Blog

Valentine Memories - Original Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Valentine Memories

 When I set up this still life, I made sure to give myself plenty of time to get things the way I wanted. It's amazing how much of a difference that makes for me. I feel more relaxed when painting and generally don't run into as many surprises half way through the painting. I also did a fairly detailed under painting for this one before laying in any color. I don't always do this; sometimes I just make some general marks about where things will go. I'm not sure which method I prefer. The truth is I use which ever one I feel is the best choice at the time.  If you would like to see complete step by step pictures of this painting in progress with complete explanations, sign up for my free newsletter at http://georgedechiara.com/email-newsletter. The next issue will come out at the end of the week.

Valentine Memories

 
Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 11 inches x 14 inches on canvas panel. 
Medium: Original Oil Painting
Frame: none
Availability: SOLD
Initialed on front. Signed and dated on back.

Things I learned this week (Jan 31,2011)

Here's the second installment of things I learned this week in the studio. I was a little smarter this week with writing them down as I ran across them, which makes this much easier to do. I did a lot of Valentine's Day themed pictures this week with lots and lots of hearts. I think I'll mix it up a bit more this week.

- Sleep. I just can't paint well when I can hardly keep my eyes open. I need to make sure to get enough rest at night and paint when I'm fresh.

- I noticed that I'm in the zone when I'm just painting and no longer really thinking about what I'm doing. The paint is just going on the canvas. Of course that's also the moment I realize that I was in the zone, which pretty much ends it. How did I get into the zone in the first place? That's really the question.

- When drawing elliptical shapes don't forget to identify where the outer most points are, left, right, front and back. Then, use short angled straight lines to connect them. Leave the rounding off till the very end (if at all).

- I'm always looking for faster ways to do some of the repetitive tasks I need to do. One of those things is setting up my easel to hold the painting I need to photograph. I use to take an architectural triangle, which has a 90 degree angle on it, and use it to make sure the back of my easel is square. This helps to make sure that the painting and camera are both square to each other so the painting isn't skewed in the picture. Well, I finally realized that I could just mark the place on my easel where it's square and not measure it each time.  This cuts the set up time in half.

- It's very difficult to paint light (near white) shapes over Cadmium Red without getting some of it into the mixture. I think next time I need to do this, I'll paint the white shapes first and then paint in the red. Cadmium red is such a strong color that even a little of it in a near white mixture will turn it pink in no time.

Well, that's it for this week. I'm looking forward to getting back in the studio tomorrow and get going on some new paintings. Stay tuned...

Sweet Hearts - Original Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Sweet Hearts

 Here is another painting I did using those small candy hearts. This time I thought I'd do more with the hearts themselves, so I took out the plate and box that I used yesterday. There's a little piece of glass under the candy that gives just a slight reflection. I like to do this from time to time. The reflections give an interesting little hint of color to the piece of paper under the glass. 

 My wife is clamoring for a painting like this for Valentine's Day, so I think I am on to something here.

Sweet Hearts

 
Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 3 inches x 5 inches on canvas panel. 
Medium: Original Oil Painting
Frame: none
Availability: Click here to go to eBay auction.
Initialed on front. Signed and dated on back.

Be Mine - Original Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Be Mine

 Here's another one in my Valentine series. This time it's those hard little hearts with the little sayings on them. I haven't had these since I was a kid and I have to say the flavor has improved a lot since then. The little sayings, however, have not. I seem to remember almost all of them saying be mine, but I had to look through almost the whole box to find one that actually said it. Of course I found a few defective ones that I needed to eat to get rid of. I don't want those defects messing up my arrangements.

Be Mine

 
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 go to eBay auction.
Initialed on front. Signed and dated on back.

Chocolate Hearts - Original Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Chocolate Hearts

 It seems like we just get done with Christmas and the New Year when Valentine's day comes around. I guess it doesn't help that the store have had Valentine's Day gifts out now since right after Christmas. Well, today I finally went down the "seasonal" aisle at the grocery store and picked up a few things to try painting. I bought a bag of chocolates, a box of those candy conversational hearts, and a nice little heart shaped plate. I hope over the next few days to do several small paintings with these objects and maybe one larger piece with some of these things in it. If you're looking for a unique, one of a kind Valentine's gift this year, why not give the gift of an original piece of art? No calories and your loved one can enjoy it for years to come.

Chocolate Hearts

 
Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 3 inches x 5 inches on canvas panel. 
Medium: Original Oil Painting
Frame: none
Availability: SOLD
Initialed on front. Signed and dated on back.

Things I learned this week (Jan 24,2011)

Since starting this blog, I am noticing little shortcuts and having lightbulb moments, but they aren't quite making it to post.  Sometimes, the new idea seems painfully obvious, but when put together with the other things, it becomes much more.  Other times it's a new twist on my observations, like noticing there's more color in a shadow pattern than I had thought.   As the song goes, "Sometimes you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right." So I started thinking that maybe some of these things would benefit others. This lead to what I hope will be a new addition to my blog: Things I learned this week. Here's my short list for this week.

• The lights I bought to photograph my artwork actually work well if all the other lights in the studio are off. Yes, off. Just like it says in most of the articles I've read about photographing your artwork...Duh! Okay, this one might actually make a good post on its own, but for now this will have to do. If you have photography lights, use them and only them when photographing your artwork.

• When working with oils, sometimes it's better to cut my losses and just wipe off the area of my painting that isn't working.
• Always ask yourself: Are you painting what you see or what you want to see? I noticed I was doing the latter a lot more than I thought. When I caught myself and stopped, I think my painting started coming out better almost immediately.
• We have 4 dates this year that are all 1's (1/1/11, 1/11/11, 11/1/11 and 11/11/11). I believe this is the only time in our lifetimes that this happens. I can't think of any other year where you get 4 dates of all the same digit.
• It's never a good idea to play Scrabble with an english professor (my wife). I've never won a single game we've played.

 I must confess when I came up with this idea, I had a few other things to share. I guess I need to keep track of these things as they happen. What have you learned? Care to share...?

Small Coffee Cup - Original Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Small Coffee Cup

 I thought today I would concentrate on painting elliptical shapes and purposely set up this still life with as many round objects as possible. Pretty much everything in it is elliptical. I'm not sure why I do these things to myself since these types of shapes give me the most trouble. I guess it's because I know it's the only way I can improve on my drawing of these types of things.  I do have to admit that I was trying so hard to get the ellipses correct that I let some of my size measurements get away from me. The coffee cup, for example, came out rather small compared to its real life-size. Oops, is that revealing too much?

Small Coffee Cup

 
Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 3 inches x 5 inches on canvas panel. 
Medium: Original Oil Painting
Frame: none
Availability: SOLD
Initialed on front. Signed and dated on back.

5 Till 1 - Original Oil Painting by George De Chiara

5 Till 1

 I had a lot of fun setting up this still life. For one thing, it came together pretty quickly considering how many objects are in it. I was able to use meaningful objects from around the house, like the little green books in the background. These are my daughter's little books, which are classics I think we all had at one point or another - The Tale of Peter Rabbit, The Tale of Benjamin Bunny and The Tale of Tom Kitten. The dried flower arrangement is from my wife's baby shower that were made by her mother and grandmother on that day. Finally, the watch was my father's, which was a gift from my mother to him on his 21st birthday. They gave it to me a few years ago. Amazingly, it still runs to this day! Laying brushstrokes went pretty smoothly, for the most part. I did have to wipe a few parts off and re-paint them, but I was really surprised how much easier (and better) the second attempts came out. Normally I really struggle when I have to wipe off a part of the painting and redo it. It sometimes feels like failure, but I guess its just a part of painting. There's no reason to work in oils if I'm not going to take advantage of one of it's biggest benefits - anything is fixable!

5 Till 1

 
Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 8 inches x 16 inches on canvas panel. 
Medium: Original Oil Painting
Frame: none
Availability: Contact me to purchase this painting.
Signed on front. Signed and dated on back.

Jitterbug - Original Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Jitterbug

It's been a while since I painted some of my fishing lures. There's something about them that I really enjoy painting. Maybe it's because I don't get to fish much, but by looking through my tackle box for lures to paint, I get to think about the fish I've caught using them. I make some mental plans when to use this lure or that one again. The downside to rummaging thought the tackle box is I want to run out the store and buy a bunch of new lures since I never feel like I have enough. Of course, the last time I did this I also had to buy another tackle box since my main one will not hold anymore. Well, at least I should have plenty of material to choose from for my paintings even I don't get to use them in the water as much I would like to.

Jitterbug

 
Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 3 inches x 5 inches on canvas panel. 
Medium: Original Oil Painting
Frame: none
Availability: Click here to go to ebay auction.
Initialed on front. Signed and dated on back.

A Good Match - Original Oil Painting by George De Chiara

A Good Match

 I started this painting at the end of last week, but didn't finish until today. In the original set up, I had another teacup where the glasses are, but the placement wasn't working for me. To make matter worse, the first time I painted it (yes, I painted it twice), the colors weren't right.  So I scraped that off and painted it once more with slightly better results, but still, it didn't seem right. Over the weekend, I turned it over in my mind, trying to figure out what was going wrong.  Slowly, I came to the realization that not only was the cup still not painted well, it simply didn't fit. It needed something else, something that would help lead the eye into and around the painting.  A pair of glasses, maybe? Bingo! I made the switch and wiped off that dang teacup one last time. That's one of the great things about working in oils over just about any other medium, you can make huge changes without totally starting over.

A Good Match

 
Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 11 inches x 14 inches on canvas panel. 
Medium: Original Oil Painting
Frame: none
Availability: Contact me to purchase this painting.
Signed on front. Signed and dated on back.

Heirlooms and Oranges - Original Painting by George De Chiara

Heirlooms and Oranges

 This is one of the commission pieces I finished right before the holidays, but didn't have a chance to post. Several items in the still life were from my client.  She sent the two rings and the rug hanging in the background, and then requested to use sheet music in the set up, if at all possible. I really enjoy these types of challenges to work in the objects someone wants to see in a painting while still retaining my vision. It's a great exercise, as it forces me to think of new ways to put these objects together.  I am very happy to say that she was thrilled with the result and gave it as gift to a relative.  I was even more gratified when she told my wife that the gift was so appreciated that she got the nicest thank you note of her life after Christmas.

Heirlooms and Oranges

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

The Trio - Original Painting by George De Chiara

The Trio

 Wel, I hope this week goes better than the last one. I had fully intended to paint last week, but just couldn't seem to find the needed time.  The was largely because my wife and I tried to catch up on all the things we let slide while on vacation during the holidays. The good thing is that we are finally all caught up and I look forward to spending some much needed time in the studio this week. 

 I had started to paint these apples last week when I had a little time, but wasn't happy with my results so I wiped my canvas.  They were still set up in my still life box, though, so I thought I'd try them one more time today. I knew the mistakes I made last time, like getting into to much detail too fast and muddying the colors, so I was careful to avoid those same pitfalls this time. This time I made sure I blocked everything in first, then slowly worked in the detail I wanted.  Additionally, I kept my colors clean along with my palette, which really helps to keep things from getting too muddy.

The Trio

 
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 go to ebay auction.
Initialed on front. Signed and dated on back.

Pair of Pears - Original Painting by George De Chiara

Pair of Pears

 I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. I know we did. Now that it's all over I'm looking forward to getting back in the studio and paint again. With all of the craziness of the holidays, I have hardly had a chance to pick up my brushes in the last 2 weeks, so it felt really good to get a few hours of painting time today. I knew I'd be a little rusty so I tried to set up a simple, yet interesting still life to paint from. Some of the ellipses gave me problems as I worked the rust off, but over all I'm pretty happy with the results. I was fully expecting to have nothing to show for the day and that I'd have to wipe of off and start again tomorrow. These are the kind of surprises I like!

 I have a bunch of updates I want to try and get done this week to the web site and blog. There are a few of the paintings I did right before Christmas that I haven't blogged about yet, as well as a few ideas I have for other types of blog posts, so be sure to check back often.

Pair of Pears

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