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Washing Rocks - An Original 8 x 10 Plein Air Landscape Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Washing Rocks

 Today my day started off by discovering a leak in our water heater. Luckily, it turned out to just be a small pin hole leak in the hot water pipe. It must have just started leaking shortly before I found it because while there was some water, it could have been much, much worse. After getting over the initial shock and realizing with relief that I didn't need to buy a new water heater today, I headed out to the hardware store to buy a few parts so I could make the needed repairs. I guess something about rushing water leaked into my subconscious because without realizing it, I picked this scene to paint during the afternoon. We have been fortunate to have had some rain during the last 2 weeks and it shows in this river. Just a few weeks ago when I went to check on this spot, it was almost completely dry, down to just a small trickle. Today it was jus the opposite, with water rushing over the rocks and working its way down the river.

Washing Rocks© 

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.

On The Rocks - An Original 8 x 8 Landscape Oil Painting by George De Chiara

On The Rocks

  It never ceases to amaze me how much I learn when I paint water and rocks. There's something about the abstract patterns in the way the water washes over the rocks that forces me to stretch myself. I think this is because this is one of the few subjects where I don't think about what it is I'm painting and just paint the shapes that I see. Now I try that with everything I paint, but for what ever reason, with water it's easier for me to do this.  I guess that's why this is one of my favorite subjects to paint. 

On The Rocks © 

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.

West Falls - An Original 8x10 Lanscape Oil Painting by George De Chiara

West Falls

 One of my favorite subjects to paint is water, particularly white water rapids and falls. It's something I find myself returning to time and again. The thing is, it's hard to find white water rivers in North Texas. I'm constantly on the search when I'm out and about. Making mental notes of places to explore in more depth and still, the list of places to try is very, very small. Luckily a little over a year ago, I discovered one of the best kept secrets in the DFW area, a water fall! A natural stair stepped waterfall that's full accessible to anyone who wishes to see it (and paint it!). It's located in a little park in West Worth that once belong to the Air Force. The town purchased the land sometime back and turned it into a wonderful little nature area with paved walkways. I've wanted to go and paint there this week, but for one reason or another haven't been able to make it, so today I did this studio painting based on a plein air piece I did there last fall. This is the lowest part of the waterfall, which has a last big step and the tiny drop after it. 

West Worth © 

Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 8x10 inches on canvas panel.  
Medium: Original Oil Painting 
Frame: none
Availability: SOLD

Signed on front. Signed and dated on back.

Little Falls - An original 5x7 landscape oil painting by George De Chiara

Little Falls

 A few days ago, I went to one of my favorite spots to paint, which is the falls in West Worth.  We had a few inches of rain the day before I went, so I knew the falls would have plenty of water flowing over them. After picking out a place to paint from I set up my easel and got to work.  Try as I might, I just couldn't quite get the painting to the stage I wanted. Something wasn't jibing, but I couldn't put my finger on it, so I finished up what I could and brought the painting home for further thought on what to do. As an exercise to work out some of the things I think I need to correct on the painting, I decided to do this smaller painting first. In this case, I'm trying to work out how I'm going to handle the drop off and rocks in the foreground. I took a few progress pictures as I worked on this to share with you.

Here is how I started this painting. This is just a little wash of color thinned down with turpentine. I then used a paper towel to wipe out some of the lighter areas and went back with a slightly less thinned down mixture of paint to place a few darks. Nothing too fancy here, but I have my original plein air sketch to refer to while I'm doing this.

In this image, I'm about half way through the painting. I've worked mostly from the top down. I started by laying in the darks first and working toward the lighter values. I'm trying to work on keeping my darks transparent, which is something easier said then done. Below is the final image. While I still don't think I've worked out what I want to do with the lower rocks and water, I do like this solution.

Little Falls © 

Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 5x7 inches on canvas panel.  
Medium: Original Oil Painting 
Frame: none
Availability: Click here to bid on this painting.

Signed on front. Signed and dated on back.

A Day At El Tesoro - An Original 6x8 Plein Air Landscape Oil Painting by George De Chiara

A Day At El Tesoro

 A few weeks ago, I went to Camp El Tesoro to paint with some friends for the day. We had a wonderful time painting along the river and enjoying the mild spring weather. The water is crystal clear at this spot in the river and I was able to watch the fish swimming as I painted. Most of the rocks that make up the falls seem to be sand stone or lime stone, which reflect some really amazing colors in the river. I had a great time trying to capture them. 

 This is the first of two paintings I did this day. You can see the other painting here.

A Day At El Tesoro © 

 Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 6x8 inches on canvas panel.  
Medium: Original Oil Painting 
Frame: none
Availability: Click here to bid on this painting.

Signed on front. Signed and dated on back.

"El Tesoro Falls" - An original 8x6 inch landscape oil painting by George De Chiara

El Tesoro Falls

 This area is quickly becoming one of my favorite places to paint. Camp El Tesoro is a wonderful kid's camp that's kind enough to let us in occasionally to paint. The camp has a great river running though it that is complete with waterfall, which is what this painting depicts. The water is very clear; in fact, not only could we see the many fish in the river, we could actually see the whiskers on the catfish as they swam around. After last year's drought it was very encouraging to see so much life in the river. There had to be easily 100 fish swimming around the 40-50 foot stretch we explored looking for places to paint the falls from. Of course, we where also warned that they spotted two copperheads and a rattler in the last few days along the river and that we should "keep an eye out".  Ha! I kept them both out, just in case. 

El Tesoro Falls © 

Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 8x6 inches on canvas panel.  
Medium: Original Oil Painting 
Frame: Framing available through gallery.
Availability: Available through The Dutch Art Gallery. ($100)

Signed on front. Signed and dated on back.

Running Strong - An original 6x8 landscape oil painting by George De Chiara

Running Strong

 Have I mentioned that this is one of my favorite subjects to paint? I never seem to tire of painting rivers and running water. This little river is in Arlington's Interlochen area. There's a sidewalk that crosses the river just upstream from this spot that causes the water to build up and run faster as it passes through the small pipes running under it. When the water gets through the pipes, it goes over a rock washboard, causing this scene to unfold. I painted this early in the morning when the rocks where still a little wet and colorful. Once the sun heated up towards the end of my painting time, it dried out the rocks and completely changed the colors in them. I had to really be on my toes to not continually change my painting as this was happening. 

This is my first auction on Daily Paint Works. For those of you not familiar with Daily Paint Works (DPW), it's a website dedicated to just art sales and auctions. I'm excited to try this site because of this reason. I'll be listing a few more paintings with them over the next week so be sure to check back often for updates. 

Running Strong © 

 Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 6x8 inches on canvas panel.  
Medium: Original Oil Painting 
Frame: none
Availability: Click here to bid on this painting.

Signed on front. Signed and dated on back.

Heavy Runoff - An original oil painting by George De Chiara

Heavy Runoff

  A few days after we had a good rain storm, I painted this scene. I had figured that what is normally a little creek with a nice trickle of water would be moving pretty good, but I never expected there to be so much runoff. Almost all the rocks had water flowing over them, with just the tallest peaks staying dry. In fact, the spot I normally paint from when I go there was completely underwater as well, so I had to stand on the rocks on the edge of the river and balance my easel and myself very carefully, making sure neither one fell into the water. This made for quite the challenge when painting. For those of you curious where this is, it's at Bob Findlay Linear Park in Arlington's Interlochen subdivision.

Heavy Runoff © 

 Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 6x8 inches on canvas panel.  
Medium: Original Oil Painting 
Frame: none
Availability: Click here to bid on this painting.

Signed on front. Signed and dated on back.

Fall Creek - An original painting by George De Chiara

Fall Creek

 Yesterday, despite the cold, I managed to get out and paint for a little while at Camp El Tesoro in Granbury (Texas). Most of the time, it spends it's life as a neat little Boy Scout camp; however, it is also open to the public once a month. It was either go yesterday or wait another month to see what's there. The few pictures on their website got me curious enough to brave the cold weather. I was rewarded with one of my favorite scenes to paint, running water. I can't wait to go back next month to paint some more. It seemed like everywhere I looked there was another scene just waiting to be painted.

Fall Creek © 

 Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 6x8 inches on canvas panel.  
Medium: Original Oil Painting 
Frame: none
Availability: Click here to bid on this painting.

Signed on front. Signed and dated on back.

Wash Day - An original oil painting by George De Chiara

Wash Day

 I'm always on the look out for running water. It's by far one of my favorite subjects to paint so I very excited to discover a new little river just a few miles from our house. After spending a few minutes looking at different compositions of the running water and rocks, I choose this view, which, of course, turned out to be one of the more difficult locations to paint from. I had to set my easel up on top of a pile of rocks laying on the river bank and balance on one of the rocks to paint. Whenever I wanted to step back and see my progress, I had to carefully step down the pile of rocks to a little clearing so I could study my painting and then climb back up and make my adjustments. It's things like this that make painting outdoors interesting and a lot of fun.

Wash Day © 

 Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 6x8 inches on canvas panel.  
Medium: Original Oil Painting 
Frame: none
Availability: Click here to bid on this painting.

Signed on front. Signed and dated on back.

Westworth Falls - An original oil painting by George De Chiara

Westworth Falls

 I did this painting a few days after Christmas, between groups of company stopping by the house for the holidays. We had a few good days of some much-needed rain, and, on the first sunny day afterwards, I headed out to one of the best kept secrets in the DFW area, The Falls at Westworth Village. This is a wonderful little area that was once owned by the Naval Air Station. This is the second time I've painted at these falls. The first time was in the fall when they had a lot less water running through them. This time, though, there was plenty of water running over them along with unseasonably warm weather made for a great day of painting.

Westworth Falls © 

Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 9x12 inches on canvas panel. 
Medium: Original Oil Painting
Frame: none
Availability: Contact me to purchase ($230)

Signed on front. Signed and dated on back.

The Smaller Falls - Original Oil Painting by George De Chiara

The Smaller Falls

A few years ago, our paper ran a little story about some of the best but least known nature trails in the area (Tarrant County). I clipped the article out and taped it to the back of my studio door for safe keeping. Well, it must have been very safe because I sort of forgot about it until a few days ago when I noticed it hanging there again. One of the spots listed is a great looking waterfall in Westworth Village. With the recent rain we've had, I thought that it might be worth trying to find this spot since it would probably have water running through it. I grabbed the article and our GPS, packed up my painting gear and headed out to find it. The directions in the article were a little vague, with clues like "where the curb on the street is cut, turn". After a few wrong turns, I finally found the area the article talked about and after a short hike along the paved trail, the waterfalls. This spot turned out to be more than I could have hoped for. The waterfalls are stepped with about five different drops varying in size from a few inches to several feet. There's even a few benches right where some of the best views are! I went in the morning, but the sun was slow to shine on the falls. After a little exploring, I finally found an angle where the sun was shining on the top two falls, so that's what I focused on with this painting. I'm already planning my next trip to paint more of this wonderful little area soon. 

The Smaller Falls ©

Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 6x8 inches on canvas panel. 
Medium: Original Oil Painting
Frame: none
Availability: Click here to bid.

Signed on front. Signed and dated on back.