"Stoplight Tomatoes"

 

 

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6" x 6" oil on gessoed panel

 

I've never been stopped in my tracks by mere tomatoes before. They had a bin full of these things at the market store on Sunday - all sizes, shapes, and colors, all for one pound price, labelled "heirloom tomatoes". The first one I picked up looked like a small pumpkin. I picked out traffic light colors, hence the title.

"Punk Orange" - SOLD

 

 

SOLD!

 

6" x 8" oil on archival canvas panel

 

This is a rare "Sunday Night Painting". I visited a local Upscale Market Store on Sunday for some Christmas wine and other goodies, and was delighted to find a surprisingly large variety of new and strange fruits in the bins, including "Satsuma Mandarins" with leaves still attached. The roommate picked this one out as her favorite. My conservative eye had located an orange with a couple of cute little leaves, but she dug a little deeper and pulled out this one with a full punk rock hairdo.

 

I brought home three or four different things to paint and was excited enough that I went ahead and started painting at 8 P.M. on a Sunday (Normally at that time I crash out and play video games or watch a downloaded copy of the week's episode of Top Gear). The late start wasn't a problem, as I had to paint fast anyway - the 75W bulb in my painting lamp is unkind to fresh greenery.

"Marzipan's End"

 

 

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5" x 7" oil on archival canvas panel

 

I have the great fortune of living only a short drive from German Deli. Of course I can - and have - ordered from them over the internet, but it's fun to drive up there on a Sunday afternoon and browse around. Usually they have beer and brats cooking outside in the parking lot available for a couple of bucks. German food makes for a good gift, as well, and for this painting I used the end of a marzipan piece included in a gift package from my mother. Marzipan ranks up there in my personal top ten eating pleasures. I really can't say enough good things about it.

 

This past week I've been putting the paintings up on consecutively shorter auctions, as it's getting down to Christmas crunch time for shipping. This one is up for three days, but I will relist for the regular period after this coming week. In the meantime, any purchases will be packed and shipped out as fast as I can go.

Sale Page is up!

I've just finished coding my direct sale page! You can purchase some of my show paintings directly via e-mail.

Click Here for the Sale Page!

Next painting will be up tomorrow night, and then at least another one on Tuesday of next week. Depending on how things shape up, I may take the rest of the holiday time to work on other personal efforts. I have recently acquired a new Alla Prima Pochade Box made by the amazing Ben Haggett, and inspired by Qiang-Huang's latest small landscapes (and some possibly warmer weather in the forecast), I'm itching to go paint outside.

"Waning Cookie"

 

 

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6" x 6" oil on gessoed panel

 

Title, composition, and lighting setup inspired by the recent Venus-Mars-Moon conjunction. The cookie was good.

 

On a personal note, I sacrificed today's painting time in order to drive over to Ft. Worth Joint Reserve Base (formerly Carswell AFB) and take photos like these:

I had time to make a few sketches of the crowd at the overlook before I spotted some friends at the fence, and not long afterwards things started to happen down on the flightline, so I traded my sketchbook for a camera and binoculars. On the aesthetic front, Endeavour is a beautiful ship in the flesh. I've always seen the Shuttle as boxy and only vaguely airplane-esque - an extraordinary collection of compromises which, while an amazing accomplishment, is certainly nowhere near as attractive as its 1960's and 70's aerospace contemporaries, like the brutally beautiful Phantom, broad-shouldered Tomcat, or elegantly thuggish F-105. I was pleasantly surprised to see that in person, from the side, the Shuttle does show just a dash of the aggressive, hungry 1960s look.

I don't have much else to report without using superlatives like "spectacular" and "once in a lifetime". That is not an exaggeration, since this was my first, and - due to the Shuttle's impending retirement - last opportunity to see the Shuttle ferried through this neck of the woods. Some things are worth skipping work for.

"Sugar Cookie Stack"

 

 

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6" x 6" oil on gessoed panel

 

I've always liked the appearance of these kinds of cookies. The lady of the house brought some home from her office Christmas party, and suggested I paint them. This is the second time I've had a subject like this, and I've found that cookies with sugar on them are a surprising challenge to paint.

 

Thanks to everybody who stopped by the table to chat at the show on Saturday! Unfortunately there were no reindeer to sketch - for that matter, I didn't have a chance to crack the sketchbook, with all the crowds. I've had some technical issues here today, my computer picked up a virus last night somewhere and I ended up spending all day tracking it down and killing it, but tomorrow I plan on introducing a direct sale page for the paintings I had at the show, among others. Stand by.

Mansfield, TX, 12/06

I'll be at the Mansfield, TX civic center tomorrow. It's a quick little one-day craft-type show, and supposedly last year they had a live reindeer on the grounds for the kids to interface with. I'll definitely have my sketchbook along for that! (I would anyway, but I'll double-check that I have my stuff with me before I leave the house)

This week kicked my rear with non-art-related futzery, and most of what I did produce was unpostably weak, and made me deeply unhappy. Such is my excuse for the lack of posts. I'll fill in the blank with a couple of bits of sketchbook fodder - a random imaginary watercolor landscape, and a small pen-and-ink thumbnail of my silly cat out on the porch in cold weather. Everybody likes cat pictures! Right? RIGHT?

"Berries And Orange"

 

 

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5" x 7" oil on gessoed panel

 

I'm usually a bit stumped when it comes time to title these more "traditional" type miniature still-life paintings. I don't want to be pretentious, but I don't want to be flat and explicitly technical, either. On the other hand, sometimes flat and technical is all I can think of. I wanted to to paint some of the berries from the tree outside again, I had a creamer to put them in, and I needed something large and eye-catching for contrast. Staying seasonal, I picked an orange from the store. I used one of my new background cloths. So... It's "Berries And Orange" because it's the shortest way of telling the truth about the painting.

 

This is not to say that I had no enthusiasm about the subject beyond the immediately technical, but I'd rather not beat the viewer over the head with highbrow noise (especially since eBay listings need short titles). Unless you're into that sort of thing? "Existential Pairing #5: Fruits of The Season" could work, too, if you like. Whatever levitates your seagoing craft, wink smiley!