Saturday, December 18, 2010

12/18/10 Brian Hall

This as you all, or at least many, know is a second portrait of Brian Hall, my trainer who perished on Mt. Hood a little over 4 years ago. I did this one for his little sister Angela. Brian's parents moved to Idaho to be closer to Angela, who was still having trouble with the loss of her beloved big brother. I didn't feel that this portrait was quite complete so I went through some clippings and found one of Bri's favorite sayings : the Apache Blessing
May the Sun
bring you new energy by day.
May the Moon
softly restore you by night.
May the Rain
wash away your worries.
May the Breeze
blow new strength into your being.
May you walk gently through the world
and know its beauty all the days of your life.
When I came up with the idea to include this on his portrait I just KNEW it was what Angela needed to read from her brother. Now it is finished. I also wrote the blessing all around the sides of the painting. I will let it dry and seal it and hopefully get it in the mail soon - not in time to make it for Christmas probably but soon.
Thank you for viewing my blog and reading my ramblings.

Friday, December 17, 2010

12/17/10 Ruidoso Chapel (commission)

After working on and off for over a month or six weeks I finally presented this painting to Lindsey today. She was thrilled with it and was very excited with the way it turned out.
This is where her mom got married and it is to be her Christmas present! I had no idea that this would be so challenging. I did a lot of scraping and repainting and nearly started over about two weeks ago. It took the whole studio to help me straighten and paint this so it looked correct. I can still see quite a few mistakes but that is water over the dam now.
Thanks for looking and having patience with me through this painting. I think it might have been easier to "build" a log cabin than paint this!

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

11/14/10 Chapel in the woods - revisited

Kay helped me today to find out what was wrong. The whole painting looks off but all I had to go by was a photo and the angle was weird! Tried my best to straighten things up and it looks MUCH better than it did. Just hope Lindsey is pleased with the result. Will look for a frame for it tomorrow.
Thank you for taking time to look at a struggling artist.
P.S. I don't foresee any log cabins in my future painting!

11/14/10 Sweet Temptations- found a home!!!

This piece of fluff is finally going to a fabulous home. Kelli Hale bought it for he daughter's playroom where the walls are brown. It should look really great. Hope Keaton doesn't try to scrape off some of the icing since I built it up a bit with impasto and it LOOKS like real icing.I had a lot of fun doing this one. Might try doing another but a single and really applying the impasto and lots of sprinkles!
Thank you for taking the time to check out my blog.

Monday, December 13, 2010

12/13/10 Chapel in the woods

Not finished with the details on this little chapel. Wish I was more pleased with it. I have struggled from the beginning. I think I'll just turn it upside down and try it that way again!! It is looking better but it is not my best by far. I need to finish it and deliver it to school by Friday.

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

12/08/10 Mixed Media

This is my first mixed media piece and it is for my nephew Brian McNally,who recently got a wonderful promotion. He works for a big real estate company here in Dallas. I have included a lot of pictures of old and new Dallas. I am not finished obviously, but am shocked at how challenging this has turned out to be.
I want to include some of the buildings my father built:Temple Emmanuel, Exchange Park, Christ the King Catholic Church and a part of Ursuline Academy. I am sure there are others but these are the ones I'm most familiar with.
Thank you for taking time from your busy day to check out my blog and ANY suggestions or comments are welcome!