It was raining so a still life set up works.

10" x 8" oil on canvas

Shade on Summer Day

Black and white and black and white that seems to flow together and confuse me. Reminds me of how zebra patterns confuse predators. I couldn't resist trying to organize the scene. 

This is the reference photo. I liked the cow in the front against the backdrop of the tree trunk as a center of interest, still a lot of editing.

12" x 6" oil on canvas

Storm Clouds Threatening

Too cold to go outside and paint. I pulled this up and painted the "bare trees" but they ended up looking a little more dressed.

I used an art store brand of hard panel from Blick. It had a dinged corner so I marked off the 8" x 10 corner or the 12" x 9" panel.  The surface was a slick like melamine wall panels. I had to adjust to it, but I would buy it again. For covering the surface fast and an easy wipe off it worked well, sometimes too well.  

10" x 8" oil on gessoed board

Kayaking on the Skunk River

I was painting on the banks of the Skunk River when this woman showed up. A great opportunity to paint more that just water. There are great views on the river without public access and painting from a kayak may be a good idea or at least sketching. 

8" x 16" oil on Ampersand board.

Early Spring at Wilson Lake

Early spring plein air painting at Wilson Lake. The clouds were great Wednesday afternoon.

9" x 12" oil on canvas

Wilson Lake in Early Spring

I went plein air painting to work on my neutrals. I had some paint left over from my portrait and they are a nice tan color. 

9" x 12" oil on canvas

52 Faces final image

As the final image for the 52 Faces of Volunteerism I did a self portrait. I set up the lighting to show my wrinkles and imperfections. I originally wanted to paint like Lucien Freud but just could not pull it off. When I take a photo of myself I Photoshop the wrinkles out and wear a turtleneck (see photo at right).  I could tweak this some more but I procrastinated until yesterday and it needs to be turned in today. The Art Center had a lunch ala art which included a talk or demo from the monthly feature artist. I started this at that event and needed to finish it later. 

The show is going to Mount Pleasant Iowa on the Iowa Wesleyan University's art gallery in the PEO building for the next two weeks. The PEO building is located on North Main Street. 

11" x 14" oil on mdf board

Hydrangeas

Playing with my acrylics using airbrush medium and acrylic flow release medium. "Flow release is a surfactant. A surfactant is a concentrated surface-active liquid which reduces surface tension, thus improving wetting and increasing the flow of acrylic waterborne paints." It reduces the surface tension between the staining(paint/water) and the canvas/ Golden Acrylic website

8' x 8" acrylic on canvas