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River's Edge - An Original 8 x 8 Plein Air Landscape Oil Painting by George De Chiara

River's Edge

 I spent this past weekend in the Hill Country of Texas. The first few days were spent painting in and around Kerrville, and, then on Saturday, it was off to Fredericksburg for the Oil Painters Of America Exhibition for some of the most impressive representational art I've seen. What a wonderful weekend! This painting was done in Kerrville at Louise B. Hayes Park. This is a huge park with lot of access to the river. I found this little spot just a few feet up the river from where the locals swam. Here the water was a little more shallow and full of rocks, which is what attracted me to this spot. I got here just when the sun was starting to set behind me and it gave the scene a very soft light. 

River's Edge © 

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.

Wood Duck - A New Original 10 x 8 Landscape Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Wood Duck

We had a few days of rain in our forecast, so before the weather turned, I went down to the lake not far from our house to take some reference photos just in case I was stuck in the studio. Normally, this lake is full of ducks, geese and all type of water fowl, but on this trip there was just a hand full of mallards playing in the water. None the less, I began to take a few photographs of them because I was in the mood to paint some ducks anyway. While I was taking my pictures, someone arrived at the lake with a big bag of bread and began to feed the ducks. Well, it didn't take long for all the ducks and birds around the lake to start making their way towards the free lunch. Slowly, but surely, more and more ducks started to appear and that's when I spotted this one wood duck swimming with a small group of mallards. I couldn't believe my luck! I love the distinct markings on this bird and knew I'd want to paint him if I could get a good reference image of him. That proved to be the tricky part. It seems this little duck is camera-shy. It took almost 30 minutes of waiting for him to swim close enough by me so I could get a good image of him, but it was worth the wait. He settled right in front of me for almost 5 minutes! I must have snapped about 50 pictures of him during that time. What a treat!

Wood Duck © 

Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 10x8 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.

Cloud Puff - A New Original 8 x 10 Plein Air Landscape Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Cloud Puff

 Last year, while out on a drive, I discovered this little park. There's not really all that much there. Just a few sidewalks, a lot of open fields and trees and a very tiny pond. I remember going there once to paint, but didn't actually produce a painting. Sometimes that happens when plein air painting. I go somewhere, haul my gear in and never find anything to paint. After that, I sort of forgot about this place until I was looking at google maps for potential painting locations. For what ever reason, it showed promise again so I decided to give it another chance. This time I noticed this view of the field around the pond and the sky with just this one tiny puffy cloud. I loved the idea of painting a sky with just this tiny cloud in it and knew I had found something to paint here finally. I actually noticed a few other things that I might want to try at some point too, so it looks like I might be going back again. Lesson learned...sometimes it's good to give places a second look.

Cloud Puff © 

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.

Rockwall Revisited - An Original 10 x 8 Landscape Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Rockwall Revisited

 This is the painting I did as a demo last night for the Rockwall Art League. I had a great time explaining my process and answering questions, and I hope those watching did too. Somehow in all the conversation, I missed a few things that I wanted to fix in the water and reflections of the rocks before the demo was over. Once I had the painting back in my studio and I was able to look at for a little while, I decided to put it back up on the easel and make a few tweaks to it.  If this looks familiar to you, you are not imagining things. I based this off of a plein air painting I did a few weeks ago. 

Rockwall Revisited © 

Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 10x8 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.

Creek Side - An Original 8 x 10 Plein Air Landscape Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Creek Side

  I love painting at the falls in West Worth. It's so quiet and peaceful. There's the occasional passer-by and people walking their dogs, but for the most part it was just me and this slow-moving stream. Oh, and the giant snake I saw on the rocks behind me while I was getting ready to paint, but that's another story. Seriously, he was this big! Anyway, for this painting I chose this view because I really wanted to capture the reflections in the water, with it's many subtle variations of green and blues. A challenge for sure, but a rewarding one to try to capture. 

Creek Side © 

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.

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.

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.

Slices - An Original 6 x 8 Still Life Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Slices

 With the rain and cold weather continuing outside today, I thought it best to stay inside and paint. It really wasn't a hard decision; it's much warmer in my studio. Since I still had my little still life set up mostly intact, I decided to do another one in this little series I've been working on. I really never had any intention of doing a series like this, but it's been so much fun, I'm going with it. I noticed today that quite accidentally I had made the first two still lives remarkably close in their backgrounds, so for this painting I thought I'd try to do the same thing. I love the way the three of them look together on my drying rack. I even made up this little image of them framed: 

Today's painting is the watermelon one. It was part of our breakfast this morning and I couldn't resist it. I liked that the pieces were a little tattered. This is thanks to my daughter, who's three and who likes to try to help with everything in the kitchen, including cutting up the melon.

Slices © 

Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 6x8 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.

Once Underwater - An Original 8 x 10 Plein Air Landscape Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Once Underwater

 One of the last times I went out painting, I noticed this scene not far from where I set up for the day.  I had intended to go back and paint it, but then our weather turned cold and cloudy and just like that, it felt like we were back in winter. Luckily, this is Texas and winter weather this late in the year doesn't stand a chance in sticking around. Today we got back on track with spring weather, so I packed up my gear and headed back to the lake. It was a very windy day and the water never settled down, making it a real challenge to paint. Still, it was nice to get our of the studio for a little while and soak up some sunshine! It looks like this weather is here to stay this time, so I'm looking forward to getting out more.

I'm going to have to re-photograph this one in a day or two. This image has a lot of glare on it. 

Once Underwater © 

Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 8x10 inches on gessoed wood 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.

Weekend Plans - An Original 6 x 8 Plein Air Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Weekend Plans

 While our daughters spent the weekend with Grandma, my wife and I found ourselves with some free time. Having a vague recollection of what free time is, we made plans to go to a near by state park, Cedar Hills State Park, and enjoy a beautiful Saturday afternoon. I mentioned that I'd like to do a little painting and my wife agreed, bringing along a book to read while she enjoyed some sunshine. The parks main attraction is its lake, Joe Pool Lake. We spent some time driving around the lake and doing a little exploring before we came upon the spot in the painting. Normally this location would be well under water, but since the lake still hasn't fully recovered from our drought, views like this are still available to explore and paint. I loved the way the sun was striking the tall grasses surrounding the water and casting long shadows across the sanding shore line.

Weekend Plans © 

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

Signed on front. Signed and dated on back.

Lazy River - An Original 10 x 8 Plein Air Landscape Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Lazy River

 Last week while painting, a friend of mine he mentioned a new spot he's been wanting to check out and suggested we both go have a look. After finishing up our paintings for the day, we headed over. His spot turned out to be one of the many little rivers that run along the roads leading to Benbrook Lake. After parking on the side of the street, we hiked down a little trail that lead to the river and then along the river rocks lining the river banks. After about a hundred yards we came to this wonderful bend in the river. Bingo! We found a new place to paint. We made plans to return and today was that day. What a perfect day it turned out to be! Clear skies, warm weather and hardly any wind. What more could a plein air painter ask?

Lazy River © 

Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 10x8 inches on canvas panel.  
Medium: Original Oil Painting 
Frame: none
Availability: SOLD

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.

Fresh Rain Water - An Original 8x10 Plein Air Landscape Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Fresh Rain Water

 We've been fortunate enough to have rain storms for the last day and a half here in North Texas. Since it always seems like we are either in a drought or on the verge of one, the rain is a welcome sight. Amazingly, after raining all morning, the sun came out around noon and the weather warmed up to a wonderful 68 degrees. Perfect weather to go out and paint! I met up with a friend of mine who took me to this amazing little park about 5 minutes from his home. The creek was high with all the recent rain water and I just couldn't resist painting it. 

Fresh Rain Water © 

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.

Tall Grass - A New Original 8x6 Plein Air Landscape Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Tall Grass

 We're being treated to an early spring here in Texas this year. So far this week, we've had mostly sunny days with temps getting into the 70s all week. That is perfect weather to get out and paint in and today was no exception. While I packed up my gear to head out, I ran through a possible list of locations in my head. One of them included a little lake with a feeder creek running into it not too far from our house. I've gone to this location several times to paint the tall grasses that grow where the creek and lake meet, but for one reason or another have never painted it. Right before the winter, the park district was doing some work on the lake and they had to drain almost all the water out of it. To be honest, it looked like they killed it and most of the wildlife that called this place home. Remarkably, a few short months later the lake is full of water again and the birds, ducks and white egret are all back like nothing every happened. In fact, if I didn't see the story on the news when it happened, I would have never know from my visit today!

Tall Grass © 

Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 8x6 inches on canvas panel.  
Medium: Original Oil Painting 
Frame: none
Availability: SOLD

Signed on front. Signed and dated on back.

Flamingo - A New Original 7x5 Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Flamingo

 At our zoo, one of the first groups of animals you come to are the flamingos. You can smell them from the moment you enter the front gate. If you've ever been around a large flock of these birds, you know the distinct and powerful smell I'm referring to.  One the day I took the reference photo from this painting, most of the flamingos where busy building their nests in the sand for their eggs. This was the first time I've seen this and it was fascinating to watch as they built tall towers of sand to lay their eggs in. Apparently, this one got a little hot and thirsty while working and decided to go for a little swim to cool down. I took a few photos of him (or her) playing in the water before returning to the sandy shore to continue work on the nest. I had hoped we'd be able to return after the eggs had hatched, but I think we missed our chance. I'm sure they hatched some time ago.

Flamingo © 

Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 7x5 inches on canvas panel.  
Medium: Original Oil Painting 
Frame: none
Availability: SOLD

Signed on front. Signed and dated on back.

River Bank - A New Original 6x8 Plein Air Oil Painting by George De Chiara

River Bank

 This little stream isn't very far from our home. I've painted this area a few times this year alone, and this is the lowest I've seen the water running through here. In fact, those rocks in the foreground are normally well under the normally rushing water, which now down to just a small trickle. While this offers new views of a familiar scene, it also is a stark reminder of just how little rain we've had since September. That's when we officially entered drought conditions again here in north Texas. Not that that's anything new for this area. It seems like we are always either getting out of a drought or going into one, but it still leaves an uneasy feeling in my mind when I see the river this low. Here's hoping we have a very wet winter and new year! 

 River Bank © 

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

Signed on front. Signed and dated on back.

Turtle Pond - A New Original 8x10 Plein Air Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Turtle Pond

 When I first noticed this scene at the Fort Worth Botanical Gardens, I was initially drawn to the reflections in the water. I loved the way the ripples in the pond all seemed to be running in little half circles with just a few fall leaves floating along on them. For this reason, I set the rocks and trees very high on the canvas in order to give myself enough room to explore the colors and reflections in the water. I did add that rock sitting out in the water (that wasn't there), but it was something I felt the painting needed. If this scene looks somewhat familiar, it should. One of my last paintings, Weeping Willow, is almost this same view except, in that painting, I choose not to show was much water and show more of the landscape surrounding it. If you have been to the botanical garden the title is pretty self-evident. For those of you who haven't, this lake is the home to a rather large turtle family. I'm not sure how many live in these waters, but if you get there when they are sunning themselves you will see those rocks lined with turtles. Maybe it's all the food everyone throws to the Koi fish living in the lake that attracts them!

Turtle Pond © 

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

Signed on front. Signed and dated on back.

Rocks Around The Lake - A New Original 9x12 Plein Air Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Rocks Around The Lake

 I first noticed this view last year while exploring the lake at Mineral Wells State Park. It was at the end of a day of painting and having spent the morning painting a different picture, I choose to keep this spot in the back of my mind for the next time. Well, it turns out it took over a year to get back to this place and finally get to paint these rocks.  Well, actually, that's a little misleading. You see I went back several times over the last year to paint this view and it just didn't work out for one reason or another. Once, I went back and the sun just refused to shine on this part of the lake. Another time, the camp sites that I need to use to get this view where all occupied. Yet another time, the only access road to this scene was washed out. Still I kept trying, even if I didn't get to paint this view I always found something else to paint, so it always worked out. Then, the other day, it seems like everything worked out in my favor. The sun was shining, the road was open, the camp sites were noticeable unoccupied, and even the weather was rather pleasant. If I was going to paint it, the time was now!

Rocks Around The Lake © 

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.

Koi - A New Original 6x6 Plein Air Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Koi

I learned a lot about Koi fish during this painting. For example, I learned that it's very difficult to convince them to stay still long enough to paint them. I also learned that they tend to swim in similar enough patterns that it's possible to watch them enough to paint them from life. Finally, I learned that when they stick their mouth out of the water they make a rather unpleasant sucking sound. It took a little while as I was painting to figure out what on earth was making those sounds, then I noticed one of the larger fish trying to suck the moss or algae from one of the near by rocks and realized he was the one making that noise. I didn't realize they could stick their whole mouth out of the water. It's a very odd sight.

 Koi © 

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.

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.

Weeping Willow - A New Original 8x6 Plein Air Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Weeping Willow

 When I noticed this weeping willow at the Fort Worth Botanical Gardens, I knew I had found what I'd be painting for the next few hours. I was struck by the reflection in the water and how some of the branches barely kissed the surface below. I think this is the first time I've tried to paint a weeping willow. It's not that I have anything against them. We just don't see a lot of them here in Texas. Kind of makes me wish we had a little pond that I could plant one by. They seem to go great with water. 

Weeping Willow © 

Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 8x6 inches on canvas panel.  
Medium: Original Oil Painting 
Frame: none
Availability: SOLD

Signed on front. Signed and dated on back.

Foggy Morning - A New Original 6x8 Plein Air Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Foggy Morning

 One of the things I like best about fall are the foggy mornings we sometimes get. As much as I enjoy painting out doors on a nice sunny day, nothing beats being able to paint in some sort of atmospheric condition, like fog. Rain is nice if I can find a dry place to paint from and snow offers a new look at the landscape, but, let's be honest, it's cold. Besides, anything more than a dusting of snow in Texas is rare. Fog, on the other hand, is usually fairly pleasant weather to paint in and offers a wonderful variety of colors and edges. I've been waiting for a good foggy day to paint in for a while. It seems like the last few we had I wasn't able to go out painting for one reason or another, but on this day all the stars lined up and out I went! This is from a little pond just down the road from where we live. I tend to go to this location a lot when I don't have a lot of time to paint before I think the conditions will change, like in fog or at sunset. I'm sure the commuters don't agree with me, but I hope we have a lot more foggy days soon!

 Foggy Morning © 

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

Signed on front. Signed and dated on back.

Just Above The Falls - A New Original 12x9 Plein Air Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Just Above The Falls

 Every now and then I go out painting and notice something that I think might make a better painting than what I set out to capture, but for one reason or another I choose not to paint it. Usually, it's just me being stubborn. I set out to paint "X" so that's what I'm going to work on. Still, in the back of my mind while I'm painting I notice that my thoughts often drift back to the other scene. I find myself wondering what a painting of it might look like, and then working out different compositions in my mind. Of course, all of this is very bad for the current painting I'm working on. It always suffers during these times. How could it not with this lack of focus? Such was the case when I first noticed this scene, just up the river from where I was stubbornly painting something else. I loved the pattern of light the rocks caused and the slight curve to the stream. After finally calling it quits on the painting, I wasn't concentrating on I made plans to return the next day and paint this scene.

Just Above The Falls © 

Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 12x9 inches on canvas panel.  
Medium: Original Oil Painting 
Frame: none
Availability: Available

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.

Last Light - An original 8x6 plein air landscape oil painting by George De Chiara

Last Light

A few nights ago, I went out to paint the sunset at out local park. My wife and kids came, too. While I painted at the lake, the girls played in the park. I had promised my oldest daughter, who's turning three this weekend, that she could do a painting when I was finished. Sure enough just as I was finishing up, she came by wanting to do her painting. I packed my work away and got her a fresh canvas to paint on. She picked out her brush and dove right into painting. Somehow, she managed to use most of the paint left on my palette starting with the most expensive colors first. How is it she always knows how to do this? She only had a few minutes before the sun completely set and it became too dark to continue. Of course that's when she looked at me and said "Daddy, I need more light". If you know how to explain to a three-year old that Daddy can't turn the sun back on, please let me know.

Here's my painting:

Last Light © 

Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 8x6 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.

Here's the painting my daughter did. Sha had a much different interpretation of the sunset. Now if I can just teach her to sign her name!

Feels Like Rain - An original 6x8 landscape oil painting by George De Chiara

Feels Like Rain

We had rain all weekend this last week. It was much needed rain and, thankfully, there was a lot of it. Naturally though, I had made plans to go out painting well before the rain forecast became such a certainty. After waking up Saturday to a heavy downpour, our plans got put on hold till Sunday. Well, Sunday came and the rain was still rather heavy, and things are starting to look a little muddy so.... Plans cancelled! All of the weekend's anticipation started to wear on me and  I was just itching to get some painting done. I'm looking at all my painting gear, which is packed up, and, then suddenly it hits me. I can go to the lake and paint under the large picnic pavilion, which has a nice view of the water. With such heavy rains the normally reserved area will surely have no one using it. Eureka! I got to the lake and, sure enough, no one was there. Still, even the large roof of the pavilion couldn't stop the driving wind from blowing rain inside, but it was better than being out in the elements and it kept me dry enough to paint all morning. 

Feels Like Rain © 

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.

Days End - An original 8x8 landscape oil painting by George De Chiara

Days End

This painting is another one that I did based off an older plein air study. I've had a great time revisiting some of these subjects this week. In the time that's passed since I first painted the study I've learned a lot about painting, color, and edges. It sometimes doesn't feel that way, since most of the time these improvements come in very small increments over a long period of time, but, looking back at something I painted last year or two years ago and repainting it today has really shown me where I've grown. More importantly, it's shown me where I still need to grow, directions to push myself, and areas to study that need more study. This what I enjoy and embrace most as an artist. The learning is never done, which is makes being a painter a lifetime effort.

Here is an image of how I started this painting. I'm using a little transparent oxide red (for the most part) to work out the placement of the larger shapes. The original painting was a 5x7 inch study and this painting is on an 8x8 inch panel so there are a few things to work out first. I spent some time getting everything where I wanted it. With just a few lines of thin paint, it's very easy to change my mind and move something at this stage. Believe me, I'd rather do it now then later when I have a lot of paint on the canvas and a lot of time invested in it. Once I was happy with the placement of all the larger shapes, I knew I could move onto the color and detail.

Well, I guess that this point I'm about half way through  the painting. I'm playing around a little bit with what to do with the foreground, because I don't want it to be all water, like the original sketch was. I feel I need something to stop the eye from running off the bottom of the canvas. Usually, placing something a little darker across the bottom will stop this and let the eye move back up through the painting easily. You can also see very faintly where I wiped off my first attempt at the sky in what will be the water when I'm done. The first sky I painted wasn't satisfactory, and, before I got too far down the road with the painting, I wiped it off and re-painted it. This time, I kept my paint mixtures a little thinner on the canvas and my colors a little cleaner when mixing them.

Below it the finished painting. You can see I finally settled on having several patches of land and grass in the foreground to help break it up and stop the eye. I felt this fit with what was going on with the background grass and land very well.

Days End © 

Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 8x8 inches on canvas panel.  
Medium: Original Oil Painting 
Frame: none
Availability: Available 

Signed on front. Signed and dated on back.

This Is My Good Side - An original 6x6 landscape oil painting by George De Chiara

This Is My Good Side

 Just down the road from our house, we have a wonderful little lake that plays host to more ducks, geese and water fowl than I can count. In the winter months, the whole lake is covered with birds. In the summer, the flock thins down to about 50 to 100 animals. I'm not sure what it is about this particular lake that they like so much, but my guess is it's the endless buffet of bread and seed that people bring them that keeps them coming back year after year. This also makes them very friendly. There are several ducks and geese that will eat the bread right out of your hand if you let them. It's one of our daughters favorite things to do. She squeals with delight as the birds flock to her for the bread. I'll often take my camera with us to take a few photographs of the birds. It seems like this Chinese goose was determined to have me photograph this side of him since every picture I took, he had his head turned. After noticing this, the title for this painting seemed pretty straight forward.

Please note that the auction for this painting will be on Daily Paint Works. Click the link below to go to the auction.

This Is My Good Side © 

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.

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.

Reflecting on Summer - An original 8x6 landscape oil painting by George De Chiara

Reflecting on Summer

Right down the road from our house is a wonderful little lake and park area. Since we discovered this area, it's become one of our daughter's favorite places. The lake hosts a tremendous number of ducks, geese, and grebes all of which love to eat bread practically out of your hands, if you let them. The park has a great slide and jungle gym. Because of this, when I want to go and paint there, my family usually comes along, which is fine with me. I love having them around. My wife will take them to the park while I paint and when I'm done we all get some time to play together. Well, on this day, my 3-year-old just couldn't wait for me to finish so she came over to watch and chat. She then declared that she wanted to paint. I had gotten everything I needed to be able to complete the painting back in my studio so I packed it up and gave her a canvas to paint on. What a thrill it was to watch her plunge the brush into a pile of color and then smear it across her canvas. I hope this is something we get to a lot of in the future! Anyway, here is my result for the day:

Reflecting on Summer © 

Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 8x6 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.

Partly Sunny - An original oil painting by George De Chiara

Partly Sunny

 One of the unexpected outcomes of the drought we had this year in Texas is views like this one. Normally the spot I stood to paint from would have been underwater, along with most of this scene. I was standing about 20 feet from where the shore line is normally. When I pick this spot for my painting the sun was shining though the rain clouds that threatened the day. After about 10 minutes of painting, the sun ducked behind a cloud and never came out again. Well, that's not totally true. Almost on cue when I stopped painting, the sun came back out for rest of the day. With any luck we'll have a very wet winter and spring to fill our lakes back up again.  

Partly Sunny © 

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.

Fountain at the Botanical Gardens - An original oil painting by George De Chiara

Fountain At The Botanical Garden

 I painted this over the weekend at the Fort Worth Botanical Gardens. This is the fountain that's at the end of the trellis in the Rose Garden. I was struck by the sharp contrast of the fountain water shooting through the air against the background that's mostly in shadow. Plus, there's the added benefit of the wonderful color of the fountain pool water. At first I passed this scene by, thinking it wouldn't make a good painting, or, rather, that I wouldn't be able to make a good painting out of it. I was worried about having the shooting water be such a dominant element in the composition. I knew if I didn't handle that correctly, it would take over the painting and possible divide my canvas. After looking around at a few other possible locations, I finally decided to just go for it and paint the scene that I really wanted to paint, which is the fountain. I noticed I painted a little slower and more deliberate than I normally do to make sure I had enough in the scene to support the shooting water when I painted it in. In fact, the shooting water was the last thing I painted after I had everything else worked out. In the end, I was happy I pushed myself to try something I wasn't sure would work and came out with a painting that I'm proud of. It's good to stretch, which is something I need to keep in mind more often.

Fountain at the Botanical Garden ©

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

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.

In the Flow - Original oil painting by George De Chiara

In the Flow

Painting scenes like this is one of my favorite things to do. I really enjoy the challenge of capturing the moving water and the reflections, so when I found this view at a local park, I knew this is what I'd be painting for the next few hours. I hiked down to the edge of the water to find a good angle to paint from. With all the rain we had over the last week and the cool morning causing a lot of dew on the grass, the river bank was very slick and muddy. Every time I took a step, I slid towards the water. To keep my easel from going into the water, I had to push the legs into the mud. Luckily, I also found a small board to stand on while painting so I didn't slip into the river. 

I must confess though, I've never tried to paint a scene like this from life until now. While painting these types of scenes from a photo makes seeing the movement of the water easier, the photo tends to hide a lot of the details I was able to observe while painting from life. Things like the rocks under the surface of the water and many of the subtle color reflections in the water just get lost in photographs. This is something I'll have to keep in mind the next time I work from photographs.

In the Flow ©

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

Signed on front. Signed and dated on back.

Doing the charts - The color charts that is.

 In Richard Schmid's book, Alla Prima, he talks about the importance and his experience painting the color charts. Encouraged by his writings, I first did my color charts in watercolor several years ago. Every word Mr. Schimd wrote about doing the charts is true. I learned more about the colors on my palette painting the color charts than I did with all the paintings I had done before the charts combined. New discoveries awaited around every corner. I mean, when do you get the chance to play with every color combination on your palette? When I tried to do this while producing a painting, ultimately the painting would suffer. At the time, I was working mostly in watercolor, so my colors would get muddy or my color choices where often "settled" on because I couldn't mix the color I was seeing.  After spending the time doing all the color charts, I could immediately see the difference in my work. My color choices where easier to mix and much fresher.

 About a year ago, I wanted to work in oils again after a very long break. Before that, it had been almost 15 years since my last oil painting. It took a while for it all to come back to me, but slowly I started to remember how to work with my oils and started to make new discoveries as I painted. Then a funny thing happened. I started to notice the same issues I had with my watercolors before doing the color charts. My colors where often settled on, especially with the darks. I just couldn't mix some of the colors I was seeing in my subjects. Then it hit me; I've been using a palette of colors that I hadn't used in many, many years. It is different enough from my watercolor palette that only some of the information I learned with my watercolor charts carried over. In fact, the colors on my palette weren't even the same as the last time I worked in oils. It was time to do the charts again. I'm about half way through my palette at this time. Just like with my watercolors, each chart reveals new insights into each color and many new mixing possibilities.

Pay attention to the color mixtures and how you apply them. A lot of people will paint the color charts in oils with a palette knife, which is what I'm doing. The knife allows for very clean color mixtures since you can wipe it completely clean. Then there's the added benefit of getting a lot of practice with the knife on canvas. I can already feel the difference with my palette knife from the first chart I did to the most current one. I'm much more confident with it. With each chart, I get better and better at laying down the color. I got in the habit of mixing all the color mixtures on my palette together when my palette needed to be cleaned. I found this usually happened right around the time I was ready to start on a new color section of my palette. What I mean is I could usually mix all the yellows on my palette with whatever color chart I was working on before I needed to clean my palette. These mixtures turned out to be wonderful colors I wish I could have saved. I'm actually considering ordering some empty paint tubes to save these mixtures in for the remaining color charts I need to do.

Some simple things to keep in mind for this project:

• Be prepared to go through a lot of paint. This is not the time to be stingy with your paint.
• Make each mixture count and make each one accurate.
• The color of the chart you are doing should be the dominate color in all the mixtures. For example, if you have yellow ochre and cobalt blue on your palette, when you paint the yellow ochre chart the color should lean towards the yellow and when you do the cobalt blue chart the mixture should lean towards blue. None of the mixtures should be equal parts of each color.
• Take your time when doing these. It's not meant to be a race.

For me, taking the time to paint these color charts is the same thing as a musician practicing their scales, or an athlete taking the time to practice the fundamentals of their sport. It's what makes you better at your craft.

UPDATE: Several people have asked about my comment to have the color of the chart be the dominate color, so I'm posting this image to try to help explain things a little better.

In this image is my Yellow Ochre Pale chart and my Viridian chart. Notice how in each one there is one dominate color and how the Yellow Ochre + Viridian mixture yields different colors than the Viridian + Yellow Ochre mixtures. This is the reason for doing all of the colors on your palette, they all produce different results. I hope this helps explain things a little better, if not, let me know!

Facebook blog post intergration test - ignore

Small River Falls

 I'm testing out FASO's new blog postings to Facebook. I'm hoping this works better then network blogs, which I've never been happy with. Anyway, this is just a test post to see if it picks up. Please ignore it.

Five O'Clock Shadow

Five O'Clock Shadow

 

This is a larger watercolor that I've been working on. I've been experimenting a lot the last 2 days with different ways to photograph my artwork. I'm not totally happy with the results just yet. The first 2 methods I've tried are basically the same. Both involve using an 18% grey card for correcting the image later in photoshop. Both have the same set of problems:

 -It takes too long to set up everything that's needed (the lights, the easel for the artwork, tripod for the camera)  
 -It takes way too long to process the images and get them ready to post.
 -The results of the images are not satisfactory so far.

I can address some of these things right away. I know I can make it faster to set everything up by working on a more permanent set up in the studio. I'm going to try to mount a panel to the wall that will hold the artwork and ensure that it's flat. I'm going to work on that over the weekend. I also need to clean some of the clutter out of my studio since the lights require so much space to get them set up. I'm also thinking about getting a light meter and using that instead of the grey card, but I'm still thinking about that one. As far as the results go, I'm hoping that by making these adjustments I'll get better results.
 
 
I really enjoy watercolor like this, lots of shadows to fill in with color! I used a lot of masking fluid to retain the white of the paper. I did this so I could lay in large washes of color for all of the shadow areas and let the color run through all of them. Without the masking fluid this would not be possible.

Daily Painting - Jelly Jar

Jelly Jar

 
This painting was a challenge from my wife when she held up this jar of jelly to the light and asked "Can you paint light?!?" Isn't this what painting is all about ;)  But it did get me thinking about it and so I set up this little still life. I'm not sure I captured what she was asking, but it sure was fun to paint. The jelly, which is made by my wife's aunt and uncle, really refracts light in an amazing way. The shadows get these intense hits of red in them as the light bounces through the jar. It was very tempting to "push" this effect and while I might have a little, I tried to stay true to what was in front of me and not over do it.

Daily Painting - Solo Act

Solo Act

 
Wow, it seems like forever since I've been able to paint. My wife and I where away on vacation for a few days celebrating our anniversary. We went to Corpus Christi this year and had a blast. I took lots of reference for some paintings that I still need to sort through. When it was all said and done I used both my 8 gig card and my 2 gig card, plus I took a few photos on my camcorder. Needless to say I've got more then a few ideas for paintings. When we got back I was pretty rusty after just a few days. My first few paintings since we got back didn't make it to the finished stage, but they seem to be coming along again.

 Overall I'm pretty happy with this one. As soon as I put the light on this set up and saw that shadow go across the plate I knew this was going to be a fun painting. I really thought a lot about local color while painting this, especially on the ground.

Daily Painting - Lemon Coaster

Lemon Coaster

 
I don't know why, but the name "Lemon Coaster" came right to mind when I thought about what to call this one. I guess I still had yesterday's name on my mind (Cherry Ride).

 Overall I'm pretty happy with this one except for the surface the plate is sitting on. I think my colors got a little muddy or maybe just a little too grayed. Either way I have some ideas on how I would approach this again, so I might do another arrangement on it soon.

Daily Painting - Cherry Ride

Cherry Ride

  I painted this one free hand, no drawing first, just picked up my brush and started painting.Of course it helped I had just tried painting this set up right before hand. That one didn't turn out so well I wiped it off. You don't often hear of watercolor paintings get wiped off, it's really more of an oil painting thing. Take a little turp on a rag and presto your oil painting wipes right off the canvas. With watercolor it doesn't work out so well because the pigment stains the paper, but it still feels just as good to get rid of that bad painting. Painting like this is a real challenge. I found I had to think much more about where things were going to go and how much space they needed. Next time I do a painting without any drawing first I need to remind myself to slow down and think things through. Actually that's something good to remember for any painting.

Daily Painting - Musical Cups

Musical Cups

 
I called this one Musical Cups after the kids game musical chairs. See the apple in the front got caught without a cup when the music stopped. That's what I thought of when it came time to name this one.

 This is actually my second attempt at this arrangement. The first one didn't fair so well. Though I did learn a few things that I applied on this one. I also changed my approach from the first one. With this one I used masking fluid to mask out the lightest values., After me first wash of mid values dried I applied another coat of making fluid over the next couple of lightest values and did one more darker wash. Once that dried I took off all of the masking fluid. I thought this would force me to do 2 things that went wrong with the first painting. I thought it would force me to keep my value range in check and not have the whole painting get too dark and It would force me to have more variety in the edges in masking fluid has a really hard edge. I did end up going in with more opaque paint towards the end to correct the apples and get the highlights on them. I don't think this approach was successful, but I do like the over all painting.

Daily Painting - Orange Slice

Orange Slice

 
This is an orange I got from the farmers market. These aren't like the oranges you get in the store or at least not like the ones I get. The peals are a lot thinner and easier to peal off. They are much smaller in size and every slice has a seed in it.  I ate this one after I painted it. It got a little warm under my lighting in the studio, but it was still very good.

 I didn't really plan on the complimentary color scheme when I was setting this up. At the time I just liked the way it looked. Once I started painting it hit me and I really had a lot of fun with it. I had to be careful with my washes so they didn't bleed into each other and grey out the colors.

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 Painting - Cross Your Tea

Cross Your Tea

 
Sometimes it's fun to paint the insides of the fruit rather then just doing the outside. Besides the inside is usually more interesting.These aren't the same lemons as yesterday. This is one of the smaller ones from the grocery store.

 Not a lot of time to blog tonight. I've got a few other thing to take care of. We've been working hard on our on-line presence and I hope to share all that my wife and I have been working on soon. In the mean time, I'm now listing on The Arts Map (http://www.theartsmap.com/index.php). It's a very cool page. If you haven't seen it, check it out!

Daily Paintings - Lean On Me

Lean On Me

 
A couple of nice lemons from our local farmers market. These are so much larger then the ones we get at the grocery store and cheaper! We don't get to the farmers market as much as we would like to, it's about 40 minutes away from us, but my wife and I sure do enjoy the produce when we are able to go.

 Painting wise, this was pretty straight forward. I started with the lightest yellows of the lemons. Once that had died I quickly laid in some color in the background trying to loosely create the pattern in paper they where laying on, Then I went in and painted the mid and dark values on the lemons and the shadows. This one came pretty close to just falling off the brush. An enjoyable change to the feeling some of my previous attempts from last week left me feeling.

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 - Yellow Texas Wild Flower

Yellow Texas Wild Flowers

 
One more of these yellow wild flowers we have blooming here right now.I don't know how much longer we are going to have them. The weather is starting to really warm up and it seems like summer if moving in quickly.  I've been doing a few searches for what these are called and I think they are Coreopsis.

 The flower is painted from life, in fact it's the one of the same ones I used a couple of days ago. The other flowers didn't make it to today. I made up the background, trying to keep it lighter then last time (my wife's suggestion). I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out. I used a little bit of white mixed into my watercolors to make a few opaque colors that I dried brushed over the transparent washes. Mostly in the lighter green bits.

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!

Daily Paintings - Wild Natives

Wild Natives

 
The wild flowers are still blooming here in Texas. Right now we have a lot of the yellow ones who's name I need to learn and these indian blankets. I picked a few of them to paint back at the studio. I thought this would be a good exercise to do since I want to paint a few others from some photographs I took. I can't wait to see what blooms next!

 I used a fair amount of white with this one to make my watercolors more opaque and painted thick on thin. Where I could I used transparent colors, mostly in the dark values in the background. I wish I had captured the light a little better with this one. I feel the lights on the yellow pedals are not the correct value. Something to keep in mind with my next attempts.

 When I showed this to my wife she commented that she would like to see them on a lighter background, so I think that's something I'm going to try to work into my next study. I think my flowers will keep for a little longer.

Daily Paintings - Market Strawberries

Market Strawberries

 
Some strawberries from the farmers market. I really liked the arrangement of these but fell short on the painting of them. I really struggled with getting the look of these correct. Sometimes it happens, no matter how hard I try I produce a stinker. It's a shame because these where some of the best strawberries I've ever had and I just couldn't paint them for anything. I"m not going to post this one on ebay. It's just not good enough in my opinion. If for some reason you really have to have it, let me know and we can work something out.

Daily Painting - Onion Bunch

Onion Bunch

 
I wish I could say these came from our garden, but I can't. These came from the local farmer market. I do have a large batch of onions that we are trying to grow. They have a few weeks to go still so keep your fingers crossed. With any luck I'll have another batch to try some more paintings with.

 One important note about this image. The photo is slightly cropped compared to the original. There's a little more room on the right side so that onion that's just kissing the edge is actually about about a 1/.2 inch from the edge. I could get this one to fit on my scanner correctly for some reason. I'll try to get a better image if I can and update this, but for now this is the way it is.

Daily Painting - Brown Pelican

Brown Pelican

 
One more pelican while I'm still having fun doing them. This is from the same batch of reference that I used for yesterdays painting. I wanted to try one with the bird on the water so I'd get some reflections.
 
 This was one of the pelicans we watched a local fisherman throw his scrapes to while cleaning up the days catch. I took a lot of photos of them since I'd never seen that many pelicans in one area. This was one of the few I got of just a whole pelican that wasn't fighting for food. The whole thing was really fun to watch. The fisherman would throw what ever he didn't want from the fish he was cleaning into the air and what the seagulls didn't catch, the pelicans would get.

 

Daily Painting - Waiting For My Set

Waiting For My Set

 
When I look at this I think that bird must be looking out over the ocean just watching those waves roll in. Then I thought maybe he's a surfing bird and he's just waiting for his wave to come in. That's when I thought of the title. When I showed this to my wife she commented "How very timely". I hadn't thought about painting this because of the oil spill that's currently washing up on shore, not consciously anyway. I was just enjoying painting birds lately. This just happens to be from the Gulf Coast here in Texas. Hopefully it doesn't get hit too hard with the oil spill, it sure is a pretty place.

Daily Paintings - You Talking To Me?

You Talking To Me?

 
I don't know why but I can't help to think that if this seagull could talk he would have said "You talking to me?" when I took his picture.I know I mentioned this before, but I never really painted a lot of wild life before. I'm not sure why, it turns out it's a lot of fun to do! I really want to do some others now that I think I've got a good approach on how to do them. It's not that I've discovered some secret formula for painting birds, it's just that I'm more comfortable with doing them so I can approach them more relaxed then I use to. I noticed that if I'm tense when I paint I tend to me more timid with my colors and brush strokes. With watercolor this can be the kiss of death for your painting.

Daily Paintings - Sailor Wanter

Sailor Wanted

 
Just a lonely little sail boat sitting on Lake Michigan. It was a beautiful day when we where there but I only saw one person out sailing. All of the other boats where docked, including this one out about 200 feet from the shore all by its self. I thought the slightly wider format worked well with this one.

Daily Painting - Splish Splash

Splish Splash

 
These are the water falls in Medicine Park Oklahoma. Right above the falls is one of the deeper parts of the river where you can swim.The day we went there a few kids where swimming and slashing each other. When I was trying to think of what to call this painting the old song "Splish splash I was taking a bath..." popped into my head and I liked the splish splash part. That pretty much solved the title question.




 

Daily Paintings - Texas Sping Bloom

Texas Spring Bloom

 
My favorite time in Texas, spring! Wild flower and blue bonnet blooms are everywhere this time of the year.This is the best time to live in Texas. I have a few more spots that I want to try and paint before the wild flowers die off this year. I'm going to try and gather up some reference this weekend if I can. I'm going to have to do them from photos this time. I've got a few other things I want to paint for the next few days.

 This painting really taught me a lot. I approached the sky in a slightly different way then I normally do and it think it was a real success. I also realized ( a little too late) that I went to dark and not saturated enough with my initial washes of the foreground. I had to use a bit of white in my washes to bring back some lighter values. The problem with doing with is it also really pulls the saturation out of the color. I think I know how to correct this with the next one I want to try this type of subject. Stay tuned!

Daily Painting - Outside The Marina

Outside The Marina

  A quiet little marina I came across in Gloucester Massachusetts the last time I was there. I'm not a sailor so I've never understood how you get to your boat when it's out in the middle of the water.I guess you take another boat to it. I usually paint fishing boats and this is the first attempt at doing sail boats. I enjoyed doing it and might do some more if I have the reference for them.

 I started this painting by working on the boats first. I established all three boats first and a little of there reflection in the water. Once that dried I added a little masking fluid over the sails and the boat bodies and went in with darker washes for the back ground. The masking fluid allowed me to be free with these washes since I didn't have to cut around the boats. Once the background dried I removed the masking fluid and finished the water and boats.

Daily Painting - Slow Ride

Slow Ride

 
I was attracted to the slow moving water in this one. It was a lot of fun to try and capture it.Slower moving water has a lot more reflections in it then faster water. At least it appears that way to my eyes. It's been a while since I was able to really paint the reflections into the water. I found I have to concentrate on them a lot to not mess them up. The pattern is key to how they look.

 This is a little side stream off the main river that runs through Medicine Park, Oklahoma. There's a little water fall just up the stream from here that's maybe about 4 or 5 feet. Right above that everyone swims in the river. It's a great place to visit. My wife and I went there about 2 years ago and had a great time.

Daily Paintings - Horse Head Rock

Horse Head Rock

 
When I showed this one to my wife, her first reaction was "The rocks look like a horse head". This is where the title comes from.  I didn't really see it when she said it. It's amazing what a fresh pair of eyes will see. It wasn't until I started to get it ready to post that I saw it. Do the rocks look like a horse head to anyone else?

Daily Painting - Rolled, Not Stacked

Rolled, Not Stacked

 
Hay stacks, at some point every artist is required to paint them! Seriously, they are a lot of fun to paint.I really wanted to show depth of space with this one. I liked how the background was very simple, just a few buildings that almost disappear into the trees and sky. I also thought the rolling ground could play into the sense of distance.

 I started this one with a wash that went from the sky, through the distance trees and buildings and all the way into the for ground. I cut around a few whites and the mid and for ground hay stacks. I made sure to adjust the my color temperature as I went, cooling colors off the further back they are meant to be. Once this dried, I added a few darker values to the distance buildings and trees and painted the hay stacks. I used a bit of white paint to get the hay stacks painted. The color of them proved to be a real challenge.

Daily Paintings - Star Lights

Star Lights

  I'm really not sure if these are wild flowers or just weeds, either way I liked the look of them and wanted to paint them.I used some making fluid to hold out the flowers and few other whites while I worked on the background. In fact the dry brushed look of the background is actually done by dry brushing some masking fluid across the paper and then painting in the darker strokes of color. Once I was fairly happy with the background I removed the masking fluid and worked on the flowers. When I was all done my wife looked at it and said "What color are you going to make the flowers?". I explained to her that they where white. I do agree with her though they could have used a "color". The problem is that I had made all of my color choices knowing the flowers where going to be white. I felt that adding color to them at this point would have looked forced and caused a lot of re-work of the background.

Daily Paintings - Jump In

Jump In

 
One more of the lemons I have on hand. To me the one in the back is yelling at the one front to jump in, while the one in the front is just dipping his toe into the blue. It's late and right now that's the best I can do.

Daily Paintings - Entourage

Entourage

  When I was trying to come up with a name for this one I kept thinking that the lemons had the lime surrounded. Then I thought, why would they surround him? That's when it hit me, they are his entourage!

 This is one of the first still life painting to come from my new set up box. I'm still not happy with the lighting I'm getting in it. Everything is getting a bit washed out for my tastes so I'm still experimenting with the lights I use it. Right now I have 3 different lights that I alternate between. I'm looking for one that's more of a spot light and can focus the light a bit more. If any one has any good suggestions, I'm all ears.

Daily Paintings - Spin Cycle

Spin Cycle

 
While I was painting this I kept thinking about abstract paintings and how I really wanted to make sure I paid attention to the patterns and the movement in the water rather then the water.The movement in the water is what really attracted me to this subject. There was white water everywhere!

 With this one I started by applying some masking fluid to retain the white of the paper. Once that dried I stared by adding some cobalt and cerulean blue mixed with cobalt violet, olive green and raw sienna. I let the colors mingle as much as possible on the paper rather then in my pallet. Once that had dried I went in with darker mixtures of the same colors plus a bit of prussian blue and burnt sienna to build up the rock forms. I let this mingle and blend with the first wash. I then removed the masking fluid and went back and adjusted some of the light values and punched up some of the dark values.

 

Daily Painting - River Valley

River Valley

 
Another one from Oklahoma. This is the river we hiked along for one of our day trips while we where there. It's the only picture I took of this view. The only reason I have it is because my wife and I had stopped to take a picture of ourselves and this was the background behind us. Of course I had to crop us out of the photo for this painting.  I really wish I had taken more as this is a perspective I'd like to do more of.