Breaking Through The Clouds

This was painted from a photo I took while traveling on a bus between Liverno and Lucca in Tuscany.  The sky was so beautiful and the scene was so tranquil that I had to try to capture the feeling.  I really love the Tuscan countryside and you'll probably see many more scenes from this area in the future.

Breaking Through The Clouds
Image Size 6" x 6"
Oil

Palau Beach

Palau Beach sounds like it should be in the South Pacific and looks like it would be there or in the Caribbean but it is in Sardinia.  That is the location for Virtual Paintout this month.  I didn't know where Sardinia was and in case you don't either, it's in the mediterranean off the coast of Italy (and is part of Italy) just below the island of Corsica (which is part of France).  I was attracted to the cloud formations and the beautiful color of the water.  This is an oil painted on a 3/4" thick gallery wrapped canvas with the sides painted and doesn't need a frame.

Palau Beach
Image Size 8" x 16"
Oil

Gamblin Oil Paints

We just got back from visiting friends in Portland, Oregon.  When I found out we were going up there, I contacted Gamblin Oil Paints and asked if I could tour their factory and they graciously said yes.  I've always liked their paints and mediums and they have one of the best, most informative websites I've seen so I was really excited to be able to see their facility.

When I got there, I was surprised by how small it is considering that they have an international presence with their product.  Every step of the process is checked and their quality control is wonderful.  I am now a complete Gamblin convert and plan to only buy their oils when I need (want) new colors.

Not only are they really focused on keeping their quality high and consistent, they are also careful about the health of their employees and the environment.  They use an air filtration system to capture the pigment dust while the colors are being mixed, which could be harmful if inhaled.  Once a year, they make Torrit Grey paint using everything collected in the filtration system.  The grey varies from year to year because the colors and amount of dust from each color made each year can vary.  Torrit grey is released around the end of April and is only available while supplies last.  It is given as a gift when another tube of Gamblin oil paint is purchased.

Artists can enter their annual Torrit Grey competition in which they use only Torrit Grey, white and black in their painting.  This year the deadline has been extended until Oct. 1st.  You can visit the Gamblin website to get the details and see examples of past work.   If you can't find Torrit Grey in your area, I just got some at Art Supply Warehouse which is located in Westminster, CA but they sell on-line also.  I don't know how much they have left but I was really surprised that they still had any because it's usually gone from stores pretty quickly.  If you contact them, be sure to mention the Torrit grey because some of their employees (the first on I talked to) don't know about Torrit grey and if they look on the Gamblin color chart they won't see it.  This company is different than the Art Supply Warehouse with the website aswexpress.com (one of my favorite places to buy supplies) They ran out of the Torrit Grey a while ago.

I'm hoping to try a painting or two to submit.  It will be a really good exercise in value control.

This is a painting I did awhile ago but I never posted it to the blog.  It's one of my first oil paintings and I painted it in a traditional manner glazing many layers.  The color is much richer in person.  I just love these dramatic, huge flowers.  They have a long blooming season and are really flashy in a garden.

Garden Angels
Image size 24" x 18"
Gallery wrapped canvas painted on sides.  No frame needed

Serenity

This is the last of three paintings I've done for the virtual paintout challenge for August.  I've really enjoyed Prince Edward Island's beauty.  This scene has a calmness to it and I think I would like to live here surrounded by a river and these tall trees.  This is another palette knife painting.  The canvas was painted red and once it was dry, I started painting with a paintbrush but quickly switched to the palette knife.  Do you think that is a sign that I've become a palette knife addict?  Will I ever be able to use a brush with oils again?   The brushes just don't seem to have the appeal that they once did.

I like the way the red is showing through, especially in the sky.  I think I got carried away with the paint in the foreground and covered more of the red than I had intended.  Anyway, this was another fun painting to do and I do have the URL for this one so I can post it to the virtual paintout blog.

Serenity
Image Size 8" x 8"
Unframed - gallery wrapped canvas painted on sides, no frame needed
$110.00 including shipping in the U.S.

A Castle...Really?

This is from a photo of a "castle" we stayed in when we were in Tuscany.  We had already been to Venice and Florence and had stayed in very nice hotels and I was very excited that we would be in a castle for our last stop.  On the way there, we got stuck in Sienna.  Everyone says how wonderful that city is but my memories of it give me nightmares.  We were there on a Sunday so everything was closed and after seeing the city we were ready to continue on our journey but we kept ending up at the same intersection.  There was one sign that pointed to the highway that we wanted but we couldn't find the road.  Of course, nobody we saw spoke English and I was getting hungry (never a good situation).  Somehow, we finally got out of town and went to find our castle.

We found the town and stopped to get directions to the castle at their tourist center.  The local police were waiting for us when we returned to our car and extorted $60.00 out of us for a parking ticket for parking in a no parking spot (no signs posted).  We still hadn't found anything to eat because no restaurants were open in the afternoon.  Luckily, our castle included dinner in their price.  As we were driving, I happened to be looking at our itinerary and noticed that the cost of the castle was $79.00 a night.  This was back in 2001 but still, that seemed way too cheap.  Once we got there, of course, we figured it out.  We weren't staying IN the castle, we were on the castle grounds in one of their surrounding buildings.  The room was nice enough but they wouldn't let anyone in to even see the castle.  One person I asked said they were doing renovations and the second person told me that they never let anyone into it.  In our room was a notebook with a bunch of rules listed.  The one that really cracked us up was "There is a refrigerator on the second floor.  Please do not put food or medicine in it."  I still haven't figured out why they even mentioned it or what else you would put in it.   They made it very obvious that they didn't really want guests there.  They probably need the money to pay the taxes on the place, or maybe local parking tickets.

We never found out what the dinner would have included.  Some other guests warned us that we would leave the dining room needing to find a restaurant because the offerings were so meager.

It sounds like that part of our trip was horrible but it's actually one of my fondest memories of Italy.  Or maybe I should say it is the most memorable....

This is another palette knife painting.  The subject matter was probably not the best choice for using a palette knife.  It was really hard to do the crenellations  on the castle.  Oh well, live and learn.

A Castle...Really?
Image Size 8" x 8"
Oil
$100.00 Unframed, painted on wood, sides painted, can be hung unframed
Shipping included in continental US

Barbados Stairway

I've really been dragging out the old travel photos lately. I've always been attracted to this scene. I tried to paint it years ago in watercolor. That painting was about 30" x 48". I got some base colors on it, decided my greens were too vivid (thalo green, ugh, a killer) and let it sit. After about 3 years I decided to try to salvage it but unfortunately I had left some resist on it which tends to become part of the paper after that long. Oh well. I now have a lot of practice paper.

This photo was taken while we were in Barbados on a cruise probably 20 years ago. We got off of the ship and asked a taxi driver to take us someplace nice to spend the day. He dropped us off at a quaint hotel that overlooks a beautiful bay. These are the steps that lead from the pool area down to a beautiful, secluded beach. It was a wonderful day and I'm glad I finally have finished a painting of the spot. One of the details that I love about this photo is that there is a bent twig holding the door open at the top of the steps. It doesn't really show in this photo and should probably show more in the painting so I may have to enhance that. When I paint the view from the top looking down it will show more because the twig will be in the foreground rather than the background. I wonder how long it will take before I get that one painted.

Barbados Stairway

Image Size 24" x 8"

Oil