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ACEO Valentine Themed Oil Paintings by George De Chiara

I Heart You

It's time for Valentine's Day again! I actually find myself oddly excited to paint conversation hearts and chocolate candies and to surround my studio in flowers. Painting for Valentine's seems to be a new tradition that I have developed over the last few years. People always seem to like them, and I really enjoy painting these sweet little works. I recently dropped off six Valentine themed paintings to the Dutch Gallery in Dallas. They are all available now for that special one-of-a-kind gift for your loved one. Each one is beautifully framed from the gallery. Make this a Valentine's she'll never forget by giving a gift that will last a life time. For more information or to purchase any of these please contact Pam at the Dutch Gallery. You can call her at (214) 348-7350 or if you're in Dallas stop on by. Their address is 10233 E Northwest Hwy, Dallas, TX 75238.

Chocolate Heart©        2.5x3.5 inches         Oil  

Pink Rose ©       2.5x3.5 inches               Oil

Yellow Rose ©      2.5x3.5 inches      Oil

I Heart You©       2.5x3.5 inches          Oil

Light Pink Rose©    2.5x3.5 inches     Oil

Here's an example of the framing!

      Red Rose©    2.5x3.5 inches     Oil

Chocolate Heart - A New Original ACEO Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Chocolate Heart

 Is it too soon for Valentine hearts? I hope not, because as soon as my 3 year daughter found out I had chocolate in the studio, she quickly made it a point to come visit me as much as possible. On each visit, she would "sneak" another chocolate heart out of the studio and run off to eat it. Over the course of the last few days, she's gone through my whole supply of them! Well...that's not exactly they truth. She did have some help with them, but I'm not naming any names on who helped her.

 This painting is available through the Dutch Art Gallery in Dallas, if you're interested in getting it for yourself or as a wonderful one-of- a-kind Valentine gift for that someone special. They do an amazing job framing these into a 5x7 inch frame and they look great. Contact Pam at (214) 348-7350 for further details.

Chocolate Heart©

Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 2.5x3.5 inches on canvas panel.  
Medium: Original Oil Painting 
Frame: Yes, contact Gallery at  (214) 348-7350 for details.
Availability: Available through the Dutch Art Gallery

Initialed lower right corner.

Daily Painting - Lemon Coaster

Lemon Coaster

 
I don't know why, but the name "Lemon Coaster" came right to mind when I thought about what to call this one. I guess I still had yesterday's name on my mind (Cherry Ride).

 Overall I'm pretty happy with this one except for the surface the plate is sitting on. I think my colors got a little muddy or maybe just a little too grayed. Either way I have some ideas on how I would approach this again, so I might do another arrangement on it soon.

Daily Painting - Cherry Ride

Cherry Ride

  I painted this one free hand, no drawing first, just picked up my brush and started painting.Of course it helped I had just tried painting this set up right before hand. That one didn't turn out so well I wiped it off. You don't often hear of watercolor paintings get wiped off, it's really more of an oil painting thing. Take a little turp on a rag and presto your oil painting wipes right off the canvas. With watercolor it doesn't work out so well because the pigment stains the paper, but it still feels just as good to get rid of that bad painting. Painting like this is a real challenge. I found I had to think much more about where things were going to go and how much space they needed. Next time I do a painting without any drawing first I need to remind myself to slow down and think things through. Actually that's something good to remember for any painting.

Daily Painting - Orange Slice

Orange Slice

 
This is an orange I got from the farmers market. These aren't like the oranges you get in the store or at least not like the ones I get. The peals are a lot thinner and easier to peal off. They are much smaller in size and every slice has a seed in it.  I ate this one after I painted it. It got a little warm under my lighting in the studio, but it was still very good.

 I didn't really plan on the complimentary color scheme when I was setting this up. At the time I just liked the way it looked. Once I started painting it hit me and I really had a lot of fun with it. I had to be careful with my washes so they didn't bleed into each other and grey out the colors.

Daily Painting - Cross Your Tea

Cross Your Tea

 
Sometimes it's fun to paint the insides of the fruit rather then just doing the outside. Besides the inside is usually more interesting.These aren't the same lemons as yesterday. This is one of the smaller ones from the grocery store.

 Not a lot of time to blog tonight. I've got a few other thing to take care of. We've been working hard on our on-line presence and I hope to share all that my wife and I have been working on soon. In the mean time, I'm now listing on The Arts Map (http://www.theartsmap.com/index.php). It's a very cool page. If you haven't seen it, check it out!

Daily Paintings - Port Aransas (TX)

Port Aransas (TX)

 
This might have been too much to try to get into such a small painting, but it was fun to try! Mostly I was trying to get more into the sky and clouds. It's something I've really been trying to work on this week. That's very typical of the way I work. I pick out something that I want to work on, like skies, trees, water, anything that I think I need to improve my efforts on and then I try to paint it in as many situations as I can. I've noticed over the last few years that this exercise really has helped improve my paintings. It's a constant push to improve.



 

Daily Painting - Yellow Texas Wild Flower

Yellow Texas Wild Flowers

 
One more of these yellow wild flowers we have blooming here right now.I don't know how much longer we are going to have them. The weather is starting to really warm up and it seems like summer if moving in quickly.  I've been doing a few searches for what these are called and I think they are Coreopsis.

 The flower is painted from life, in fact it's the one of the same ones I used a couple of days ago. The other flowers didn't make it to today. I made up the background, trying to keep it lighter then last time (my wife's suggestion). I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out. I used a little bit of white mixed into my watercolors to make a few opaque colors that I dried brushed over the transparent washes. Mostly in the lighter green bits.

Daily Paintings - Texas Sping Bloom

Texas Spring Bloom

 
My favorite time in Texas, spring! Wild flower and blue bonnet blooms are everywhere this time of the year.This is the best time to live in Texas. I have a few more spots that I want to try and paint before the wild flowers die off this year. I'm going to try and gather up some reference this weekend if I can. I'm going to have to do them from photos this time. I've got a few other things I want to paint for the next few days.

 This painting really taught me a lot. I approached the sky in a slightly different way then I normally do and it think it was a real success. I also realized ( a little too late) that I went to dark and not saturated enough with my initial washes of the foreground. I had to use a bit of white in my washes to bring back some lighter values. The problem with doing with is it also really pulls the saturation out of the color. I think I know how to correct this with the next one I want to try this type of subject. Stay tuned!