Standing Room

I painted this 5" x 7" painting of a stand of trees sitting down.

Bucket O'Flowers

It has been brought to my attention that my postings, as of late, have been non-existent. After sliding down the slipppery slope, I'm doing my best to scale back up the painting-a-day program. This little painting is 5" x 7" on panel and is availble for purchase.

Waiting to Dance

I've been waiting to paint the entire day and now at 10:15 p.m. I'm finally going to go down to my studio to attempt to paint. This painting measure 48" x 36". If I can knock out a little 5" x 7" piece before midnight, I'll post that instead. If come tomorrow you see this gal still "Waiting to Dance" you'll know that I missed my deadline. Wish me luck.

Prosperity

My wife (Marina) periodically cuts out periodicals. This one happened to be on 'Prosperity". I used the photo from the front of the article as a reference. Now Marina doesn't want me to sell the painting. Rather she would like it framed and hung on our wall in order to bring us prosperity. Therefor, this daily painting is not for sale, unless someone out there is willing to send a large enough sum of money that I can explain to Marina that selling the painting will indeed make us prosperous.

-SOLD-

Trees on the Horizon

I painted this one a couple of days back and can't come up with anything insightful. I could make something up, but same as yesterday, I'm feeling too lazy to even do that! This piece measures 5" x 7" and is on panel (birch I think. That spelling does not look right, but I'm feeling even too lazy to hit the spell check button. The more I look at, it the more confident I'm becoming that indeed I spelled birch correctly)!

Enough Said

I don't really feel like writing anything right now. So lucky you, I'm not going to!

-SOLD-

Landspatula

Not a horror movie, but a painting. Could be a horrible painting (that's for you to decide). The beauty of the daily painting is having the freedom to try stuff. This painting was executed (when used in the context of actual painting procedure, executed doesn't mean killed. Rest assured, no canvases were harmed in the making of this piece) entirely with a flexible kitchen spatula (which explains the lack of signature and in general it's over easy quality).

Grape Little Painting

Carrying on with the fruit theme, I painted a lonely red grape amidst a barren background. For all the arm chair therapists out there, I've actually been quite happy and feel very connected to my family and friends. I had a great childhood that continued on into adulthood. The painting is a reflection of exactly where I'm not. An artist friend of mine said that he found that he painted where ever he wasn't. I think it's easier to see the beauty of something when viewed from 180 degrees away.

What are the Green Things?

I ran out of the 8" x 10" canvas panels that I've been using for my painting-a-day pieces. I went to the art store and they were plum out of that size (no, the green things aren't plums). They said they were expecting a shipment that evening and to check back. I remembered that I had a number of 5" x 7" wood panels hanging out in my studio. This little peach (no, the green things aren't peaches either) of a painting is on one of those 5" x 7" panels. A couple days ago my wife Marina came back from the market with among other things, two crazy big bags of green apples (there's the clue). Which led me to my next question"were green apples on sale today?" Sure enough they were!

- SOLD -

Talapia-more than a fish

I painted this while waiting for my Trader Joe's Panko Encrusted Talapia (a fish from who knows where? Panko is/are Japanese course bread crumbs) to go from a frozen to cooked state. If you haven't tried this, I highly recommend it. If you don't live near a Trader Joe's, I would move next to one. Great stuff. Great Prices. In the event you are wondering if I'm getting paid every time someone reads this blog from Joe himself (on a per click basis), rest assured I'm not but wish that I were. If you really want to know exactly how long this painting took to finish, all you would need to do would be to look on the Talapia box (located in the frozen section), check the toaster oven time and multiply that by point 6. Talapia is a slow cooking fish that many indigenous people will cook for days and sometimes weeks on end. I would have gladly worked on it longer, but I felt there was something there that worked and was afraid to over-cook it!

Painting- a -day (just not today's)!

I painted this earlier in the week (in a day). Unfortunately, I fell off the painting-a-day- wagon (I just edited this post to say 'fell off the painting-a-day wagon' rather than 'fell off the wagon'. Marina, my wife, thought my original post made it sound like I took up drinking)! I have a large scale piece that I need to get finished and shipped off. The good news is that I painted today. I think, ultimately, that's the goal.

Happy Pitcher

I was not so happy with yesterday's painting. I wanted to go a little more chipper today. More Matisse. As with all my paintings, if they are lying around none of them are safe. New paint can end up on them at any time. If I see something wrong or that needs to be changed, I won't be able to help myself. Probably in direct violation of the spirit of the one-a-day painting manifesto. I hope it doesn't land me in art prison, but I have a feeling that yesterday's painting needs to go another round.

Land Escape

This painting started off as a lemon and lime squeezer from our kitchen. Actually, a pretty obscure little (yet incredibly handy) piece of equipment. I need to try and paint it again. The one I really wanted to paint was the original squeezer that was recently thrown out unbeknownst to me due to a questionable aluminum coating gone horribly wrong. The painting was going to require more time than I had (and I was off to a lousy beginning) and thus I opted to shift gears into a Landscape. Today seemed to be a somewhat long hard day and I needed the escape.

- SOLD -

The Little House

Here's a new twist from my previous two days of cleaning product paintings. This is a little house that is located in the kids section of the botanical gardens near where we live. The reason I chose to paint the house (and not some exotic plant from another continent) was I needed to be in an area that would contain the same 5 year old that was critical of my "Spray Bottle" painting from a couple of days ago. She seems to be pleased with how this one turned out and that's enough for me!

-SOLD-

Painting the Bar

I've been intrigued by this bar of soap for quiet sometime. Primarily due to the fact that it is almost an entire bar of soap (and a very cool colored one at that). Both being unusual characteristics for soap in our home. Actual, we tend to have some nicely colored soaps, unfortunately they always seem the size of a dime when shower time comes around. I seem to be on a cleaning product roll when it comes to my one-a-day paintings. Maybe tomorrow I'll paint a steam cleaner!

Day Two

All was well, until our five year old daughter informed me that "No one is going to want to buy a painting of a spray bottle!". The model for this painting is my trusty spray bottle that I use to erase my numerous mistakes during my painting struggles. Definitely an important tool to have around the studio.

One A Day

Paintings are going to be my one a day vitamins (that's my goal). There are days that I don't paint and even more days that I forget to take my vitamins (hopefully now I'll remember to do both). In the interest of introducing some discipline in my life and career, I've joined a group of artist that produce a painting a day (whether they feel like it or not). Since the galleries that represent my work are more interested in my larger work, the small 8" x 10" pieces that I paint each day will be auctioned on eBay with a starting price of $100. Well here she is. "The First Lady" No, she doesn't look like Laura Bush. She just happens to be the first of what I hope to be a painting a day for many days to come.

-SOLD-