Mardi Gras Owls - Triptych

I created a triptych of three Mardi Gras owls using 'Owl Moths' as masks. Each is 20"x20". I called them Krewe of Strix. A krewe (pronounced "crew") is a social organization that puts on a parade or ball for the Carnival season. Strix is Latin for screech owl. So, I see it as meaning "Parade of Screech Owls". As you see, the backgrounds are Mardi Gras colors. I sketched them out a year before I got around to painting them.

 

 

Painted stones - from 2014

As I was thinking about what I was going to show this year at CHAC, I came across a bucket of cut river rock that I had prepped a few years back. As owls are my new obsession, I thought that painted owl rocks would be new a different from what the artists would be showing with me. Here are some of the best ones I was able to photograph before selling.

After the first dozen sold, I started branching out into other creatures. Also, popular - especially the hedgehogs. They took a little extra time because of the carving, but they sold very well. I used the bottoms that I cut off the larger stones to make these hedgehogs. I can't seem to throw anything away that could potentially become a piece of art.

Heart donations for CHAC 2019

The CHAC gallery is doing heart shows again; their big fundraiser of the year. I am not a member any more but was asked to donate a heart. The hearts are made from Masonite board - all the same size. I believe that the gallery has been doing this fundraiser for 20 years.
Since I have been trying out acrylic paint pours this last month, I used some of the pre-mixed colors to make these hearts. I embellished and varnished them before donating them. I kept the Dior piece for myself since the Dior show at the Denver Museum of Art was so cool. (The jewelry is not Dior - ha!)

Painted Glass Pendants

I have been using Magic Paint on some of my pendants that didn't look quite finished. It adds so many new possibilities to the work that I've been doing. The color range available includes several hues and shades. Because it is a glaze, I found that you have to take the glass up to a full fuse in order for the glaze to melt into the base and cool with a shiny surface.I like the results and have been getting good feedback on them.

Waterfall on the road to Hana in Maui

I picked this waterfall piece to practice landscape painting. It represents the amazing day we drove "the road to Hana". Everything was fresh from the morning rain. Just so beautiful that it is hard to describe. Certainly hard to capture in a painting.

I enhanced it to remind me of the lush land of Maui. The water was also much more crystal clear than the photo represented. I like how it turned out.

I have a dozen other photos from Hawai'i that I want to paint this year. It is an amazing place with amazing people.

Acrylic Paint Pour

There are hundreds of videos on YouTube with people trying this technique. The process of adding silicon oil to thinned acrylics and pouring buckets of it on canvas has become very popular over the last couple of years. Many of those who have produced great results sell the abstracts for good money on the internet. I was looking to create more unique backgrounds to my NON-abstract pieces. So some friends came over and we covered hundreds of items with paint. These are some of the best ones I did.

I might leave the platter as is for now, but all the other paintings I plan on added something to the foreground. Any suggestions?

New for 2019!

I am grateful for a friend who sat semi-still while I painted him for about an hour. I took it home and worked on it another hour or so. Hopefully he isn't embarrassed, but this is how history is going to remember him. Ha. It is called "Steve After a Haircut".

He paints bright poppies, so I thought I would add that as the background instead of his kitchen wall. I'm taking a portrait oil class at Art Students League in February, so I'm practicing portraits as much as I can.  Here is one I did from a photo. Not someone I know, so there was less pressure to get it "right".

Regardless of skin color, you can use the same four colors for almost any portrait - Also known as the Zorn Palette (after Anders Zorn) It consists of yellow ochre, ivory black, vermilion and titanium white. I learned that in my previous oil class.