Flower Power

Wow- Early October is the last time that I worked on an oil painting, well before our glorious trip to Maui. Since I returned to Seattle I've been so focused on printmaking, and I also felt a little burned out after the SeaMonster mural, as fun as it was. I'm lucky enough to have the opportunity to sell some small floral paintings at a gallery in Northern California (details to come once my work is on the walls!) so it's time to get back in the swing of things. I'm painting with the palette knife on 5"x7" canvas boards that I'll frame when the work is dry. Photographer and friend Doug Davenport has generously e-mailed me a ton of reference photos. For now I'm picking from the florals, but I can't wait to revisit the others soon to paint some of the incredible wildlife, landscapes, and waterscapes that he sent. After struggling with two florals, I finally feel like I've reached my stride with my third attempt- this red flower that I painted today:When I paint impastos, I try to paint everything at once with no drying time for the painting. If I try to rework it while it's drying, the paint often becomes crumbly in sections and turns into a big chunky mess. I have let a painting dry completely before working further (Montmartre and Ushidoshi are two successful examples of this) but the wet-on-wet smudges are what I really love about painting with the knife. It's tricky to do this without the paint color getting muddy. My trick is to wipe off the knife after every stroke to keep the colors pure. The paper towel ends up looking like a little work of art in itself! I just cropped a section of this photo to make a new banner for the Etsy store that features my canvas paintings: