Tag children

People’s Choice Award

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This painting was recently awarded People’s Choice Award at our RCAA member Show in Marshall, IL, at the Gaslight Art Colony. The Show is over, but this painting is still on display there until the end of December.

It’s the first time I’ve received a People’s Choice Award, and I’m delighted!

Recent Oil award

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Beauty Will Rise, oil on linen panel, 16 x 20 ins

This painting was awarded First Place in Oil Painting at the Wabash Valley Art Guild Spring Show in May 2024.

I took the photo 3 weeks after she had been bitten in the face by a dog, in which she lost part of her lower lip and now had a significant scar down her chin. She was five at the time, and has been a real trooper about the ordeal.

I think the painting was my own therapy, to celebrate her continued beauty and character even after such an unpleasant event.

Frozen For a Moment

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Oil on canvas panel, 16 x 20 ins
The photo I took of her wearing the dress I bought for her.
Full size pencil investigation
Small color study
Pencil outline (fixed) on a toned canvas
Bistre underpainting—burnt umber and a lean mixture of medium
Grisaille underpainting (over the bistre)
Section of the finished grisaille viewed through a values app.

After painting ‘Katherine in Grey’ I decided to try a full color painting using a grisaille underpainting. I bought an online class to help me—Oil Painting Portrait Glazing class by Will Kemp.

For all of the figure and dress I used two simple triads of colors—Mars Yellow, Chinese Vermillion, and Turquoise light, all by Sennelier, plus Ultramarine Blue, Burnt Umber and Titanium White by Geneva Fine Art.

I enjoyed the process of all the steps and layers. Maybe I’ll try it again!

Contemporary Portrait-Indian Girl

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12 x 16 ins, oil on canvas panel

So much fun! This portrait is based on a photo from Unsplash, but adapted according to my memories of our 4 month stay in India in 2014. One overwhelming impression there was the riot of color—in clothing, outside temples, in decorations. It was a beautiful feast of color!

Here’s a gallery of some steps in the process:

Dancing with the colors—a freehand placing of connected colors.
Adding the motif by oil transfer.
Negative blocking—rubbing out the lightest areas with a paper towel.
Blocking in the major values and colors.
Adding some momentum—brushing, scraping, swiping and swooshing!
Restoring the image with more layers of color and refinement.

Rare Encounter

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‘Rare Encounter’, Oil on Linen Panel, 18 x 24 in

I had a painting like this in mind for several months, ever since I took the photo last fall of my granddaughter staring at parachute jumpers exiting an airplane. I liked the lighting on her, her position, and her look of interested wonder.

It seemed a fitting start for a painting for a group Show connected with our local library’s Fall Big Read–World Of Wonders, by Aimee Nezhukumatathil. The book is intended to increase people’s interest and wonder in the natural world. I read the book over the summer and appreciated many of the author’s thoughts and insights.

In my painting I made the object of her vision and wonder a Monarch butterfly, the subject of a chapter in the book. I enjoyed researching the butterfly and adding it to my painting.

The art display is up in the Terre Haute library for the month of August 2022.

Eden

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Oil on canvas panel, 18 x 24

I painted this picture of my youngest granddaughter from a photo taken and sent by my daughter-in-law. Besides loving the subject, I loved the light on her face. The photo was actually taken in their bathroom without the toys. I adjusted the background and requested a photo of the toys to add to the foreground.

This painting is currently on display at the Link Art Gallery in Paris, IL. I was delighted to find that my painting was chosen as the one used for the promotional cards for the Show. It will be up until July 15, 2022, along with other works by members of the River City Art Association, including two more of mine.

Master Copy III

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A copy of part of a portrait painting by Philip de Laszlo of the Princess Elizabeth, oil, 12 x 12 ins.

I painted this Master copy earlier this year, in a lesson with my teacher, Kari Rajkumar. I chose the portrait out of several she showed me because of my Britishness and my interest in painting children.

There are so many lovely colors in her skin! I really enjoyed trying to match them. I have focused since on understanding the warm and cool colors in skin, and I think I’ve gained some ground.

Inspection

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Oil on canvas panel, 12 x 16

One of my grandaughters asked me to sew a pink fleece bunting for her doll, after I had made a purple one for her sister’s doll. I made it and sent it to her and this painting is based on the photo that her mother took for me.

I like the look of quiet concentration as she inspects it. I enjoyed working with the soft and muted colors and using a palette knife for her hair.