Baby Girl

I painted a small 8" x 10" portrait of my youngest daughter this last week, testing a limited palette of yellow ochre, titanium white, ivory black, alizarin crimson and burnt umber. 

 Since I was painting with some of my children, I used acrylics instead of oils. I want to try again in oil, as I can get much nicer transitions.

Black Sink Prairie

I found this picture of an older painting today while looking for another image. It's a view of the Black Sink Prairie in Citra, Florida.

This was a memorable painting excursion. Though it's called a prairie, the location is often more of a swamp than anything else.

I set up my easel by the edge of the swamp in a small clearing surrounded by brush, then started to paint. After starting to block in the landscape, I heard the grunting of a gator, quite close.

There was a lot of vegetation and water around me and I quickly realized I was not in a safe spot in case a gator felt hungry, so I ended up painting my landscape in a bit of a rush while standing on top of a metal folding chair I had brought.  

My sister Stephanie now owns this painting. It's not the most polished work I've ever done but I figured it would be better to have a rougher painting than to be missing a limb. 

I believe I painted this picture in 2014 or '15.

Jeep Sketch

I was out in the yard today with Rachel and the baby, sitting on a towel and soaking up some sun. It was in the upper 50s but the sun felt good and I brought my sketchbook along.

This evening I finally finished my portrait of Margaret and will post that as soon as I get a good photo.

Making Christmas Cookie Ornaments

 A quick sketch in acrylics and pencil:

You can read the rest of the story here.

Cool Watercolor Techniques

Some interesting ideas here:

https://craftwhack.com/watercolor-techniques/

I have always liked the look of watercolors but have never done much with them. This makes me want to experiment.

Good Art Advice

 Via Chuck Black on YT:

You become great at anything overnight.

"Astronauts" (Oil on Canvas, 16 x 20")

 Finished!

 Oil on Canvas. 16" x 20". $600.00

Margaret (in progress)

I had the honor of meeting a friend's wife in person after having only heard of her from afar. When we met, I was struck by her pale complexion, dark eyes and black curly hair. She reminded me of the pretty women often depicted on vintage cigar box labels, so I asked if I could paint her portrait as such.

She graciously sat for me and I am now about half-way through painting her portrait. 

As I painted, I took pictures so you can see the image emerging from the canvas.

 

 

It's getting there, piece by piece. 

I have been busy with my writing lately but am trying to spend a few hours here and there on this portrait. I needed to really push myself to break out of my artistic rut. For too long I have just painted small paintings in short periods of time, rather than pushing my skill by working on something difficult. Seeing what can be accomplished when I push harder over multiple days is encouraging.

Astronauts (in progress)

 Almost done...

I bought a bunch of thrift store frames over the weekend and am refinishing them. I put a black one on this painting and stuck it on the fireplace mantle for a few days so I could decide what I needed to fix in the image.

I'd say it's very close. I plan to do some work on the background as well as add color to the wounded astronaut's face.

Pen and Ink Art from Florida Survival Gardening

Yesterday I mentioned that I should have shared some of the pen and ink illustrations I drew for my book Florida Survival Gardening.

Here are a few of them, before they were completely cleaned up for printing.

 

Blueberry

 

Bidens alba, one of my favorite edible "weeds"

A banana pup growing from the remains of a planted "bull head"

A wild amaranth 

Water hyacinth

Coccinea grandis, the perennial cucumber

Longevity spinach

Canna Lily vs. Calla Lily - don't eat the latter!

In my current book project, a complete re-writing of my book Create Your Own Florida Food Forest, I have called upon a wide range of artists to contribute. The text is almost done, then it's time to nail down the rest of the illustrations. So far, it is looking amazing. 

 

Lord, give me strength to do all You have for me to do!

Satsuma

Yesterday evening when my older children were at Youth Group, I spent some time teaching a few of my younger ones to paint. 

My friend Greg's brother had brought us a box of local Satsumas. I saw one on the table that my three-year-old had partially peeled and decided it would make a great subject for our little painting class. Since he didn't want to give his up, I took a new one and partially peeled it, then we painted.

During the Corona virus I did almost no art, with the exception of a set of pen and ink illustrations for my book Florida Survival Gardening. 

In retrospect, I should have posted those here. We were a little busy trying to repatriate, plus having bad internet down on the island was a reoccurring problem.

Maybe I'll still just go ahead and post some of them. 

Now we are in Alabama and life is better. I bought a new easel last night, along with some canvasses, and hope to spend some time landscape painting over the winter. 

The landscape potential here is wonderful. Lots of old barns, fields of cotton, pines and lakes. It's quite different from the West Indies but it feels like home.

Maybe I'll finally re-launch my art career. That is, if I can stop spending all my time working on my writing career. 

On the Wing

Almost done:

I am going back to my roots. Black and white paintings in a B-movie style.

8" x 10", Oil on Canvas.

8 x 10" Noni Painting in Oils

The baby is safely here and I was too busy to paint for a few days. After doing some reading on oil painting techniques, along with watching some YouTube videos, I ditched my acrylics again and painted a little 8 x 10" painting this morning:

I was originally going to paint some potatoes but my wife and my daughter both told me that was "way too boring."

I put the potatoes away, went for a walk down to a noni tree growing in our neighborhood, then picked a fruit and a few leaves.

Though the ripe fruit taste like bad cheese, black pepper and vomit, the leaves actually make a very nice tea when steeped in boiling water.

The fruit are also fun to paint. They look very alien. 

Little Paintings

This week I have been painting little acrylic canvases as we wait for our latest baby to be born.

I used to play piano to relieve the anxiety of waiting for important things. When we left Florida, I left my piano.

Guess painting is the new thing to do while waiting. 

These are close to finished but I'll touch them up before I show them anywhere other than here.

I recently got a tablesaw to go with my miter saw so I should be able to make frames soon. That will be satisfying. 

Rachel and William

I have been tweaking my oil painting lately in the quest to paint good portraits.

I finished this painting last week.

Day 38: Yellow Creek

I just got back from painting down by the creek. 

I told myself, "David, if you don't do a good painting - a seriously good painting - today, you're going to have to kill yourself by eating that tube of cadmium yellow."

This is called "motivation." And it worked.

 

12 x 20". Oil on scrap wood panel.

As I finished, the rain began to fall again. The monsoons have tinted the creek with mud and I was fortunate to get a chance to paint during a gap in the rainfall.

More little paintings

I have continued painting every day, with the exception of one day where I completely ran out of time to paint. To make up for it, I painted THREE little paintings the next day.

Some are little plein air canvases, some are little still life pieces. I attempted a bigger plein air painting of some gnraled felled trees but it's not done yet. Good so far but I need to solve some problems.

Basically, I've just been sketching with paint and trying to find my favorite palette.

Nothing I'm really proud of this week. Just practice.

Day 32: Local Watermelon

I bought a pair of little watermelons from a local farmer yesterday and cut one of them up for breakfast this morning. I liked the way the inside looked... so I set up a little watermelon still life and painted 'em.

I have to tell a further story.

My friend Mike showed up yesterday morning with two rough-sawn mahogany boards, then proceeded to cut them up into "canvases" for me. The wood is so beautiful (and normally expensive!) I almost hate to paint on it, but I must paint.

I can't believe he carried those boards down the mountain from the sawmill, just so I could have more painting surfaces. Great guy.

Day 31: Sunset Clouds over the Mountains

Why stop? I think I'll just keep painting daily. It's good for me.

 

Like the previous two paintings, this one was done with a limited palette of just yellow, red, blue and white.

Day 30 (2): Rachel Finishes #NaNoWriMo

After finishing my last painting in the 30-day challenge, I watched the children so Rachel could work on the last 7,000 words of the novel she was writing for National Novel Writing Month.

She had been at it all day long, and as she was in the final stretch, I memorialized the moment on a little 5 x 7 panel.