Coffee Shop paintings

Two paintings this week - they were obviously done as a series, and I just sold one of them two weeks ago.

They were inspired by photos I've taken in autumn on a not-too-sunny afternoon, almost early evening. Just that time of the year where it's not yet winter but definitely getting there. The coffee shop still had the little tables on the boardwalk, but folks were sitting inside, warming their hands on a cup of coffee, cappuccino, mocha. Watching the people go by, letting their thoughts drift. Reading the paper or catching up with a good friend.

There's something cosy and soothing about such scenes - I hope I somehow captured it.

"Coffee Shop, 4pm"
acrylic on canvas
50 x 40 cm

"Coffee Shop, 7pm"
acrylic on canvas
40 x 50 cm

As I said before, I've just sold "Coffee Shop, 4pm" - and since I have an exhibition coming up and don't want to hang "7pm" all on it's own, I just started on another Coffee Shop painting to go with it.
At the moment it's only at the very first stage, but I might post a sneak preview soon.

Karin Jurick - A Thank You

In December posted about the portrait I did of a fellow artist for a portrait challenge over at Karin Jurick wonderful blog "Different Strokes From Different Folks". It was such a great experience and a treat to watch 180 artist rising up to the challenge.
A few days after the portraits were posted I received an email from Jill Polsby. She also took part in the portrait exchange and had a great idea: let's put together a special Thank You to Karin for starting DSFDF in general and for the December project in particular. Of course I was exited to contribute to this Thank You.

Since this was Jill's idea and hard work, I'll let her describe the project:

"In December 2009, Karin Jurick through her wonderful website "Different Strokes From Different Folks", mounted a portrait challenge. 180 people from around the world were to submit a head and shoulders photo of themselves to Karin so that some other person of the 180 would paint it. Painters painted each other anonymously and then Karin posted all of the wonderful paintings and drawings on the Blog.

She also created fantastic YouTube videos of the photo morphing into the painting. Be sure and take a look at these as well. It's a fabulous viewing experience!!
Video 1 - Video 2 - Video 3 - Video 4

As a Thank You to Karin Jurick Tribute, 118 of the above 180 artists (those who could be located) painted a portrait of Karin from a photograph supplied to them by Jill Polsby. I've created a link to the Picasa Album for everyone to enjoy and created a Snapfish book that was mailed to Karin as a huge thank you from her fans.

I can't thank everyone enough for their enthusiastic response to this Thank You Project for Karin. Thank you!!"

So here is my version of Karin - hope she likes it!

"Karin Jurick - a driving force!"
oil on canvas
20 x 20 cm

The Colour of the Year 2010....

I just came across a post on ‘Bliss Following’ (isn’t that a great title for a blog?) announcing Pantone’s choice for Colour of the year 2010.

Now for those of you who are wondering now, it’s not ‘Panettone’ (which is 'a typical sweet yeast bread of Milan, usually prepared and enjoyed for Christmas and New Year around Italy, and one of the symbols of the city’ and really delicious).

Pantone is – according to Wikipedia - “a company best known for its Pantone Matching System (PMS), a proprietary color space used in a variety of industries, primarily printing, though sometimes in the manufacture of colored paint, fabric, and plastics.” Or according to Mitzi Easley from ‘Bliss Following’ they simply are the color gurus of the world. I like her description better!

For some years now, Pantone has announced a Color of the Year. And the Color of the Year for 2010 is ….. Turquoise!





And since it’s Pantone we’re talking about, the color is actually ‘PANTONE 15-5519’. You can find their press release here.



My first reaction was: Great, I love turquoise! Funny enough I’m even wearing a turquoise scarf today!

And next I tried to think of paintings I’ve done with a strong turquoise accent…. hmm…. i know I use turquoise quite often… hmmm….
The only paintings I could think of were done some time ago and use turquoise as a (muted) background color or simply mixed into other colors. The best example would be my coffee series (Link 1 and Link 2).

So…. the idea for a new series is born! I’d like to do some paintings featuring Turqoise, but also the colors of the previous years: Violet Tulip (2005), Chili Pepper (2007), Blue Iris (2008) and Mimosa (2009) – and of course Cerulean Blue, the color of the Millennium.


What about you? – It would be great to see how other artists incorporate Turqoise in their artwork! Show us what you’re doing!

Technorati tags: pantone color painting

Lean on Me

When I started this blog in 2007 I had made a New Year's Resolution to complete a painting a week. Looking back on that year I actually did quite well, I got into the swing of taking the time (mostly on weekends) to paint a small piece in one to two hours.
This was great practice, I learned a lot and really think I improved through this exercise.

But as so often (and I hope I'm not the only one like that) my focus changed from one thing to the next - that's the problem with being interested in many things - and I concentrated on painting bigger canvases, more abstract, and taking more time. Definitely more than two hours once a week.

For this year I hope to be able to combine both interests (and more). So I plan to:
- keep working on bigger canvases in my studio
- coming back to doing smaller, quick paintings
- sketching! (that's a scary idea for me, but I'm sure it'll pay out...)
- and subject wise concentrating on portraits and the human figure.

Sounds good, doesn't it?

This is a piece I finished end of last year. It's a commission by a very dear friend and it's going to her brother and sister-in-law as a wedding gift.

"Lean on Me"

Acrylic on Canvas

80 x 80 cm

I'll deliver it this evening - hope they like it!

Mamina

Trying to get back into 'blogging mode' I'd like to post a portrait I did some while ago. Since I was not actively blogging at that time it might still considered 'new'...

This is a portrait of my grandmother I did from an old b/w photograph, taken some 40 years ago. It means a lot to me.

"Mamina"
acrylics on canvas panel

I've just started another portrait, probably using oil colours again. While acrylics is 'my first love', I want to get more proficient with oils as well. I do have to agree that the finish and soft sheen of oil is beautiful....

Portrait of an Artist

Well, it's only been a few hours since my last post. But I wanted to show you the portrait I did of a fellow artist as part of the Portrait Exchange Challenge over at "Different Strokes from Different Folks".

As I said in my last post, I was struggling to find the time to paint this. I actually planned to do only the underpainting in acrylics and then switch to oils, but decided to stay with acrylics. So while this portrait does not have the lush oil finish, it feels fresh and almost like a sketch.
One thing I did not really master in the last two years is taking a photograph of my artwork.

So here's my portrait of Vern.

"Vern"
Acrylic on canvas bord,
28x30 cm

And since likeness is always 'good to have' when painting a portrait, I'll post the reference I got from Vern - and thank you for the great photo to work from!

Happy New Year!