Quinn

Quinn
oil on canvas
16" x 12"

Quinn, who is a very special little spirit, has been a part of our family for two years. This painting shows her at about her one year old stage.

Her sister was of the opinion that her eyelashes and eyebrows needed to be very heavy to differentiate her from her cousin. She has a big personality to match her dark, long eyelashes

Ready for Adventures

Ready for Adventures
Grant
16" x 20"
oil on canvas
[click on the image to enlarge]

In the great outdoors with a full collection of good sticks.

What more could a little guy require for adventures and exploration? We should all be so enthusiastic about our opportunities.

The underlying photograph was taken from Morgan's blog.

Shown framed below.

 

Christening Morning

Christening Morning

18" x 24"

oil on canvas

[click on image to enlarge]

A newborn baby on the day of blessing brings so many poignant feelings. 

Among them:

-Reverence for this precious spirit

-Gratitude to Heaven for sending a special spirit

-Approaching Deity to ask an additional blessing for the infant and the future

-Family relationships

-Joy in a mother's sacrifice to bring forth a new family member

-The wonder of life

-Innocence and purity

Technically this painting was done somewhat in the chiaroscuro pattern with marked contrast between the background and the highlights. Black for the dress was made by mixing two powerful strong complementary pigments, in this case Phthalo Green and Alizarin Crimson which makes a rich, luxurious paint. It also allows small variations in hue not possible with traditional blacks. The extended arm has more crimson while the back of dress has a greenish hue.

The photo below shows this painting with a rather poorly cropped gold frame.
 

To most viewers the dominant figure in the painting is Rebecca, the young woman on the left, she is the figure closest to the viewer and therefore is larger, she is at the point of the highest contrast in the painting and she is painted with the sharpest details.

She is also on the left, and most of us 'read' a painting from the left to the right like we read text.

One might suppose that it wouldn't make that much difference, however below is the same painting now shown by reversing the photograph. Quite a different emphasis to my eyes.
Now to my eyes, the infant has increased in emphasis [and it is more apparent that the bottom of the white crochet blanket should be darker - and so I corrected it later]
You may see this differently.

 

 

Wanna Taste?

Wanna Taste?
Gweneth
11" x 14"
oil on canvas

Innocence and joy.

Sharing something special.  Gweneth is enjoying the Easter season.

Goldfinch in Coneflowers

Just for fun I cropped the photograph of the painting.

I think this demonstrates a problem with the larger work, in that the focus was a bit fractured by the conflicting elements.
This more limited composition seems to work better.
I mentioned the limited palette in the first posting. The purple hues are made with an iron oxide and ultramarine blue mix. They would be brighter with a cadmium red, but I like this shade.

Coneflower Foothills

Coneflower Foothills

18" x 24"

oil on canvas

The idea for this painting began while looking at the back mural in the first endowment room in the Sacramento Temple. That panoramic mural covers three walls and depicts nature scenes in the Sierra foothills and mountains.

The summer section in this 8 or ten foot high work is primarily rolling foothills.

But from there various elements, such as the American Goldfinch pair, the purple coneflowers, the large oak and the skyline were artist choices. The goldfinches would feel right at home in the temple mural as many birds and animals are present.

 

Another reason to paint this was that it offered many opportunities to work with a limited palette of oil colors

The temple mural center section is very yellow hued and I struggled to dial that down a bit in this scene. [still yellow right?] Now if I just had my camera in there to take some high resolution pix.....

Lawrence's Goldfinch

Lawrence's Goldfinch
11" x 14"
oil on canvas

Lawrence's Goldfinches are the least common of the three North American Goldfinches. And of the 7 species in the Carduelis genus only the Hoary Redpoll is more difficult for the birder to tick on his life list.

 

I saw my first Lawrence's in the California foothills near Beale Air Force base.

They are mostly restricted to California or Baja California and migrate only relatively short distances.

They generally prefer the drier weedy areas in the foothills, valley and along the edge of the desert. These three are shown in variations of their breeding plumage,  winter would find them duller and more brownish.

The plants on the right are mostly fiddleneck, a Lawrence favorite food along with other small seeds.