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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.

Christmas Cheer - A New Original 5x7 Still Life Oil Painting and a Painting Demo by George De Chiara

Christmas Cheer

 Ah yes, it's that time of the year again. Time to deck the halls and be jolly! It seems like every year we deck the halls a little more and add another set or two of lights to the outside of the house and put another ornament on tree.  These little ornaments are some of the first ones we bought together.  At that time, we had a little 4 foot tree and a box of decorations for it. Now on our big tree they would get lost. I'm just guessing, but it might be the sixteen boxes of Christmas that we have collected over the years. Still, these little shiny balls still haven't lost their luster, and reliably put me in the spirit of the season every time I bring them out of storage. 

 If you're in the DFW area on Saturday December 8th, be sure to stop by the Dutch Art Gallery and watch my free painting demo. I'll be there from 10 - 2 PM painting. I'd love to see you there! The Dutch Art Gallery is located at 10233 E NW Hwy in Dallas.

Christmas Cheer © 

Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 5x7 inches on canvas panel.  
Medium: Original Oil Painting 
Frame: none
Availability: SOLD

Signed on front. Signed and dated on back.

Strawberries and Chocolate - An original oil painting by George De Chiara

Strawberries and Chocolate

 In my last blog post, I mentioned going to a church garage sale. This white heart is another one of the items I picked up at it. I think this one cost me a quarter. I liked the contrast between it and the dark background almost immediately. Now, what to put with it to finish off my arrangement? After a bit a digging around the house, I finally settled on using some strawberries, and, what goes better with a strawberry than some chocolate? It surprised me how quickly and easily this still life arrangement came together. Now all I needed to do was paint it.

Here's how the painting came about:

First, here's an image of what I'm looking at while painting. As hard as I tried I just couldn't get a good image of the set up. I can't even see the highlights on the white heart in this image. This is one of the reasons I prefer to paint from life when ever it's possible. 

Here's my really rough block-in of the basic shapes. I toned the canvas with a very thinned mixture of Cadium Red and Terra Rosa. To draw the outlines, I used the same color mixture with less turpentine and a paper towel dipped in turpentine to wipe out some of the light areas. At this point, I'm not really concerned with anything more than making sure everything will fit on the canvas and that I have a composition I'm happy with.

It seems like it's rare to be able to start with the thing that represents the lightest light and darkest dark right off the bat, but I lucked out with this one. Usually, it seems like I need to paint a little more of the painting before establishing these values. I have to admit that kind of luck is nice. 

Just about done now. I have to paint the chocolate hearts still and adjust a few of the edges. Edges are one of those things I really want to work on this year, so if you're a regular reader of this blog your going to hear me talk lot about them. Right now I'm experimenting with soften the edges more than I normally do, trying to give the eye places to rest and giving it a clue that it should move on from the spot it's in. To soften, I'm using a very soft clean brush and I'll just lightly swipe it across the edge.

The finished painting:

Strawberries and Chocolate © 

 Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 6x6 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.

Love Bird - An original oil painting by George De Chiara

Love Bird

I love finding new things to paint, which is what inspired this painting. I had that little ceramic bird for less than an hour when I painted him. He was a score from a local church garage sale for a whopping dollar! How could I pass that up? Plus, I had already had the chocolates which I bought for some Valentine-themed paintings anyway. The two just seemed to fit together so well. Below are a few step-by-step photographs of how this image came to life.

First off, here's an image of what I'm looking at while painting. The rose is made from crêpe paper that my niece folded into a rose. I've used them a few times to stand in for real roses and they work great. Never wilt and never change shape!

This image is taken after about 30 minutes of painting. I stained the canvas with a mixture of Cadium Red and Cadium Scarlet thinned with a lot of turpentine. Then I used them same mixture with a lot less turns to drawn in the basic shapes and a paper towel dipped in turpentine to wipe out a few lighter colors. I give this a few minutes to dry and then started blocking in the larger color masses of the bird. 

I continued working on the bird until I was happy with his appearance, which, naturally, lead to the surrounding areas in order to get the edges that I want. 

Just about done now. Everything is blocked-in and I just need to bring rest of the painting up to the level of completeness that I want. I generally try to soften the edges and to let more of the underpainting show through as I get closer the edges of the canvas. I do this for two reasons. First, I just like the look of the incompleted painting, and, second, I feel it helps move the eye back towards the more complete areas of the painting, which is the center of interest. 

Love Bird © 

 Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 6x6 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.

Little Angel - An original oil painting by George De Chiara

Little Angel

 For the last few days, I've been working on a few commission paintings and haven't had a lot to post. Today I needed a break from those paintings, so I thought I do a little still life. We have a lot of our Christmas decorations out now and I just can't resist using them for my props. I grabbed this little angel and quickly set up a little still life with it. I have to admit this was just the kind of diversion I needed today.

Little Angel © 

Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 6x6 inches on canvas panel. 
Medium: Original Oil Painting
Frame: none
Availability: Click here to bid.

Signed on front. Signed and dated on back.

A Little Christmas Cheer - An original oil painting by George De Chiara

A Little Christmas Cheer

 I've been looking forward to this time of the year for a few months now. Our oldest daughter, who's just 2 years old, is just starting to understand Christmas and the holidays in general. Almost every night before bed for the last few weeks, we've read her current favorite book, Santa Mouse. So it's been with great anticipation that I've been looking forward to getting the Christmas decorations out. Not only do my wife and I get the great joy of explaining all the traditions and mysteries to our daughter, I get a whole new set of subjects to paint for a few weeks.

 I only have a few step-by-step photos today because I scraped off my canvas about half way through the process. I didn't clean the canvas off; rather, I just scraped off as much of my previous painting as I could and then re-painted it. I did this for two reasons. First, I had started the painting on Tuesday and wasn't able to get back to it until today, so the paint had become a little tacky on the canvas. Plus, I wasn't happy with what I had painted and felt I could a better job if I scraped it off and started over.

This image was taken after my very quick block in. I'm really just scrubbing on a little bit of color in the general area things will go. Then I can use a little turpentine on a paper towel or even just a soaked brush to wipe off highlights and make small adjustments to some of the volumes.

Here, I'm a little more than half way through the painting. This was about the point I was at before I scraped off the previous painting and started over. The surprising thing is that it didn't take that long to get back to this point once I started over. There was still a little underpainting left on the canvas and I had already painted it once, which always seems to make things go fast when I do them again. You might also notice that a few of the ornaments that are blocked in didn't make it into the final painting. As I was finishing up the painting, I felt I really didn't need them in the painting, so I took them out.

A Little Christmas Cheer © 

Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 6x6 inches on canvas panel. 
Medium: Original Oil Painting
Frame: none
Availability: SOLD

Signed on front. Signed and dated on back.

Natalie's Pumpkin - Original oil painting by George De Chiara

Natalie's Pumpkin

 Last year, I painted one of these small pumpkins and named it after my then one year old daughter, so it only seemed fitting that I use my newest daughter's name for this year's small pumpkin painting. She's way too young (2 months old) to have actually picked out this pumpkin, but it's the smallest one we have this year and it seemed fitting to name it after her. What attracted me to this little one was the stem. I loved that it had that little stringy bit and that I could pose it almost any way I wanted to for my painting.  I had to be careful though; I accidentally broke off one of the little vines off of it while working out this arrangement.

Below is how today's painting came to life:

First off, this photograph will show you what I was looking at while painting this today. I think I may have had my camera a little low when I took this image, but it's close. You might notice that I simplified the bit of vine that's still on the pumpkin in the painting. In the end, I felt that was just too busy and went with a simpler version of what was there.

This image was taken at the end of my rough block-in. Yes, it's very rough at this stage, but I wanted to see if I could keep things a little looser in the beginning and still get the result I wanted. With that in mind, I felt this was all the block-in I needed to before getting started with more defined painting.

I started with the pumpkin with large simple shapes once my rough block-in had dried a little bit. First, I defined the light areas and then the shadow areas. From there, I kept refining it by building up the form as I went along. I only painted the foreground colors when I needed to define and correct the outer edges of the pumpkin.

Natalie's Pumpkin ©

Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 6x6 inches on canvas panel. 
Medium: Original Oil Painting
Frame: none
Availability: SOLD

Signed on front. Signed and dated on back.

Whadda We Do Now? - Original Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Whadda We Do Now?

 Is it too soon for Easter paintings? I hope not, because I'm in the mood to try a few this week. In this painting, I imagined that the chocolate bunnies knocked over the easter basket and got one of the eggs out, but once they got it, none of them had any idea what to do. I can just imagine the conversation they had with each other, "How do we get it out? There seems to be some kind of protective shield on it." I wonder what the peeps think of all this? Maybe we'll find out later this week.

 On a totally different note, I'm once again experimenting with different supports. This one is done on Centurion deluxe oil primed linen panels. So far my impression with these panels is very good. They are fairly inexpensive, but seem to perform as well, if not better, then their more expensive competition. The linen has a nice non-uniform pattern to it that takes paint very well. I also really like the way the paint seems to sit on top of the linen. I can wipe it off and get to a clean surface very easily. I'm going to continue to work with these panels for the next few weeks and see if I continue to enjoy them. I'll report back my thoughts on them.

Whadda We Do Now?

 
Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 5 inches x 7 inches on canvas panel. 
Medium: Original Oil Painting
Frame: none
Availability: Click here to bid.
Signed on front. Signed and dated on back.