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Stormy Seas - An Original 8 x 10 Seascape Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Stormy Seas

 I spent the morning working on a new commission piece and got to a point where I wanted it to dry before continuing. With a few hours left in the day, I thought I'd do one more painting today, just for fun! What could be more fun than trying to paint stormy seas crashing over rocks? I love the challenge of capturing the atmosphere in this piece with the horizon almost totally blending into the sea when they meet. The waves rolling in and the rocks forcing the water to break is also stimulating to paint. The added bonus of doing this piece was I got to work on mixing grey colors, which is one of the areas I really want to work on. Mixing a good grey can be a real challenge. I don't want colorless greys, I want greys that are warm and cool and have some color to them, just not saturated. Is that too much to ask for? I think not, but it does take some work to achieve. 

Stormy Seas © 

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.

White Rock Lake Boat Houses - A New Original 9x12 Plein Air Oil Painting by George De Chiara

White Rock Lake Boat Houses

A few weeks ago, I was in Dallas dropping off my paintings for the Artist of Texas show at the Dutch Gallery. Since the gallery isn't very far from White Rock Lake, I brought along my painting gear with the hopes of getting in some painting. As luck would have it, we had  a beautiful sunny day with a nice breeze. After I dropped off my paintings, I scouted out a few different locations around the lake and felt this view would make the best painting for what I was after. In this case, I really wanted to include some buildings and lots of water. What a perfect fit! I found a quiet place to set up and painted undisturbed for a few hours. I had completed the painting and started to pack up my gear when I decided that I didn't like the way the water and foreground had turned out. It just lacked any design and added very little to the overall painting so I wiped it off. The problem was I wasn't sure how to fix these issues, so I headed home put the painting up in a place in the studio where I could see it easily and spent the next few weeks thinking about how to handle the water. This is what the painting looked like at that time:

In my mind I tried out several different ideas for the water. I thought about adding a few boats to the foreground, which was something that was originally in the scene. I thought about making the water very reflective and using the cloud pattern to creat interest. I thought about many different way to handle this, then finally I had the idea to use the reflection of the sky in wake of a passing boat to lead the eye back into the painting. Something akin to the country drive way leading you to the barn, but,in this case, on water. So in the end, this painting became a hybrid, about half of it was done plein air and the other half in the studio, but really in the end the important thing is I came away with a painting I'm happy with. 

White Rock Lake Boat Houses © 

Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 9x12 inches on canvas panel.  
Medium: Original Oil Painting 
Frame: none
Availability: Available

Signed on front. Signed and dated on back.

Beach House - An original 5x7 landscape oil painting by George De Chiara

Beach House

This is a little study for an upcoming commission I have. I like to do these little paintings to work out any potential issues I might run into with the commission painting first. In this case, I'm working on painting a beach house and sand dunes with grass. In the final painting, the house will be a smaller element, but I wanted to work it out nonetheless. 

 I took a few progress pictures as I was working. This first image is how I started the painting. You can see I did just a few rough but accurate, guide lines of where all the elements will be. I did a little more drawing on the house, since I wanted to get the perspective correct. Everything else is just a guide as to where different elements will start and stop. I'm planning on doing a lot of very direct painting so having a good guide like this is quite helpful. Now I'm free to lay down thick, juicy color and know I'm putting it in the right place.

In the next photo, you can see how my direct painting method works. I'm starting with the sky, but that's just my preference. With every brush stroke, I'm trying to lay down finished color and drawing. The edges will need to be adjusted with another brush stroke or two. There's really no way to avoid that, other than not adjusting the edges, which I don't think is a good idea.You can see I'm painting a little over the guide lines I laid out at this stage. The background will be trees and having some of the sky color behind them will help give the top of the trees a little air. One tip though, keep the paint very thin where it overlaps. This way the next color doesn't change too much when it's applied over the first color. This can be a real problem with skies since the sky is normally a light value and the next color is usually a darker value. 

Now I just continue working down the canvas. I like this approach because by starting at the top and working my way down I am also, for the most part, working from background to foreground. This really helps with this direct painting method, since the last stroke I put on is most likely suppose to be in front of the one it's over. With thick paint, I always think of the thicker brush stroke being in front of the thinner one. 

In this last photo (above), I'm about half way through the painting. You can see how I was able to blend the trees with the sky and start to work some of that color down towards the sand. The house is started here as well. From here it's a matter of working out the sand and grass in the foreground and finishing up the house. I have to admit I was a little nervous about doing the sand and grass, but once I got into it, I really enjoyed it. I started by laying in some color for the grass and let the white of the canvas be the sand. Once I had worked out the grass parts, I then added some color for the sand. I used this color to not only paint the sand, but to correct and adjust some of the grassy patches I made. Below is the final painting.

Beach House © 

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.

Cool Breeze - An original 7x5 landscape oil painting by George De Chiara

Cool Breese

 Whenever I start a painting, I try to not repeat myself. That is, I try to approach each painting with a fresh approach and forget any previous attempts at painting a similar subject. By doing this, or rather by trying to do this, I hope to be able to honestly respond to the subject I am painting, whether it's a still life or landscape or any other subject matter. Sometimes, when I'm very lucky, I'm actually able to achieve this and paint something entirely new to me. This is what happened today, when I really let go of all previous ways I would usually begin and just started painting. I did do the faintest of layout lines just to work out the composition, but after that I tried to make every brush stroke one that would be visible in the final painting. Laying down thick, juicy brush strokes of color, one on top of the other while building up form and texture as I went along, I let my brush strokes be more visible and added in lots of broken color. In short, I had a blast! Time whizzed by and before I knew it I had completed this little painting. I only wish I had thought to stop long enough to take a few progress pictures. I guess that will have to wait till next time.

Cool Breeze © 

Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 7x5 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.

Day 28 of the 50 Day painting challenge - What's That? - by George De Chiara

What's That?

 On one of our trips to the Texas Gulf Coast, my wife and I stopped by a small dock that offers chartered fishing trips just to nose around.  We were looking for some pelicans to take pictures of and this spot had a few. While I was busy photographing them, one of the charter boats came in and was followed very intently by a pod of pelicans and flocks of seagulls. At first I wasn't sure why these birds followed the fishing boat back into harbor, but then they started cleaning the day's catch and it all made sense. The birds knew that fishermen would throw the fish inners into the water for them where they would swoop into the water after the easy meal. It was a sight to be seen, and I quickly snapped off picture after picture. At one point, I glanced up at the top of the little cleaning shack and noticed the entire roof line was covered in gulls. I was struck by the way they all looked lined up wing to wing, and how they seemed to lean over the edge to watch the fishermen as they worked.

This is my block in today, which is little different then my usual block in. For today's painting, I started by giving the canvas a wash of Transparent Oxide Red with a little Terra Rosa last night. Then this morning I started by taking a paper towel dipped in a little turpentine and wiped out the lighter areas you see in this image.

Since the background color is dry from the night before, I can start to paint over it with thicker paint. Once I have the first seagull worked out a bit, I can start to make better decisions with the other two. You can see in this image how I've made a few indications where the other two will be. I've also drawn in a few important lines in the structure they are standing on. I wanted to make sure I had some of that detail worked out too before getting too far along on the painting.

I continued to work out from the first seagull towards the edge of the canvas, trying to tighten up the placement of my shapes, colors and edges.  I wanted to keep the edges of the gulls loose to mimic the wind going through their feathers. I'm hoping this will help give the painting some movement in the end.

At the time this image was taken, I was just about done the the seagulls. I'll make a some small adjustments to their beaks, but I have mostly completed them and need to concentrate on getting the rest of the painting finished up. The background needs a lot of work at this stage, so that's where I spent my time working.

The finished painting.

What's That?

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.

Day 13 of the 50 Day painting challenge - Beach Reflections - by George De Chiara

Beach Reflections

 Today, I still felt inspired to paint more water, reflections and the beach, so I again turned to my photo reference from Mustang Island. This painting actually has the boat from yesterday in it. I'm just pulled back a bit so I can also paint the catamaran next to it. To mix things up a bit today, I used my palette knife for a large portion of this painting. I'm slowly getting better with my palette knife and I can control it much better these days. Having used it to paint my color charts last month, the practice is really paying off now. The knife tends to put the paint on very thick, which is one of the nice things about using it. The colors mix in a very unique way that can only be achieved with a knife. When I needed to use a brush, I made sure to load it up with thick paint too so the style would match.

Here's how today's painting came to life:

Here's my initial wash of color. I did this with a brush loaded with very thin paint. I also used a paper towel to wipe out a few lighter areas. I just can't think of any way to do this with a pallete knife, and, to tell the truth, I'm not sure I'd want to. At this stage, I want to be loose and free to make changes. The pallete knife would put down too much paint to allow for this.

Now that I'm happy with my block in, I can pick up my pallete knife and start to lay in thicker color. My technique with the knife differs a bit from the brush. When painting with the brush, I tend to start with one object and move from the center out as I paint.  With the knife, I'm working methodically, from the top down. I find this helps me keep the colors clean since I'm mostly working into a dry area all the time my knife doesn't pick up any unwanted color.

I'm continuing to work down towards the bottom of the painting. The reflections are particularly fun to paint with the pallete knife. I lay in lots of thick color and then I can take a brush and blend the reflections into the water. With such thick paint, it's almost like sculpting!

Now, I'm working my way back the other catamaran. At this point, I'm using a brush and knife equally. I did a lot of the beach with a brush loaded with thick paint. Then, I used the palette knife to put in a few details and spots of color. I'll also use it to blend the paint that's already on the canvas. With a clean knife, I'll lightly hit the high spots and blend them with the paint underneath.

The finished painting.

Beach Reflections

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.

Day 12 of the 50 Day painting challenge - Beached Catamaran - by George De Chiara

Beached Catamaran

Yesterday's painting got me thinking about painting more water, specifically reflections in the water. I'm not sure why, but I really enjoy painting the reflections. There's something about the symmetry that puts my mind at ease. I often find myself getting lost in thought while painting them and when I finally look up, hours have passed and huge portions of my painting are done. This is one of the true joys of painting for me, that zen-like state where you can lose track of everything and just relax. Some people call it the painter's high and I've talked to a lot of artists that have experienced this. There's a long thread on this topic on Fine Art Views blog. Here's a link to it. Have you ever experienced this? Care to share your story?

 For this painting, I had to use one of my photo references from Mustang Island. We were there over Memorial Day weekend last year and the beaches were filled with people, boats, and tents of all kinds. On one of the many walks my wife and I took along the shore, we ran across a few catamaran's on the beach.  The reflections on the wet sand and lapping water just sparkled with color. I knew one day these would make for a fun painting and today was one of those days!

This is the photograph I'm working from. I edited the figures in the background out since I didn't feel like they added anything to the painting. Other than, that I tried to stay pretty true to the image.

This is my quick block in. I mostly used some thinned down Ultramarine Blue and Yellow Ochre to block in the water and sand color. Then I took a paper towel dipped in turpentine and wiped out the lighter areas. With the dry portion of the paper towel, I can mix the wet color and wipe it down a little to get a mid-tone. The lower right corner is a good example of this.

Once I let my block in stage dry for a few minutes, I can start to build up my color and refine the painting. I'm starting with the background, since I want those colors to have a little more gray in them so that they recede into the distance. I find it easier to do this by starting with those grayer colors and mixing cleaner color as I get closer to the foreground. This gives me something against which to judge the rest of my color mixtures.

Remember what I said in the beginning of this blog about getting lost in painting the water? That's exactly what happened right after I took this picture, so this is the last image in my step-by-step pictures. I felt once I had gotten to this point I really wanted to start to get the reflection going, since so much of the painting is a reflection. I find it helpful to paint both the reflection and the object being reflected around the same time. This way I can use some of the same color mixtures, tinted slightly with the water or sand color, for the reflections.

The finished painting.

Beached Catamaran

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.

Day 7 of the 50 Day painting challenge - You Think That Means Me? - by George De Chiara

You Think That Means Me?

 Day 7 of my painting challenge. Wow, this first week has flown by! I've wanted to paint this picture for some time. It's from a photograph I took last year while my wife and I where on vacation in Corpus Christi. One day, we stopped at one of the little fishing piers scattered around the bay side of the gulf to do some exploring when I spotted this seagull sitting on top of this gate. I like the way the scene looked with him on the gate and the Keep Out sign, so I got out my camera to take a picture of it. I couldn't believe it when he looked down. It looked like he was actually reading the sign. I quickly snapped off as many photographs as I could to capture this. Luckily for me, my camera will take just over 3 pictures a second. When I started thinking about what I was going to paint today, I remembered this day and immediately found my photo reference from it. The only thing I really had to do was move the sign up so everything fit into this 6x6 inch canvas.

Here's how the painting came together.

Here's the photo reference I used while painting today. You can see I simplified the background and moved the seagull over just a little. I moved the sign up in photoShop.

At this point, I've painted for just a few minutes. I'm mostly using a paper towel to wipe out where I want to put the seagull and the other larger shapes, like the sign and sky. The bit of paint that is on the canvas at this point is thinned out with turpentine.

Once I had the placement worked out, I went back with a bit of Transparent Oxide Red and Viridian and made a bit more of a line drawing. This helps me finalize where things are going to be. It also lets me lay down the darks and lights of the seagull a little easier, since I have a pretty good idea where they are now. I also know where to stop painting the background colors, so I'm not struggling trying to put the lights of the bird over them. This helps me keep my colors clean.

Here, I've painted most of the sky and background. I've also carried a lot of color into the foreground. I'm careful to not get too much paint into the lighter areas of the seagull. I don't mind as much with the dark areas since they will be a darker value than what's there and I shouldn't have any trouble covering them up. If I do think I've got too much paint there, I can always take my palette knife and wipe some of it off.

This is how I started the seagull's body. I started with the average dark value and painted that in. Then, I went back into that color with a darker value for the tail and shadows and a lighter value for the areas that were getting hit by the sun. I repeated this process for the lighter front half of the bird. I think I need to get a head on this guy next. It just looks weird at this point.

Ah, that's better. Now that this little guy has a head and feet he's really coming along. As I work on the seagull, I'm also starting to complete the background colors and the water. I'm on the home stretch now!

And here the finished painting one more time.

You Think That Means Me?

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.

Heron Flats - Aransas National Wildlife Refuge - Original Painting by George De Chiara

Heron Flats - Aransas National Wildlife Refuge

Last week, as a part of our yearly trip to the Texas Gulf Coast, my wife and I went to Aransas National Wildlife Refuge for the day. Even though it was extremely overcast, we had a wonderful time watching all the birds and wildlife. We tried out our new binoculars, which has opened whole new discussion on acquiring more powerful camera lenses. For the first time for both of us,we saw nine alligators in the wild. Luckily, most of them seemed to be content with soaking in the water or sunning themselves on the shore rather than bother us, but it was still a little unnerving to realize the only thing between you and the alligator was some tall grass along the shore. It had rained in the morning and stayed cloudy most of the day, which made for great weather to be outside. I took a few photographs of this spot called Heron Flats after spending a great deal of time studying the landscape because I knew I wanted to do a painting of this area. I really liked the hazy look the rain and clouds produced while we where there, so that's the feeling I attempted to evoke. When we came home, I combined several of my reference photos together in order to create the water pattern running through the painting.

 I think I'm going to have to take a new photo of this one once the paint dries a bit. This picture seems to have a lot of glare on it.

 I've updated the image with one that has less glare on it now.

Heron Flats - Aransas National Wildlife Refuge

 
Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 9 inches x 12 inches on canvas panel. 
Medium: Original Oil Painting
Frame: none
Availability: Click here to bid.
Signed on front. Signed and dated on back.

American Beauty - Original Oil Painting by George De Chiara

American Beauty

 I almost always have a list of what I want to work on with my painting. Some things on the list are simple objects or items, like trees, water reflections, skies and clouds, and others are more complex, like composition, color harmony, and working with gray colors. Every painting I do is an attempt to solve or work on one or more of these things. It's a never-ending list because as some things come off the list, others go on. There's always the desire to paint something better than I've done it before. The painting posted today is an example of working off of my list.

With this painting, I really wanted to work on sky and clouds, so I looked through some of my photo reference from a trip my wife and I took to Port Aransas. I remember the clouds being very full on this trip, which is perfect for my goals. After an hour or so of looking at my reference, I settled on 2 images, one for the sky and one for the boat and water. After working on a few thumbnail images to work out my composition and figuring out how to combine my images, it was time to paint.  I gave myself two days to work on this painting for a couple of reasons.  Primarily, I spent the whole morning looking at images and doing thumbnails so I didn't think I could finish it in one afternoon.  I was really able to relax and paint slowly, which was a prime advantage of my timeline. At the end of the day, I was a little surprised to see that it was just about done. The only thing left to do today was to finish the water, add the masting to the boat, and make a few corrections to yesterday's work.

American Beauty

 
Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 9 inches x 12 inches on canvas panel. 
Medium: Original Oil Painting
Frame: none
Availability: Click here to bid.
Signed on front. Signed and dated on back.

Last Light - Original Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Last Light

Recently, I was sick for a few days and unable to paint. While laying in bed, I had some time to look at a watercolor painting of this subject that I have hanging in the bedroom. I remember when I painted the watercolor how much I liked it, but after spending some time looking at it again, I felt I wanted to give it another try. I usually don't like to paint the same thing over again, so this time I changed the proportion of the canvas and the medium. I also wanted to get the time of day a little more accurate to my reference photo, which I took at the end of the day when there was just a little light left as the sun sunk below the horizon. I knew I wanted to make this a high key painting and that meant a lot of white paint and very subtle color mixtures. Even with this in mind I was surprised at how much white paint I used. It seemed like every hour or so I had to squeeze out more white paint. It really turned out to be a great exercise in mixing lots of high key colors.

Last Light

 
Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 8 inches x 16 inches on canvas panel. 
Medium: Original Oil Painting
Frame: none
Availability: Buy now through paypal ($275)
Signed on front. Signed and dated on back.

Daily Painting - Some Weather, Huh?

Some Weather, Huh?

 The weather here in Texas has been so brutally hot these last few weeks, I couldn't help but think of the beach. Today topped out to 115 degrees, according to my car's thermometer and I think this has been the 22nd out of 23 days that we've topped 100.  The breeziness of the coast would be very welcome now.  That reminded me of the awesome shorebird sanctuary close to the Texas A&M Corpus Christi campus my wife and I visited over our anniversary.  It was a hot, quiet place teeming with brown and white pelicans, egrets, and, more excitingly,Roseate spoonbills.  Unfortunately, I couldn't get a good reference photo of the spoonbills because they were just too far away.  These seagulls were much more bold and I think they knew they were safe there enjoying that hot day at the beach. There they were, just sitting in the water without a care in the world About half way through painting this I thought, these seagulls must occasionally say to each "Some weather we're having, huh?", which is were the title came from.

Daily Painting - Enjoying the Breeze

Enjoying The Breeze

 
I often wonder what the seagulls think about when they are standing on the beach. Is it, "Fish again, yuk..." or "Is that a hot dog floating in the water?" you just can't ever tell for sure. I think Pixar might have got it right in "Finding Nemo" when all the seagulls could say was "Mine!", I really think they think all of the food they see is theirs.

 This one sure was fun to paint. I tried a slightly different method with this one; I kept my paint thin for as long as possible. Slowly building up to opaque thinker paint. In fact there are a lot of areas when the paint never became opaque, like in the lights and mid tones on the seagulls body and in the foreground. I also tried to keep the darks transparent by thinning them out with a little mineral spirits. I really like this approach and want to explore it more this week.

 

Daily Painting - Afternoon Break

Afternoon Break

 While out collecting reference, I came across a group of brown pelicans sitting on top of some pylons. Most of them where sleeping with their heads resting on their backs.  I don't find that a very attractive way to paint them; they look like a  ball of feathers. There was this one guy just sitting on his pylon watching the world go by, or maybe he was just waiting for the boats to come back. It's so hard to tell, pelican expressions are subtle at best. Either way, I snapped a few photos of him. I had hoped the sun would come out before he flew off, but it never did. I kind of glad it didn't now because I had a lot fun painting the subtle light in the scene.  

 

Daily Painting - Fishing Derby

Fishing Derby

  Seagulls are constantly looking for food it seems like. No wonder why they are so hungry, all the searching is bound to work up an appetite! I photographed these guys over Memorial Day weekend in Corpus Christi. The beaches were very crowded and the seagulls spent most of there time flying overhead, occasionally diving into the gulf to snag a fish swimming too close the top of the water. They would only land when they needed a break or when they saw some food they could snap up. I remember being a little disappointed since I really wanted to get some good reference of seagulls on the beach for a few paintings I want to do. Looking back over my reference now I think have what I need.

Daily Painting - Catch Of The Day

Catch Of The Day

 
I called this one Catch Of The Day because these pelicans would sit in the water waiting for the fisherman on shore who was cleaning fish to throw his discards to them and they would catch it.It was a lot of fun to watch. I took a few photographs of the whole thing thinking it would make a good painting. This was painted from one of those photos.

 

Daily Paintings - Aransas Bay Dock

Aransas Bay Dock

 
Another one from Port Aransas (TX). All of the fishing boats where out when I took my reference photos of this building. I really liked the long shadows the sun was casting from the overhang on the roof and how they contrasted against the white of the building.

 If I could have just one brush stroke back with this painting it would be the one that made that front most post. I started the stroke and then realized mid way through it that I didn't know where it was going to end. I had originally thought it would be in the back ground and just sort of end in the back ground trees, but I really wanted to tie it to the building in the foreground so I carried the stroke further down the paper. That's when I realized I didn't have any good spot to end the pole. I just can't look at this and shake my head. How I wish I had thought that though before hand because other then that silly pole I really liked this one.

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 - Docked At Seadrift (TX)

Docked At Seadrift (TX)

 
I actually combined 2 different photo references I took to create this so don't go looking for where this is! The buildings are from Port Aransas, TX and the boats are from Seadrift, TX. It was fun to try, but I really had to pay attention to which reference I was looking at because the lighting was different in each one.

 I chose this because I had a few ideas for approaching skies that I wanted to try out. I have felt that my skies where a little weak in some of my paintings and needed some work. I'm not sure that I got there with this piece, but you never do. It takes practice, lots and lots of practice. That's really one of the biggest advantages of painting daily. Everyday you get to practice!