Vikings

These tiny little mums are one of my favorites to work with this time of year...both with painting and floral design. 5x7 oil/panel

Get Well Buddy B.

This one is a gift for a dear friend who is fighting a courageous battle with cancer.
8x10 oil

Cut Callas

8x10 oil/panel

Artist's Rule: Never Fall in Love with your Paintings

Ninety percent complete. First one in a while thats giving me a problem with the above mentioned rule.

Sedum and Dusty Miller

Last bloomers of the season...ah fall!
8x10 oil/panel

Dried Oak Leaves

This one is actually a commission from last year. I told my client she would have to wait until the the leaves started to drop again in September to match the pink and greens from the two paintings she purchased a year ago. 5x7 oil

Gloriosas

SOLD

8x10 oil/panel

Noyes Exhibit

Three posts at once is a record for me, but I'm a little behind. It was a busy week! I have two paintings at the Noyes from now until the end of October. Two Shells on a Bed of Kelp and the Dried Asian Octopus painting. You probably won't get a chance to see the octopus painting again any time soon. They are part of the
">Signature Artist's Show. There are two other very interesting exhibits going on as well so if you're local you should stop in. The Noyes Musuem is a real gem here in South Jersey! I also met a fellow blogger at the opening; Joanie San Chirico, she is a textile artist. Thats an area I'm not too familiar with, but I know enough to know that her work is quite accomplished. I also did the outdoor Washington Street Mall Show in Cape May this past weekend. Sales were good and I made yet another Artist friend Sandy Jones. She works in Tempera Resist ...a technigue I'm going to try for my personal Christmas cards this year.

Goodbye St Andrew's by the Sea

This is a chunk of tile from the mosaic on the side of St Andrew's which was a church on Atlantic Ave in Atlantic City. They tore it down about ten years ago. I had mentioned to a friend how I was facinated by the mosaic ever since I was a little kid. He worked for the city and went to the demolition sight and procured me a few chunks of the tile. I am forever grateful. Now if I could do a better painting I'd be even happier!

Goodbye Brighton Farms Redux

This mysterious dead tree was all that remained in the old stone store front. When I returned a day later half the building was demolished and a big NO TRESSPASSING sign was posted over the entrance. Guess I got there just in time! I find this image captivating.

"Heirlooms" ...work in progress

My great grandmother's quilt with shells my mother picked up from the beach when she was a little girl. 24" x 24"

Two Brothers

5x7 oil/panel

This will be the last mushroom painting for a while...onto something bigger

Three Brothers

Funny how mushrooms take on a male persona. One of my favorite Disney sequences is the mushrooms dancing to Tchaikovsky in Fantasia.

5x7 oil/panel

Goodbye Brighton Farms

SOLD

Brighton Farms was established by the Off Family. It was an Orchid farm here in Linwood. It has an interesting history. Lou Off passed away a few years ago and the family has sold the Brighton Farm property which consisted of about a dozen greenhouses lining Shore Road in Linwood. McMansions will fill the void...YUCK. It's heartbreaking to see such a lovely piece of Linwood history be torn to rubble. While I can't judge the family's financial need to do such a thing, it's still so very sad to see the character of my home town slowly dissapear. One consolation is that Waldor Orchids will remain. Waldor was established when a split occured between the Off brothers in the 50s. It consists of several large greenhouses adjascent to the Brighton Property. I buy orchid plants frequently from Waldor, both for business and personal use. It's a wonderful place to visit.
Brighton sold cut orchids; primarliy Cattleyas I think. They delivered all over the greater northeast extension...NYC, Philadelphia etc. Anyway you can read the history with the link I've provided. I picked up this brick from the rubble of the greenhouses as a memento. I didn't have a Cattlelaya orchid, so these two green cymbidiums had to do for the orchid reference. 8x10 oil/canvas.

Childs Play ...Near completion

Some more detail to the guns themselves will finish this off. I wanted this painting to appear Happy and Troublesome at the same time. The technique is far less detail oriented then most of my "Scatter Paintings". Perhaps the influence of all those direct "daily style" paintings...or blog paintings if you will.

Shroom3

I liked the file name on this one...third painting of mushrooms/painting of three mushrooms...it works well as a title I think. Now I can title the first Two "Shroom 1 and 2 respectively. Suddenly I feel pressure to do a fourth with four mushrooms! Another OCD painting from Chuck heheheh. And I was carrying the "Gifts from the Garden" thing a bit too far when I started picking objects from the neighbors yards...like these mushrooms and the green apple from yesterday.
9x12 oil/panel

Gifts from the Garden #5

SOLD
5x7 oil/panel
I bought some pre-primed panels for a change...I found the surface so slick and slippery with this painting...a very unpleasant sensation. I've grown quite fond of the absorbant surface of acrylic gesso. It works well with my technique of drawing/blocking in the intial image with a turpentine wash.

Gifts from the garden #4

One thing about rain...it brings mushrooms.
5x7 oil/panel

Unblock Knives

5 1/2" x 12" oil/birchwood panel

It's been raining for the last five days. I guess this makes up for the drought conditions this summer...anyway I sold the comish without getting a photo. Today is the first day I've been able to take a picture outside...but will I invest in a scanner? someday perhaps. I was going to do some outdoor painting this week, but that was dashed. Then I found myself feeling totally uninspired by everything, including the two works in progress. I brought home really nice flowers...but they just left me cold...so I caught up on paper and house work and felt guilty and miserable the last few days because I wasn't painting. I've been going through my regular mental "clench" over painting what I think others want me to paint ( and what I think will sell) and painting what moves me regardless. Today I gave in and did these knives...they are what I use to do my floral design work. After finishing this I got back into the water-pistol painting with a new and fresh state of mind. I'll try to get a picture of that one tomorrow.
...........til then

Meadows ( from the vault )

12x24 oil/canvas

I did this one about 14 years ago when I first started paintng in oils. It is one of two landscapes I did back then. I used a photo reference. Later I added the red winged blackbirds ( hard to see) in the foreground. I'm posting it now because next week I'm going to be doing some plein air paintings of the same wetlands. A friend has a home on the marshes and offered her yard and balcony as a site to paint. The view is spectacular....Can't wait !!!