Summer. Part 4 of 4

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This painting is small but it packs a lot of punch. I fully intend to offer it as a print very soon. Look at this mockup of it on the wall:

View fullsize

What do you think?

The original painting almost fits in the palm of my hand:

And it concludes the "Summer," a four panel mini-series that I think looks pretty good together:

You can view the individual paintings here.

The weekend starts tomorrow and I decided to take a break from businessing and enjoy my family. I will still paint, most likely, but you won't see a new post until Monday. I was reminded today of one of my priorities in life - and that is to have as little stress as possible. Which, ideally, directly translates into work-life balance.

Have a great Labor Day weekend! See you on Monday with some yummy Yupo sunflowers ;)

Summer Morning (Day 3)

I've been spending a considerable amount of time thinking of and feeling out color combinations that I'd like to use. Which is only natural, as I am leaning more and more towards abstraction. I remember leafing through a book on Van Gogh and having a revelation along the lines of "Oh, so he could draw pretty well in his earlier works. " Same thing with Picasso, except I don't think he was that good. But at some point, they made the choice to let go of accuracy in drawing in favor of expression and abstraction.

Now, before you start lamenting the death of traditional art and getting angry at me because you actually like the representational art, hold on. Do not worry. I intend to draw things as they are, albeit with a bit of my own flair, till the day I die. I just like abstracts, too :)

This painting today is number three in a mini-series I worked on this week. There is a total of four miniature 4x4" paintings, I will post the last one tomorrow. Click on either image to go to the listing and find out more about it (and buy! :) )

P.S. If you get my blog by email and you don't want to see me in your inbox every single day for the duration of the September 30 Paintings in 30 Days challenge, you can easily update your subscription preferences to only send you a once-a-week digest (look for an "update profile" link on the bottom).

Summer Midday (30 paintings in 30 days)

Tada! Painting number two is here. And it goes so well with painting number one (and just between you and me, also with painting number three and four ;) )

I decided to make things a bit more fun and add a frame (you can see a couple more framing ideas in the listing for this painting). Here it is sans frame:

This one is also a 4x4" watercolor on Aquabord. And believe it or not, I used flowers (roses, to be specific) as a starting point for both of these first two paintings. What do you see?

My choice of frame here was guided partly by a curious discussion on houzz.com I've been participating in. We got a little bit into watercolor vs oils debate after someone said that they prefer watercolor paintings for their bright and vivid color. Which is, apparently, not a common sentiment. So that watercolor painting in an oil-ish frame up there is my response to the watercolor nay-sayers. Bright and colorful it is.

Do you have a space in your house that needs some brightening- and coloring-up? Go here to buy this painting.

Day 1 - Summer Evening

Whew. I feel like I just had an intense workout. What did I do? I wrote a product description for this piece. It's not long, it's not fancy, but it takes so much of my mental energy to do this stuff! I don't know why it is so hard to detach myself from my work and not freeze up when it comes to painting titles and sales copy. Do you get like this?

It's like someone putting you in front of the class and saying, "Okay sweetie, now tell us why we should like you."

Anyway, here's the first painting of the 30-in-30 challenge! It's an abstracted flower (I'll let you see what you want to see) and it's watercolor on Aquabord.

I haven't used Aquabord in a while. I wanted to ease in to the daily painting and chose the smallest panels I had, which happened to be these 4x4" Aquabords.

They are tiny but, unlike a piece of paper (even Yupo) they feel solid. I think they are highly gift-able and show-off-able. And for those collectors complaining that they have no space on their walls left, this 1) doesn't have to go on a wall - it can be a feature element on a shelf or table and 2) surely, you can find a spot for a 4x4" panel?

For these in-home shots, I actually set it up on my nightstand, with enough room for books and a vase.

Do you think you have a perfect spot in your home for this little jewel? Buy here!