Taxi!

oil on panel, 11x14"

Something totally different from my usual! The image for this comes from Karin Jurick's Different Strokes site. Every couple of weeks she posts one of her photos and invites all artists to work from it. Its great fun to see all the different interpretations and media used. When I participate, I try to challenge myself to work outside of my usual comfort zone. In this case there was no pre-drawing, just direct painting. I shifted the season to winter, and tried to convey the essence of crowded city traffic.

I'm leaving on vacation (Scandinavia!) so I won't be posting for a couple of weeks, but hope to come home with lots of sketches and new ideas -

Winning by a Hare

oil on panel, 16x16

This is the third (and last, for now) Carousel painting. Along with 7 other paintings, they will be going into a show next month benefiting the New Mexico Cancer Center Foundation, which provides services to patients and their families. Its been fun getting everything ready for it. Winning by a Hare is my personal favorite of the three...

Untamed

oil on panel, 16x16
This is the second of 3 carousel paintings, and just as much fun to paint as the first one. When you look at carousel horses alot you start to realize that many of the horses have wild-eyed expressions, especially the older carousels. Not what you would expect on a child's ride. These two horses seemed to me to be captive, but still free spirited, quite willing to take off at the first opportunity; hence the title.

Chris Beck and Faye Christian Phillips both tagged me with this Passion for Painting award a couple of weeks ago and I've been passing it along one person at a time. Katherine Treffinger is my choice for this post. Her work is alive and exuberant, definitely will brighten your day. She has been asking artists "What does doing art mean to you" and posting their answers and images of their works, so not only will you see her work but you'll also have the chance to find other new and wonderful artists! Today is "my" day to answer that question, so drop in and see it all!

Solo Pear

Oil on Canvas Board, 8x10

This painting, small and simple as it is, was one that went through several phases of seriously ugly. It wasn't until I thought it was so hopeless that nothing I could do would make it worse that it finally came together. The final touch was to take a discarded toothbrush and splatter reds and browns across all of it. I like the interesting fiber-like bits of paint that resulted.


A couple of weeks ago Chris Beck and Faye Christian Phillips both very sweetly tagged me with awards. I've been terribly slow about passing those awards along. I think I will nominate someone new with each post rather than put them all together, and for this post I want to introduce someone fairly new to blogging (although not to painting!), giving Susan Finch the Passion for Painting award. Her work is incredible, my favorites are her Kimono clad women and her Koi paintings. Be sure to check her out!

As always, here are the "rules" for the award; no pressure to participate unless you want to.
1. Post the logo on your blog
2. Nominate at least 7 blogs that show great gratitude and/or attitude
3. List and link your nominator in your post
4. List and link your nominees in your post, and let them know they're recipients