KITE DAY

6"X8"

OIL ON CANVAS PANEL

SOLD

This is a little girl at the beach on Hilton Head Island. She was out with her family for a fun day of kite flying and running on the beach. What a nice break from painting  still lifes. Still lifes can be very time consuming with the set up, removing and replacing items. With a photo I feel like I have more freedom. I start the painting from a photo but once the drawing is correct, I usually don't look at the photo very often. It's a nice change from all that scrutiny that I give to a still life.

Emerging Artist and New Website

Lily by Ian Blackburn

6"X6"

My ten year old great nephew came to my studio Sat. to do a painting for an art contest and this is the finished product. He was not very pleased with it but I think it is great for a first oil painting. I think his taste is more photo-realism as opposed to impressionism. Last year he entered a landscape done with pastels and won 1st place in his age group and Best of Show. As you can imagine he felt very pressured to do something spectacular.

In teaching another person I always learn something myself. To keep things simpler for him I had him mix the most prominent colors in piles before he started the painting. It worked so well for Ian that I don't understand why I haven't used this method for myself.

My new website is up and running with the help of my friend Ryan Asher. Ryan has been so busy building websites for other people that he hasn't finished one for himself. But you can contact him at ryancasher@yahoo.com if you need some help with a website.

http://www.anitatresslar.com/

TULIP WITH EGGPLANT

This is the start of a painting from a few days ago. You can see that I decided to move the vase down a little so it would not line up exactly with the plate. I am using gessobord that I have covered with black acrylic paint. Sometimes I use burnt sienna or just start on the white primer of the gessobord.

Here I have covered the canvas with oils in preparation of getting a bit more detailed and adding highlights.

8" X 10"

PRICE $150

Here is the finished painting after another coat of loose paint and some palette knife work on the tulip.

IN THE FOLDS

8"X8"

OIL ON BOARD

PRICE $120

I have friends who belong to a local arts group that moved into a very spacious studio last year. My friend Diane decided to set up a large still life in the main room of their meeting site and she invited me to come and paint with her. The set up is just beautiful. I took small panels since I knew I would only be able to paint one day and this is the painting I did first. I will post the second one later in the week.

FINALLY BACK TO THE EASEL

PRIMROSE

6"X6" OIL ON PANEL

PRICE $100

It feels like I have been away from painting a very long time and the start of this painting felt a bit awkward. A brief moment of "OH where do I start"? Primrose always starts showing up in our market at the end of December and I can't resist them. If I can keep it alive until time to put it in my garden, it will be a miracle. I'm better with cactus.

BERRY REFLECTIONS

6"X6"

OIL ON BOARD

PRICE $100

Thank you California for strawberries in September. Not only are they beautiful but also delicious for snacking.

WINESAP

6"x6"

OIL ON CANVAS

PRICE $100

It's apple time in the midwest and winesap apples are my favorite. I bought two of them at the local farm market and couldn't wait to taste that typical sweet, tart very crisp apple. What a disappointment. Mushy is the only word for it. So the second one is in this painting.

FRESH AIR

6"X6"

OIL ON BOARD

I met a friend today for some plein air painting. We went to an historic farm called Carriage Hill for some painting, drawing and chatting. The weather was absolutely perfect for spending the day outside.

DAYLILY

OIL ON CRADLED PANEL

This is another painting that is hanging at THE CLOUD NINE CAFE through the month of October. Life has been a little hectic at our house lately so no time to paint. The hectic part has all been good. Having our niece visiting from CA. and getting together with family and friends. All fun.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CAROL

6"X6"

OIL ON BOARD

PRICE $100

SOLD

The title of this painting comes from a Daily Paintworks Challenge. CAROL MARINE'S husband David has issued a challenge for fellow bloggers to do a painting for Carol's birthday. So here are some flowers for Carol. Carol is one of the original daily painters and bloggers. She has a huge following by now and is quite

successful.

ORANGE AND WHITE

6"X6"

OIL ON CANVAS PANEL

PRICE $100

I have been painting both on these canvas panels and masonite recently and I think I like the masonite best. So the next painting will probably be on masonite to continue the experiment.

BACKLIT

8"X6"

OIL ON BOARD

PRICE $100

This painting is for the DAILY PAINTWORKS CHALLENGE. The challenge is to interpret a black and white image in color. In this case it is a photo of a window with light coming in and back lighting the objects in the window. I chose a small area of the photo with this one plant and added the cherry for more color.

VERBENA

6"X6"

OIL ON BOARD

PRICE $100

This is another painting of flowers from my garden. The garden is not looking so great this year between the scorching temps and the deer eating all the hostas, it is in sad shape. But these flowers seem to tolerate the heat a little better than others. That said, I would rather have this than snow.

OVERLAP

6"X8"

OIL ON CANVAS PANEL

PRICE $100

I'm finally back to blogging. My daughter-in-law and I decided to take part in a neighborhood garage sale last week. It was held on the two hottest days of the year, so far. This was my first garage sale and it was exhausting. I'm still tired.

For this painting I decided to try a small circular composition of flowers from my garden. I like the movement and pattern created by overlapping the flowers and leaves.

DAISY WITH CHERRIES

6"x6"

OIL ON CANVAS PANEL

PRICE $100

I have so many flowers blooming right now that it is hard to decide what to paint next. The daises were starting to fade from the heat so I brought in one of the better ones to paint.

MUSTARD FIELD

5"X7"

OIL ON MASONITE PANEL

PRICE $100

This is a cornfield near our home that is now a wild mustard field. The flowers are beautiful but very invasive.
These weeds are showing up everywhere now including my flower garden. I leave them alone until the flowers are ready to go to seed then I get rid of them. Inevitably they will be back in my garden next year until I toss them out again.

JUNE LILIES

6"X6"

OIL ON PANEL

PRICE $100

Two types of daylilies from my garden. I have painted lilies so many times and I am always surprised at how hard they are to capture in paint. There are so many nuances of color that it can get confusing to the eye.

ORANGE BLOSSOMS PROGRESSION SOLD

This is the beginning of a painting of Mock Orange Blossoms from my front garden. I painted this on an ampersand panel which I covered with a coat of acrylic burnt sienna. I find that the paint flows easier on these panels if I coat them first.

Here is another shot with more of the background added.

7"X5"

OIL ON PANEL

PRICE $100

Here is the finished painting. I found these flowers a little difficult to paint because I was having trouble establishing the color of the shadow areas. White is a tricky subject.

ON THE RUN

5"X7"

OIL ON MASONITE

NFS

This is a painting of my granddaughter running around the park. She will be 2yrs. old in June and she is pretty good at running.

GARDEN PATHWAY

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6"X6"

OIL ON GESSOBOARD

This is a lovely public garden not far from my home. It has long winding pathways with many varieties of blooming trees and flowers from spring through fall. A great place for landscape painting on a nice day. I only paint outside on nice days because I am a wimp and therefore; not a true landscape painter.