors and all of a sudden I felt uplifted.   I had to rush home and play with those two colors.  For this study, I used cad yellow light and payne's gray, plus white.  Both the yellow and gray are on the cool side, and mixing the two renders beautiful shades of green.

Eye Candy

acrylic on canvas, 10" x 10"

A colorful little ditty, again using springtime as the theme.  When I think of spring, I mostly see pink and green, one of my favorite color pairings.

Anza Borrego in Spring

oil on canvas, 10" x 10"

Anza Borrego is a stretch of desert in Southern California that has a profusion of colorful wildflowers in the spring, and this year, with all the rain it got, is slated to be a superbloom year.  I wish I could go there and paint my immediate response to it all, but alas, I cannot get away.  So, I comforted myself by painting it from a photo I found online.  Not the same as being there, but still fun to do and another useful learning experience.

Red Bud

oil on canvas, 10" x 10"

I worked from a photo I had taken to create this painting of a scene I passed along Highway 162 last spring, a road full of breathtaking beauty at this time of year.  The magenta blossoms of the red bud bushes springing out of the bright green grass and set against the dark greens and blues of the many trees make for an eye-popping natural bouquet.  

Spring Scene, Eastside Petaluma

iPad painting, 10" x 14"

With this loose digital sketch, I tried to capture the pillowy lushness of spring growth in a field of weeds and mustard flowers on the Eastside of Petaluma. 

Red Rock by a Pink River under an Orange Sky

oil on canvas, 6" x 9"

This was just for fun, exploring warm-to-hot color combinations in a landscape. 

Pond Algae

oil on canvas, 10" x 10"

I've been wanting to introduce more warm colors into my paintings, so here's an imaginary landscape done with that in mind, again using leftover paint on the palette.  I seem to gravitate toward cool colors, particularly blues and greens, perhaps because I am surrounded by them in the local landscape, but those neglected warm colors need to have their say!

Lakeville Lineup

oil on canvasboard, 6" x 12"

Another palette knife painting, this piece was started en plein air the other day under a brilliant blue sky.  I got only about two-thirds done before I had to pack my gear and leave the scene.  It was finished later in the studio with the help of a reference photo I had taken, using a limited palette of cad yellow light, cad yellow medium, napthol red, and ultramarine blue, plus white.

Pond Study at the Cheese Factory

iPad painting, 10" x 14"

This digital sketch was done the other day on a stopover with my dog at the Cheese Factory in rural Marin County, a favorite spot for us both.

Cheery Cherry

oil on canvas, 24" x 12"

I find the color pink to be a difficult color to mix to my satisfaction.  Alizarin crimson was just not cutting it for this cherry tree, so I reached for a tube of crimson lake to get a livelier pink.  I was going for a color that would complement the cool trees in the background that were shrouded in mist.

Sunset at Secret Beach

oil on canvasboard, 8" x 8"

This is essentially a cloud study done from a photo of Secret Beach on Kauai, my favorite Hawaiian island.  Update:  I have uploaded a more accurate image of this painting, as the one I posted earlier today was too light.

A Russian Winter

oil on canvasboard, 8" x 6"

I was recently given some old Yarka oil paints, a Russian brand I've never used before.  This was an experiment to test their viscosity and see how the colors interact.  The splash of pink and yellow are courtesy of Gamblin, just to warm it up a bit.  

Spring Fever

oil on canvas panel, 8" x 8"

This started out as an abstract, but then I had to quit before I'd covered even a quarter of the surface.  When I returned to it the next day, I had cherry blossom trees on my mind and so, of course, they made their way into the painting.