Sunday Morning at the Park

8 x 8 Oil on Gessobord

This should be called "Fast and Furious Study."  Limited palette (except for the kite), and limited time.  I really like this one.  I think it has movement and atmosphere.  I could have gone a lot further and given it a "finished" look, but that wasn't my intention.  I was trying to zone in on the two figures and what they were doing.  These exercises are really helpful for me, and I'm enjoying the process.  It's a very free feeling to paint like this once in a while :-)

Children on the Move

9 x 3 1/8  Oil on Gessobord

OK..So this is a piece of Gessobord that I had my husband cut from a painting I had done a few weeks ago.  When I painted the original piece, the bottom of the painting just didn't look right to me.  The only way I felt I could keep the painting was to crop it which is easy if I'm doing pastel, but not so much on a hard board.  My husband was nice enough to drag out his table saw and cut the bottom off the painting.  Rather than throw the piece away, I just "played," and this is the result.  I might go back into this and refine it, but there is something about the lack of refinement that I like.  Even though there are ghosts around the figures, I think it gives the piece movement.  At least I think so....Just a fun little experiment.

Marathon Stretches

12 x 12 Oil on Gessobord

This started as a study of figures in different movements and poses but turned into one of my new favorite paintings.  My son runs in marathons, and this was before one of the races as the athletes were getting ready.  The figures are simple, with little detail, but what I was going for was for the viewer to feel as though he or she was catching them in mid stretch.  It's always a surprise which paintings will actually please me, and this one was no exception.