"Fitting In"

Fitting In is the finished product of a painting I apparently started a couple of years ago and set aside. Unfortunately I didn't take a picture of how it was before. Because the apples are so small on this 6x6 painting, I only used the palette knife a little bit. The apples were then shaped with the brush. The drapery was largely done with the palette knife and polished with a brush.

I also made a change to the name of my blog. For marketing purposes, I think it is best to be consistent, so the name is donnaweathers.blogspot.com as opposed to mosaichippo.blogspot.com. It isn't as clever, but it's less for potential collectors/buyers to remember.

Posted with Blogsy

Repainting Painting

I revisit paintings a lot.  Maybe it's a comfort thing.  Maybe it's a lazy thing.  I painted these pears from a reference photo from Wetcanvas in pastels (and sold them to a friend).  Thank you, Sandy.  There's a big difference between the oil version and the pastel version though.  Here I was very bold with the colors, and the use of the palette knife brings about quite a different painting.
The pastel version first, and the oil version second:

Kissing Cousins

To me, it looks as though this "pear" of cousins want to kiss one another but fear the taboo.

Sunny Reach -- SOLD

Here is another daily from Karen Margulis' online mentoring class.
I'm not posting all of them, by the way, because some of them are stinkers.
Photo reference is from user "thalweg" from wetcanvas.com, and it was quite lovely, so thank you "thalweg".

Swim Charlie Swim! - SOLD

Has anyone out there seen JAWS as many times as I have?  When I set up this little still life, a scene from JAWS popped in my head.  Two guys are trying to catch the shark for the reward and one of them gets pulled into the water with a piece of the pier.  When he starts swimming back to the pier, the guy in the "safety zone" sees the ominous fin behind him and yells "Swim, Charlie, Swim!"  That's what I thought of when I positioned the one cherry so that the "pier" (or boat) is just a knuckle away from safety.

My Third Day at Carol Marine's Workshop

The third day we focused on brushstrokes and composition.  Our exercise was the "no fussing" exercise.  It was one of the few paintings that I actually finished.  Every stroke was a different color even if it was slightly different:  altered with white or grayed down.  It's a great exercise for getting your brain out of the habit of "fussing".  The painting should end up looking like a mosaic.  I had actually tried this exercise from one of the Dailypaintworks Challenges and named my blog Mosaic Hippo as a result since it was the first painting on my blog!

Upon Carol's recommendation, a bunch of us visited the Windrush Gallery in Sedona.  What a visual feast!  Afterwards, a few of us returned to the Sedona Arts Center for some after the workshop painting and a glass of wine.

Carol was gracious enough to paint some glass for us and produced this beautiful morsel.