Apple Candles

March 23, 2021mayhewjnm 1 Comment

8 x 10 ins, oil on canvas panel

Every year at Thanksgiving (November) I use cored Red Delicious apples to hold candles for the table decoration. It seems in line with the pioneer spirit and using what is easily to hand.

A few days after Thanksgiving last year I still had these on the table and was sitting contemplating the world when I noticed a beautiful morning light on them that really brought them alive, even without flame in the candles! I quickly took several photos and painted this from one of the photos with my Geneva oil paints.

Leaving the Nest

March 15, 2021March 15, 2021mayhewjnm 2 Comments

As I was raking up the leaves in the fall, I found this small and beautiful nest on the grass. All sorts of fibers are wound into it; pieces of grass, trash and even animal, and possibly human, hair. It is such a marvel of skillful engineering that I wanted to celebrate it in a painting.

I placed it with a maple leaf (from our lawn) and an oak leaf (that probably blew across the street from the neighbor’s yard) and gave it a title that is in line with our stage of life-they’re nearly all gone!

Painted with Geneva Oil Paints.

Ducks

March 5, 2021mayhewjnm 1 Comment

What’s Up, Duck? 8 x 10, oil on canvas panel

When we lived in Bath, England for 8 months in 2006-7, we used to walk past a music supply shop called ‘Duck, Son & Pinker’. Since ‘Duckie’ is sometimes used in England as a term of endearment, my husband thought this was an appropriate title for me, our 4 year old son and baby daughter!

From that time, the name stuck in our (half-British) family too. This male duck (from a photo I took in Holland, MI last year) seems to be talking to his mate with some concern, echoing both a marital communication and the famous line from Bugs Bunny.

New Paints!

March 2, 2021March 2, 2021mayhewjnm Leave a comment

Some of my sons gave me a new set of paints for my birthday, (something they’d noticed from my birthday wish list)!

They are the Essential palette of Geneva Artist Oil Paints from Geneva Fine Art, made by Mark Carder in Texas. I had been watching videos by Mark Carder on DrawMixPaint.com, and on YouTube. I liked his limited palette ideas, his method (drawing on a mid-toned neutral background, careful paint mixing and placing color shapes in their right place from the beginning), description of his paints (high pigment load mixed with slow-drying medium), and his finished painting results and those of his students. I have been using them ever since then and am very pleased with the results.