River's Edge - An Original 8 x 8 Plein Air Landscape Oil Painting by George De Chiara
River's Edge
I spent this past weekend in the Hill Country of Texas. The first few days were spent painting in and around Kerrville, and, then on Saturday, it was off to Fredericksburg for the Oil Painters Of America Exhibition for some of the most impressive representational art I've seen. What a wonderful weekend! This painting was done in Kerrville at Louise B. Hayes Park. This is a huge park with lot of access to the river. I found this little spot just a few feet up the river from where the locals swam. Here the water was a little more shallow and full of rocks, which is what attracted me to this spot. I got here just when the sun was starting to set behind me and it gave the scene a very soft light.
River's Edge ©
Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 8x8 inches on canvas panel.
Medium: Original Oil Painting
Frame: none
Availability: Currently available through my eBay auction. Click here to go the auction.
Signed on front. Signed and dated on back.
Comment on or Share this Article →Cactus Blooms - An Original 8 x 10 Plein Air Landscape Oil Painting by George De Chiara
Cactus Blooms
When I came across this cactus, I knew I wanted to paint it. I loved the back lighting, which created an interesting pattern of light and shadow. The bright red and pink blooms where a nice bonus to the scene. I was able to find a nice low location to paint this from, which let me get this rather front on view. The whole time I painted, the cactus was buzzing with activity as bees and other insects flew around it. Occasionally, they would buzz me to see what I was up to and then go back to feeding on the flowers.
Cactus Blooms ©
Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 8x10 inches on canvas panel.
Medium: Original Oil Painting
Frame: none
Availability: Currently available through my eBay auction. Click here to go the auction.
Signed on front. Signed and dated on back.
Comment on or Share this Article →Maytime Verbena - An Original 8 x 10 Plein Air Landscape Oil Painting by George De Chiara
Maytime Verbena
This is from one of my favorite places in the Fort Worth Botanical Gardens, and, judging from how many people passed me by while I painted this, I'd say this is a favorite place for a lot of visitors to the garden. This is by the wonderful fountain that sits at the bottom of the cascade leading down to the rose garden. There is so much color in this area right now. Everywhere I looked there was another colorful, vibrant flower blooming. As a bonus, I was able to paint in a nice patch of shade which is always welcome when the day is full of bright, warm sun.
Maytime Verbena ©
Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 8x10 inches on canvas panel.
Medium: Original Oil Painting
Frame: none
Availability: Currently available through my eBay auction. Click here to go the auction.
Signed on front. Signed and dated on back.
Comment on or Share this Article →Mepps Lusox - An Original 8 x 8 Still Life Oil Painting by George De Chiara
Mepps Lusox
Yesterday, I painted a still life of one of my newest fishing lures. That one was given to me by my wife for Christmas. Today's lure is one of the oldest one's I own. I don't remember where I got it anymore. I just know it's been in my tackle box for as long as I can recall. In fact, it's been moved from tackle box to tackle box as they wear out or break, but this Mepps lure has out lived almost every other piece of fishing gear I own. It's a bit worn now, which made it so appealing to paint, so I hope some of that comes through. It was a real trick getting it to stay in this position. It's a bit top-heavy and kept wanting to fall over. I finally had to use a little clay and string to get it to stay like this so I could paint it.
Mepps Lusox ©
Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 8x8 inches on canvas panel.
Medium: Original Oil Painting
Frame: none
Availability: Currently available through my eBay auction. Click here to go the auction.
Signed on front. Signed and dated on back.
Comment on or Share this Article →Purple Tail - A New Original 8 x 8 Still Life Oil Painting by George De Chiara
Purple Tail
One of my favorite places to look for inspiration is my tackle box. I love the brightly colored fishing lures that fill it and have painted them often, though not very recently. Well, it's time for that to change. I dug through my tackle box and quickly found myself gravitating toward this one with its long purple tail. I love the color in it and really wanted to try to capture it with paint. Since I wanted to concentrate on the lure to try to capture it as accurately as possible, I kept the background and the surface it sits on pretty simple. I like this approach with these small still life paintings because it lets me concentrate on the things I want to and not get bogged down with other aspects of the painting.
Purple Tail ©
Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 8x8 inches on canvas panel.
Medium: Original Oil Painting
Frame: none
Availability: Currently available through my eBay auction. Click here to go the auction.
Signed on front. Signed and dated on back.
Comment on or Share this Article →Wood Duck - A New Original 10 x 8 Landscape Oil Painting by George De Chiara
Wood Duck
We had a few days of rain in our forecast, so before the weather turned, I went down to the lake not far from our house to take some reference photos just in case I was stuck in the studio. Normally, this lake is full of ducks, geese and all type of water fowl, but on this trip there was just a hand full of mallards playing in the water. None the less, I began to take a few photographs of them because I was in the mood to paint some ducks anyway. While I was taking my pictures, someone arrived at the lake with a big bag of bread and began to feed the ducks. Well, it didn't take long for all the ducks and birds around the lake to start making their way towards the free lunch. Slowly, but surely, more and more ducks started to appear and that's when I spotted this one wood duck swimming with a small group of mallards. I couldn't believe my luck! I love the distinct markings on this bird and knew I'd want to paint him if I could get a good reference image of him. That proved to be the tricky part. It seems this little duck is camera-shy. It took almost 30 minutes of waiting for him to swim close enough by me so I could get a good image of him, but it was worth the wait. He settled right in front of me for almost 5 minutes! I must have snapped about 50 pictures of him during that time. What a treat!
Wood Duck ©
Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 10x8 inches on canvas panel.
Medium: Original Oil Painting
Frame: none
Availability: Currently available through my eBay auction. Click here to go the auction.
Signed on front. Signed and dated on back.
Comment on or Share this Article →Researching Roses - A New Original 8 x 10 Plein Air Landscape Oil Painting by George De Chiara
Researching Roses
Yesterday, before the arrival of today's storms, I took advantage of the light and painted at the Botanical Gardens in Fort Worth. It's an amazing resource and I go there often because there's plenty of room and it's a free public space with so many eye-catching scenes. Although the gardens are quite large and varied, I usually go to the same general area when painting there. This time, however, I decided to try the other end of the gardens where they have a large research building and gardens. I'm not really sure what they are researching with the garden, but the whole thing was in full bloom. I found this rose bush with hundreds of buds bursting open. I loved the contrast between the shady background and the sun drenched flowers.
Researching Roses ©
Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 8x10 inches on canvas panel.
Medium: Original Oil Painting
Frame: none
Availability: Currently available through my eBay auction. Click here to go the auction.
Signed on front. Signed and dated on back.
Comment on or Share this Article →Cloud Puff - A New Original 8 x 10 Plein Air Landscape Oil Painting by George De Chiara
Cloud Puff
Last year, while out on a drive, I discovered this little park. There's not really all that much there. Just a few sidewalks, a lot of open fields and trees and a very tiny pond. I remember going there once to paint, but didn't actually produce a painting. Sometimes that happens when plein air painting. I go somewhere, haul my gear in and never find anything to paint. After that, I sort of forgot about this place until I was looking at google maps for potential painting locations. For what ever reason, it showed promise again so I decided to give it another chance. This time I noticed this view of the field around the pond and the sky with just this one tiny puffy cloud. I loved the idea of painting a sky with just this tiny cloud in it and knew I had found something to paint here finally. I actually noticed a few other things that I might want to try at some point too, so it looks like I might be going back again. Lesson learned...sometimes it's good to give places a second look.
Cloud Puff ©
Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 8x10 inches on canvas panel.
Medium: Original Oil Painting
Frame: none
Availability: Currently available through my eBay auction. Click here to go the auction.
Signed on front. Signed and dated on back.
Comment on or Share this Article →Blowin' In The Wind - A New Original 8 x 8 Plein Air Oil Painting by George De Chiara
Blowin' In The Wind
Just down the road from where I live, there's a little nature area. I often go to it to paint since it's so close and I can usually find something that piques my interest. Every Spring, the park blooms with wild flowers like bluebonnets, purple verbena, buttercups, and pink evening primroses. Last year's show was unbelievable, and I must have done 4 or 5 paintings there! This year is starting off a little slower, but slowly, things are picking up. Right now the Indian Blankets are starting to come in. If we can just get a little rain, the while field would light up over night. For now though, there are a few really going good. This painting has several of them in it. It was windy while I tried to paint these, which made for an interesting painting experience. I had to look at the one I wanted to paint while it was still and then try to paint it before the wind blew it around. Fun indeed!
Blowin' In The Wind ©
Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 8x8 inches on canvas panel.
Medium: Original Oil Painting
Frame: none
Availability: Currently available through my eBay auction. Click here to go the auction.
Signed on front. Signed and dated on back.
Comment on or Share this Article →Rocky Shore - An Original 8 x 10 Landscape Oil Painting by George De Chiara
Rocky Shore
This morning while I waited for the weather to warm up a bit outside, I decided to paint in the studio. I took a look through some of my photo reference and found this picture I took a few years ago at the lake just down the road from our house. It was during one of the worst droughts we had experienced since buying our house in North Texas. We had heard on the news about how low the lake levels had fallen, so my wife and I went down to see for ourselves. I took this image of the rocks that now made up the shoreline. This is normally a spot that is totally under the water. In fact, just behind us was a dock that was land locked at the time with a boat stranded on it. No water within 50 feet of the dock. Thank goodness that now the water levels are back to where they should be and this spot is once again hidden under the water. Hopefully, this is a view I never get to see again.
Rocky Shore ©
Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 8x10 inches on canvas panel.
Medium: Original Oil Painting
Frame: none
Availability: Currently available through my eBay auction. Click here to go the auction.
Signed on front. Signed and dated on back.
Comment on or Share this Article →