New Orleans Street Car Painting in Progress...

This painting is a 20 x24 commission of a New Orleans streetcar. By request of the owner I am posting my progress as I go along. This is sort of nerve-racking for me. I normally don't have people viewing my work until it is "presentable". Also, I have worked on it both yesterday and today and I pretty much got wrapped up and forgot to take too many intermediate photos. But I do still have a lot of work to do on it, so this is still a work in progress.


First the drawing...

This is from a photograph I took while visiting New Orleans one of the many times I have been since the hurricane. For those of you who have not been yet, or are hesitant to go I can tell you two things; one, you can go and have a great time in the French Quarter and Garden District, at Mardi Gras, eat great food, etc. and almost not even know there was a Hurricane, and two, you will find some very grateful and gracious people. They are very appreciative of those who take the time and money to come down, and the economy can sure use your help. Ok, back to the art at hand...

This is the initial block-in with some of the detail already done. The photo is not well done...the dark part under the street car is reflecting really badly. There is still a lot of work to do today. I plan to cover up most of the pink background showing through at the bottom...but not all of it. I also need to make the tracks make more sense. I am also doing something I never like to do and that is fooling around with my light source. In the original photo the day is very overcast and the light that is there is coming from the right side of the painting. As you can see, I am trying to make it a more cheerful day, based on another photo I have in which the light source is from the front of the streetcar. Plus, the owner wants people in it...not just people, but specific people....sorry CS...this is another one of my not so favorite things to do. But that is another issue for me to struggle with as the day progresses. As you can see I need to get to work! Bye for now!

Time to catch up...

Hi to all whom I have neglected since my remodeling/holiday/birthday extravaganza began! It is wonderful to feel slightly back in control of my life again. I sent out a very large email detailing the events of the past 3 or 4 months to friends and family that I thought might be in some small way interested. If you did not get one and want one, let me know. Not a problem. (although one got sent back as suspected spam)

I guess I will begin with a photo of my booth at the art show in Fairhope back last October. That is when the whole remodel thing really swung into action...

I did well at the show, though they are a lot of work and totally wear you out!

Now here are some shots of my old kitchen...

They were beginning to remove the old kitchen when we left for the art show and when we returned we had bare walls and they were beginning to place the new cabinets in there...

They did a fantastic job and we love it all. The backsplash was done entirely by me and I will have to say running a wet saw was one of the scariest things I have done in a while. Between the designing, sawing, attaching, grouting and cleaning...this backsplach just about killed me! But it turned out well and surprised some folks, my husband included.

Now for some photos of our beautiful floors and those newly painted rooms that took forever to complete. (Sorry you are having to do the tilt-y head thing to see these. I forgot to fix them before I imported them!)------

This is our "watermelon" colored dining room and bamboo floors...Our purple foyer gallery(it looks blue due to sunlight, but it is really the color of the hallway below) This is our foyer by the front door. It is my ever-changing gallery where I hang my paintings to dry when I finish them or keep them while they are waiting to go to a "real" gallery...Our purple family photo gallery in the hallway by the kids bedrooms (this is the real color of the foyer, too...This is our living room where we spend most of our time. This is the regular set-up on the shelves for most of the year...

This is when I have them decorated for the holidays with my 230 santas...
I plan to resume painting tomorrow and will do my best to keep my blog updated. As I am finding with the blogs of friends of mine, it is a great way to keep updated on what is going on with someone. All I can say is that it is great to be back and thanks to those who checked on me in my online absence.

Art Show on the Deck...

I have not been able to paint for the last three days of last week and I do regret it, but I had to pack up stuff (the kitchen part of the remodel begins this Friday) and I had to get paintings framed and titled and ready for the show next week in Fairhope. I have built in a little trick to make sure I don't let things wait till the last minute...I have an art show at my home the week before which forces me to get everything ready. Here is what my art looked like all spread out on my deck yesterday. I did sell two paintings, too. I have the best friends!
I hope to try to paint later this week, but today and tomorrow I will be off visiting my mom, it is her birthday today. HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!

Oil Painting of a Tomato ... 12x12

Okay here is another day that I have stepped outside the box and painted on a day that I would normally not have. Even though it is a subject I am well familiar with, I saw this tomato displaced in a fruit bin at the grocery store yesterday and it had all those great little curling leaves that I love. So I had to have it. I am still pretty uncomfortable with painting when I have 1200 other things to do, but I am trying.

Also you may have noticed that I have made more informative titles for my posts for the last two paintings. I read an article from the Empty Easel web site this weekend on how search engines work as applied to an artist. When blogging it seems that the more "keywords" you have in your blog title the better chance you have of getting noticed. Dangerous words for me, since I tend to be pretty verbous anyway.

(Sorry if you are getting this post for the second time today. I am republishing it in an attempt to enable my "comments" section again)

Okay, this is my first attempt at painting every day. That sounds weird, but to the Daily Painters it will make sense. The premise of the daily painters is to paint one small painting every day. You stay in practive that way and don't get rusty. Plus you just get better by leaps and bounds. Or so the story goes. I have seen it happen for others. I don't pretend to think that I can paint every day. Or even every weekday. But today is a day that I have a million things to do. Phone calls, a meeting with my kitchen guy, more packing for the remodel. I would have normally blown off today and not painted. But I will not get better that way.
So I painted this apple. Not small by daily painter guidelines...it's 11x14. But small by my guidelines. I did not have time to play around with the image a lot, so the colors are not as great as they are in the painting.
But, the important thing is that I painted today.

Frustration...

I have had several people comment on the fact that you can no longer comment on my posts each day. I do not know why this is...I have done everything I can think of and nothing different than I did before. I cannot figure this out so if anyone knows what is up with this will you let me know. Thanks, Lorrie

Friday's Work...

I did this pear yesterday afternoon after I had posted the pelicans. I was feeling the time drawing to a close where I can just paint all day long so I was reluctant to put up my paints and wash my brushes. I did this pear from life with thoughts of what I learned in class near the surface of my thoughts. I changed backgrounds at the last minute and the ground color was not what I would have used. However it made this interesting background color, sort of a departure for me. The pear is 11x14.Speaking of departures I decided to do something different from my normal repertoire and this guy is the result. I took his photo when we visited Hilton Head Island this summer. I am sorry to say he was a pet and not just in the wild but he was colorful, noisy and happy(like me). He is 12x24.

In keeping with the departure theme, this landscape was born out of the desire to not throw away the beautiful colors I had left over from some of the paintings of the last couple of days. I took my pallette knife and created this sunset. A total departure...I feel like there is no way I can come close to imitating the beauty of a sunset, so I normally don't try. This is 11x 14 and just sort of makes me smile.

Wednesday and Thursday's work...

I did not get to finish Wednesday's paintings on Wednesday because I was painting two at the same time and just ran out of gas. So, I have worked on them all day today and will post both day's work together this time.I finished the third tomato (in the set from Tuesday) first thing in the morning. I don't know what it was about yesterday but my phone rang 100 times. I have a phobia about not answering it so I was up and down and in and out with my painting mojo. The tomato is 12x12 like the other two in the set.

Then I did these two handsome creatures. They are 12 x 24. They were painted from a set of photos that I took one afternoon at the Ocean Springs Harbor. For those of you not familiar with this neck of the woods, Ocean Springs is in Coastal Mississippi and their harbor was dreadfully affected by the hurricane. These photos were taken during the summer before the hurricane struck. I spent an afternoon down there and made friends with these guys and their flock. I got so friendly with them that I was actually able to walk out on the dock with them and hang out. I have often wondered if they survived. I know that the photogenic shrimpboat nearby did not. It remains a wonderful memory.

Tuesday's Work...

First hello and welcome to all my friends and family who are subscribing to my blog for the first time. Thanks to all who have written and sent such nice comments. You just don't know how much it helps to know what others are thinking. I have actually had two people who are not friends or family comment on my work...and they didn't even feel like they had to.

The next big thing is that my friend Carol Marine, that I took the workshop in Santa Fe from, mentioned me in her blog yesterday! I told my husband I fell like a struggling musician that has been asked to jam with a famous band or something. Thanks so much to Carol for the kind words.

On to the paintings...The first one I tackled was this jalapeno and tomato. I wanted to do the horizontal layout for a change. As usual now that I have photoed it I can see something it needs. So I will tweak it before I put it out at my show. This one is 10x20.

Yesterday was the day for my dance lesson so I had to knock off before I finished the third tomato in this little trilogy. Last week was Tabasco-land, well this week we are visiting Tomato Town! I love painting tomatoes. I really am happy with these two. I love the loosy goosy look. I did these almost entirely with a pallette knife. They are 12x12.

Now to get that last tomato done and then maybe something different...

Monday's Work...

I am still trying paint on the fruits and vegetables that I bought Friday, before they are "no longer available". I was dieing to paint these two pears. I actually stood in the grocery store and held up pears and looked at them from odd angles. The produce man couldn't help but ask what I was doing. I sort of had this little drama worked up in my mind before I even left the store. The green pear had this little rakish tilt to his stem and I thought he looked so jaunty. And then the other pear, well she is just blushing right down to her socks, over something that the "suave" pear said. (I know, I've been inhaling too many fumes) This one is 16x20 and is entitled "You're Making Me Blush"
This trio of tomatoes was fun. They are 12x12 and I think they would look good together as a group or on their own. (I pulled the second tomato carefully off the main stem and then by accident pulled off the little leaf crown thing, which was the reason I picked it in the first place, so I had to pin it back on!)