Mandarin Section 5x7

Oil on hardboard panel.

pipe wrench 5x7

Oil on hardboard panel.

Winnie the Pooh Pez Dispenser 5x7

Oil on hardboard panel.

Fire Extinguisher 5x7

Oil on hardboard panel.

Buzz Lightyear Pez dispenser 5x7

Oil on hardboard panel.

Tigger Pez Dispenser 5x7

Oil on hardboard panel.

Monster 8x10

Hello Kitty with glass 9x12

screw driver with putty knife 8x10

Twinkie with milk 8x10

Pooh bottle 8x10

two cans 8x10

no cigarettes 8x10

PBJ #3 8x10

Coke can #2 8x10

Painting again!

more small landescapes

mustard dog #3 9x12

This is a recent commission.

very small landscapes

Lately I have been doing some very small landscapes. Many of them are small copies from other paintings. Many of these were done after Edgar Payne. one is a Terry Miura and one is a Brian Blood. The rest were done from photos I took with my iPhone. The point of copying a painting is to try to get some insight into the methods of others. These were not done for commercial reasons. They were done for my personal research. This kind of thing can be enlightening and a lot of fun. They are all 3"x4" or 4"x5".

Pez

I haven't posted in a while. Here are a few I did recently. I photographed them after they were framed and you can see the shadows cast by the frames. all of these are 5x7.

PBJ and milk 9x12

mustard dog with relish

This weekend I will be traveling to Missouri for a show and lecture at East Central College. It's the farthest I have ever traveled for a show and I am pretty excited about it! I'll post pictures of the reception.

big brush can 16x20

I usually try to post these things on the date that I completed them. I finished this one back in June but didn't manage to get it online then.

hot dog buns 16x20

Here is the finished hot dog bun painting.

hot dog buns 16x20

Here is another little cyber demo. My students often ask me how to depict transparent things like glass or plastic. The following is one way of approaching these subjects.

There are a couple of things to remember when painting transparent objects. The first is that, obviously, you can see through them so you will be painting what is behind the object but with some distortion. The other is that most transparent things also have some reflective qualities. Think about water, glass and plastics, so you will be painting their reflective surfaces as well.

I start by drawing the item with a mixture of ultramarine blue and transparent red oxide.

Once the basic drawing is done I start blocking in values with the same two colors.

On this painting I decided I wanted to use more local colors on my value block-in so I used some red, yellow and blue in the Rainbow labeling.

Once everything is blocked in and dry I start with the second layer. The buns seemed like the obvious place to begin. When doing plastic like this I like to mix up a bunch of my background in color strings going from dark to light. This is what is going to be used for the clear parts of the plastic. At this point it's just a matter of observing the reflections and shadows as closely as possible.

The highlights are usually among the last things that get painted. It's important to note that they are typically not pure white. I don't really have a formula for what color they are. I usually have to try a couple of things before I get something that starts to look right.

Mickey pastel glass 9x12