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Guarding the Castle - Original Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Guarding the Castle

 Every now and again when I'm setting up a still life, I get these silly little ideas in my head about what could be happening at this moment in time if these object where actually alive. Today was one of those times. While setting up my still life, I had this idea that the little lemon was fending off the tomatoes who were trying to get past it. I'm not sure what triggered this thought, but I think it was the way the vine on the tomato looked. Then I thought, well, if the lemon is a guard he needs a shield, so I went outside to our lemon tree and picked a couple of leaves off of it. I figured the one leaf leaning on the lemon is his shield. The other ones are various weapons that the tomatoes knocked out of his hands. Once this story played out in my mind, the title was pretty easy to come up with.

Guarding the Castle

 
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.

Make Like A Tree... - Original Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Make Like A Tree...

 Last night, I was watching Richard Schmid's DVD "The Capital Collection." This is a wonderful DVD with artwork spanning most of Schmid's career. He narrates the DVD with stories and the history of each painting while throwing in a lot of interesting little tips along the way. During the presentation of one of his floral paintings, he talks about the importance of painting leaves and how they can make or break a painting. A few slides later, another floral painting come up, and, again, he mentions the how the leaves really make the painting. With this in mind, I thought I would practice painting leaves of various types and colors. I have to admit this is one area where I usually struggle.  Sometimes I try to get by with more of an impression of the leaves then an accurate rendering of them. By doing a painting of pretty much nothing but leaves, I was forced to concentrate on them and learned a great deal about painting them. 

Make Like A Tree...

 
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.

Out for the Day - Original Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Out for the Day

 The last few times I've gone out painting I meant to bring my camera to take a few progress pictures, but kept forgetting it at home. This time, I finally remembered to bring it. I thought I had taken a few more photos than I did, but I was a little pressed for time and didn't stop as often as I thought. Next time, I'll do better. In the mean time, here are the pictures I took with some explanation.

Step 1

This is the block in. Just a bit of Transparent Oxide Red and turps to work out where everything will go.

Step 2

 Now, I'm starting to add a bit of color and working mostly from the background forward. I try to keep my mixtures in the background a bit grayer in color. I also try to add some of the sky color into my color mixtures for the background to help give a sense of aerial perspective. This also helps the background to recede in space. As I move closer to the foreground, I let my paint mixtures become purer or less grey. I also try to have the foreground have more contrast in it, as this helps it come forward in the image. This also has the effect of pushing the background further back.

Step 3

 The painting is pretty much done at this point. I meant to take some more pictures, but I was running short on time and was so interested in painting, I forgot to stop. This gives a pretty good view of where I was standing when I painted this and what it looked like to the camera. Why am I standing so far away? Well, when I first arrived at this spot there where a few people fishing between me and my subject. I guess the early bird really does get the worm.

Out for the Day

 
Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size:6 inches x 8 inches on canvas panel. 
Medium: Original Oil Painting
Frame: none
Availability: Click here to bid.
Signed on front. Signed and dated on back.

Rocky Shore - Original Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Rocky Shore

 Yesterday I found this spot at Lake Mineral Wells while exploring and returned to paint it today. The lake has several little docks scattered around for fishing, or painting in my case. Almost all of them are somewhat hidden and require a short hike to get to. This one was no exception. It's about a 10 minute hike straight down the rocky hillside. This gave me a chance to try out my new backpack straps for my easel. The straps worked great and made traveling with a french easel much easier! Luckily, no one was fishing off of this pier so I was able to set up my equipment and paint in almost totally seclusion. The dock was just further enough out that I could turn around and get a nice view of the shore line.

 This painting is again one of the samples from RayMar. This one is the double primed linen. I liked it, but it really requires a heavy use of paint to cover the texture of the linen. It's also one of the more expensive panels they make. I haven't made up my mind whether I like this panel or not. It was enjoyable to paint on and easy to manipulate the paint on the canvas, but there was something that felt "off" to me. I just can't put my finger on it yet. I may have to try a few more of these before I make my mind up.

Rocky Shore

 
Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size:6 inches x 8 inches on canvas panel. 
Medium: Original Oil Painting
Frame: none
Availability: Click here to bid.
Signed on front. Signed and dated on back.

Spring Trio - Original Oil Painting by Geroge De Chiara

Spring Trio

 These are the same flowers I painted a few weeks ago. They are thriving so I decided to paint them one more time, only this time, I used them all together. How can I resist when they are growing so well? I did take them inside to the studio so I could arrange them a bit better and I'm glad I did. It took almost an hour to come up with something I was happy with. This really surprised me, but I hadn't consider when I planted them that I used almost the same pot for each one. This meant when I went to set them up they where all about the same height which makes for a terrible composition. In the end, I wound up having to put different size object under each pot to offset them a bit. I guess next spring I'll be sure to vary my pots a bit more when I do my planting. Live and learn....

This is another one of my RayMar panels from the sample pack. This one is the medium cotton canvas. I'm not sure I like this panel, but I can't really give a good reason other than this is the third painting I've painted on it. The first two were scraped off, so I'm not sure if it's the panel or me. For now, I'm blaming the panel. It's an easy target.

Spring Trio

 
Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size:6 inches x 8 inches on canvas panel. 
Medium: Original Oil Painting
Frame: none
Availability: Click here to bid.
Signed on front. Signed and dated on back.

South Texas Hills - Original Oil Painting by George De Chiara

South Texas Hills

I spent a few days in south Texas visiting with my in-laws recently. While I was there I managed to get out one day and paint this view of the Hill Country. Just outside of Hondo is a picnic area that is at the top of a hill and has this great view of the surrounding area. The sun stayed behind the clouds almost all day, right up to the time I put my brushes away. Natuarally after I was finished, it came out and shone for rest of the day! This painting was also exciting because I tested out one of my new RayMar smooth textured panels. My first impression with this panel is very positive. I love the way the paint seemed to just sit on top of this canvas which made fine lines and small strokes very easy to make. I also really liked the fact that I could paint with very thin paint and not see the pattern of the canvas nearly as easy as I can with some of the other brands I've used. In the next few days, I'm going to try the other RayMar samples. I'll report back what I think of these as I use them.

South Texas Hills

 
Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size:6 inches x 8 inches on canvas panel. 
Medium: Original Oil Painting
Frame: none
Availability: Click here to bid.
Signed on front. Signed and dated on back.

Weatherford Ranches - Original Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Weatherford Ranches

 I've wanted to paint a view like this since last summer. This is from the outskirts of Weatherford, which is full of ranches and valleys with these great views. I've always thought it would be a great lesson in aerial perspective. I've gone out a few times with the intention of painting these views, but I could never find a safe place to park and paint from. The roads in this part of Weatherford are strictly 2 lanes with no shoulder or spare room to park. They are also full of hair pin turns and hills leading to lots of blind spots. Today I finally found a place that I could pull off the road and have a great view to paint. I can't belive I didn't find this spot sooner since it's literally down the road from where my wife use to live. I could have walked there from her old house. When I started this painting I thought it would be a horizontal view, but I really wanted to include a lot of the sky since we had such great clouds today. After trying a few compositions horizontally I flipped my canvas vertically and everything just seemed to fall into place.

Weatherford Ranches

 
Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 11 inches x 14 inches on canvas panel. 
Medium: Original Oil Painting
Frame: none
Availability: Buy now through paypal ($330)
Signed on front. Signed and dated on back.

Waiting on Spring - Original Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Waiting on Spring

  I can almost always find something to paint around Lake Weatherford and seem to return there often. In the past, it's been the many hay bales in the farms that surround the outer edges of the lake or the boat docks or just the views of the water and shore line. When I went to paint their last week, I already knew this was the view I wanted to paint. I had stopped by the day before while on an errand and this image just stuck in my mind. All night, I thought about how I was going to paint this and had a very clear image in my head when I got there shortly after sun rise the next day. It was a cloudy morning, but when the sun came through it had this wonderful light about it that really made these trees come alive with color.

Waiting on Spring

 
Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 11 inches x 14 inches on canvas panel. 
Medium: Original Oil Painting
Frame: none
Availability: Buy now through paypal ($330)
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.