Wallflowers At The Art Guild Of Port Washington

Just a quick note to let local readers know about a great show happening today at The Art Guild.  The reception for our big floral show, Wallflowers, is happening today from 3-5 pm.  I have two paintings in the show, and I'm thrilled to say that my Sunflowers won third prize!

Cherry Blossoms, 20x16, oil

Sunflowers, 20x16, oil

The Art Guild is located at 200 Port Washington Blvd, Manhasset ( LI ), New York.  Come join us if you are in the area.  New York City readers, the building is a ten minute cab ride from the Port Washington station.  Hope to see you there!

Painting Sunflowers

I'm happy to say that after having a few months of nothing working, I now have two completed paintings.  First up, I will show you my sunflowers.  Years ago there was a grower at the Long Island City farmers market that sold the most amazing variety of sunflowers.  I used to buy bouquets and paint them, but unfortunately, that was back when I did not have a clue what I was doing, so those paintings never worked out.  After that one summer, I never saw sunflowers like that again until a few weeks ago when I spotted them at the Union Square Greenmarket.

I grabbed a bouquet and got to work.

My placement on the canvas and the color block in went very well, so I deluded myself into thinking the painting was going to be easy.  Of course, that was not the case.  I've long said that the reason Van Gogh occasionally went off the deep end was not unrequited love, syphilis, epilepsy or the latest theory, neighborhood kids.  It was the sunflowers!  They are one of the most popular flowers in the world, but painting them is extremely difficult.  They have a ton of little petals and buds and the color looks the same on many of them, so you have to fake the shadows.  But I must confess, the biggest issue I was having was that I kept comparing my sunflowers to the most amazing sunflower paintings of all time, Van Gogh's.  That is not something that I usually do, but like many people, his sunflowers are in my brain.  I pulled out my books and started looking at his paintings to get some inspiration, but also to remind myself that my paintings are not suppose to be copies of a Van Gogh.

A little tip:  these art books are heavy.  In order to avoid lugging them to my studio, I snapped pics on my phone so I could easily refer to them without having to bring heavy books all over town.

I kept building up the layers, but if you look at the set up in this photo, you will see that the flowers were croaking out and I was nowhere near finished.

After six days, the flowers were starting to lean over, so it was time for drastic measures.  I took some old brushes and used them to prop up the flower heads.  Between the brushes and the blue tape, I kept them standing up for another day or two.  In the end, I used three different bouquets of flowers, but I'm glad I was able to use the original long enough to get the painting on it's way.

I was happy when i reached this point.  The background was finally working and the pitcher was looking like porcelain.  I was not completely happy with the flowers, but I decided to just keep going with the rest of it and deal with them later.

I began to paint the blue pattern onto the pitcher.  I did this in one afternoon and it was the easiest part of the painting.

However, I still was not happy with the flowers.  They looked bland to me, especially once the blue was on the pitcher.  After going bonkers for days painting and repainting them, I happened to be talking to Gregg and showed him a picture on my phone.  Of course, he spotted the problem right away.  The shadows!  They just were not strong enough.  He suggested using some transparent red oxide for the shadows in order to pump everything up.

That worked like a charm and I was able to finish the painting.

Here it is fresh off the easel.  I'm very excited to have a finished painting after a dry spell of things just not working out.  And I'm especially glad to have another sunflower painting to add to my collection.

Happily, I also finished a still life painting last week.  I'll have that on here as soon as I get a signature on it.

A New Gallery

Hi Everyone.  I hope all of you are enjoying this incredible weather we are having.  After the last few freezing winters, I'm thrilled to be sitting here with my windows open.

I have some exciting news to tell you.  I have paintings hanging in a gallery!  This is my first time hanging in a gallery and I am beyond excited.  Sharon Pearsall, owner of the Chelsea Gallery in Huntington (LI) New York, invited me to hang some paintings in the gallery for a few weeks.

The Chelsea Gallery is a gallery, studio and workshop space right off main street in Huntington.  There is a lovely show hanging there now, lots of florals and still lives.

These are the paintings that I have in the space.

Sunflowers And Apples, 14x18, oil

Blue And White Vase With Fruit, 16x12, oil

Abingdon Square Market, 11x14, oil

The Purple Flowers, 12x16, oil

If you are in the Huntington, Long Island area, please stop in and check out the gallery.  There are some wonderful paintings hanging in there and you may just find a holiday gift for yourself or someone else.

Thanks to Sharon for this wonderful opportunity!

Chelsea: A Place For Artists Gallery
8 West Carver Street
Huntington, NY  11743
516-297-6527

Still Life Show Tonight At The Art Guild Of Port Washington

Hi everyone.  Just  a quick note to let you know that I have three paintings in the still life show at The  Art Guild Of Port Washington.

Sunflowers In A Glass Vase, 18x14, oil

White Pitcher With Fruit, 12x16, oil

Blue And White Bowl With Fruit, 16x20, oil

The address is 200 Port Washington Blvd, Manhasset, NY  11030.  The opening reception and awards presentation is tonight from 6-8pm.  The show is being juried by the incredibly talented Leah Lopez and she will be there for the reception as well.   I saw the show Wednesday and it's really great.   If you are in the NYC/LI area, please drop by.  We would love to see you!

New Paintings

Just a quick note to let everybody know that I photographed all my recent paintings and added the photos to the drop down menus above.  I'll post them here as well.  Hope you like them!

Peonies In A Blue And White Vase, 11x14, oil

Blue And White Vase With Fruit, 12x16, oil

Peaches and Grapes, 12x16, oil

Sunflowers And Apples, 14x18, oil

Brass Teapot With Fruit

Pussy Willows In A Ginger Jar, 18x24, oil

Brass Teapot With Lemons, 12x16, oil

White Pitcher With Fruit, 12x16, oil

The Longest Sunflower Painting In History

I'm not sure if this painting actually was the longest sunflower painting in history, but it sure felt like it.  I was just looking through my photos to gather some for this post, and I was shocked to see that I began the painting in August of 2013!

This is how I started off.  At the time, I thought the set up was ok, but looking back I can see that it had a few issues.

I added another flower to the side and got to work.  As usual with my paintings, the flowers went in right away, while the rest of it took forever.

This is what I ended up with.  Not good at all, so I put it aside and forgot about it.

Awhile later, I picked it up again and redid the red velvet cloth and repainted the background to have a stronger contrast between the darks and lights.  It was definitely better than before, but still not great.

During the next round of "edits" I decided that the shape of the vase was incorrect.  I started out by redoing the shape and using the T-square to make sure it was right.  I then repainted it making the darks darker and the lights lighter.

This is where I ended up.  I signed it and everything, but I still knew it was not quite right.  The painting went back in the pile leaning against my studio wall.

Luckily, I happened to be working on a painting in Gregg's studio and I was using a blue velvet fabric in that set up.  As I was setting it up, he told me to make sure the fabric was placed in a way that flowed across the canvas.  Lightbulb!! I instantly knew what was wrong with the sunflowers.  The red fabric was just hanging out on the left side all by itself.  This was causing the painting to be divided up into thirds.  Not what you want in a still life.  You want the eye of the viewer to look from left to right.

I got the painting out again and made some serious changes.

I started by bringing the red velvet fabric across the canvas so it was integrated in to the painting.

I also decided to lose the giant sunflower on the right side of the shelf.  It was contributing to the unbalanced look of the canvas.  I added these nectarines and a few sunflower petals (debris, as David Leffel refers to these little additions to the still life shelf).

The only issue left was to add a little life to the red velvet.  When you are painting a velvet fabric, you don't want to add too much detail or you lose the "velvetiness" (a technical term) of it, but it cannot be a monochromatic lump either.  A few gentle highlights are all you need.  Easy to say, not so easy to do.

Finally, here is the finished painting.

Unfortunately, these are iPhone shots.  My paintings are taking their sweet time drying with the humidity here, but I hope to have a real photo soon.

I know this post was a bit photo heavy, but I wanted to show you that not every painting happens easily.  There are often mistakes and corrections that have to be made along the way, but it is always worth it to create the best painting that you can.

Sunflowers And Sag Harbor

Hello Everyone.  I'm back.  I did not mean to take a summer blogging break, but things have been a little crazy.  I'm in the middle of four paintings.  I had not meant to start so many, but a big batch of sunflowers and a lovely model changed things up.

Here in New York the temps have been in the 90's this week, but last week the weather was perfect so I took a ride out to the East End of Long Island.   We stopped in Sag Harbor first, just to take a look around.  It is lovely there.  Just walking around town there were beautiful flowers in bloom, boats, nice restaurants and lovely, old homes.

I love this old sign hanging in front of the Sag Harbor Pharmacy.

Near the dock and boats, we found a bunch of beautiful swans and ducks.  They did not seem to care that a bunch of people were there taking photos.  They just went on with sleeping, fishing, and swimming around.

On the way back to the city, I came upon a great farm stand and they were selling enormous bunches of sunflowers for $10.00!  You know I got one for myself and started painting it the very next day.

I have to admit, this painting was not going well at all.  The sunflower right out front was making me crazy.  I just could not get it right.  I started thinking that no wonder Van Gogh had issues.  It was not epilepsy.  It was not syphilis.  It was the sunflowers that caused him to have a stay in the sanitarium!  I knew at that point the painting had to change, so I moved the vase around until the set up seemed like it would work better and once I did that the painting began to flow.

This is where I left off last weekend.  I was determined to get the flowers done before they faded, but the rest of the painting is on hold for a bit as I had the opportunity to paint one of my favorite models last week and will be doing so again this week.  I will be going back to this painting and the others that are in progress soon.  I am determined to get them all finished in the next few weeks.

While on the East End I did something very exciting, but that event is getting it's own post.  I hope everyone is having a great weekend!