The Secret Life

I leave you with one last bee...up close and personal. Early tomorrow morn I'm flying across the country to Oregon to spend a week with my dear bud, Carol. We have MUCH to celebrate, including her belated birthday, creative projects, art and life! We'll play and paint and play some more. Life is sweet and I am profoundly blessed and eternally grateful.

Oil on panel, 6" x 6"

SOLD

Pair There

The orchard nearby where we pick our apples also has pears. They have a limited number of pear trees, so you can't pick your own...but they kindly let me wander the rows each year with my camera.This is my entry for this week's Daily Paintworks Challenge.

Oil on panel, 6" x 6"

SOLD

Blackhead

This is my entry for this week's challenge at Daily Paintworks. I was on Monhegan Island a week after the challenge submitter, my friend Bruce. How cool is that?! I painted from my own photo of Blackhead. What an amazing place...

Oil on panel, 6" x 6'
SOLD

Busy Bee

I've really been enjoying painting the bees with their bright sunflower backgrounds. And actually I'm finding that I prefer painting the bees using the same sized brush as the rest of the painting(size 4 or 5 flat) rather than a smaller round. I get less picky that way.

Oil on panel, 6" x 6"
SOLD

Taking Our Bows

Here's the last of this little series of the single mini pear from my tree. I especially enjoyed this series because of the light. Just love trying to capture it.

Oil on panel, 6" x 6"

SOLD

Overshadowed

Gotta admit...this one and tomorrow's paintings are two of my recent favorites. I smiled the whole time I painted them.  I love that the vase and pear are similar in size and shape. They'll both be back for an encore tomorrow...

Oil on panel, 6" x 6", $100 + $10 domestic shipping

 
or contact brenda@brendaferguson.com

Little Red

Another sunflower variety. They're endless! :o) Here's some fun painting music.

Oil on panel, 6" x 6", $100 + $10 domestic shipping

 
or contact brenda@brendaferguson.com

Shades of Red

More bees! They're everywhere...just doing our part to pollinate!  I love these orangey-red sunflowers. Tomorrow my friend and fellow artist, Kath and I are heading to the Common Ground Country Fair. It's where we snap TONS of reference photos for months of inspiration. I shoot produce and sheep and Kath photographs gentle hippies! :o) Can't wait!

Oil on panel, 6" x 6" SOLD

Don't Worry Bee Happy

There are a couple more pear paintings to come...but I thought I'd switch things up a bit with a sunflower. Plenty more of those to come, too! And some music for you.

Oil on panel, 6" x 6"

SOLD

Solo

This year's single pear...and its leaves. 

Oil on panel, 6" x 6"

SOLD

Made for Each Other

Four years ago, knowing that pears were my favorite painting subject, my husband bought me two pear trees for Mother's Day. The first year, the trees grew a bit but produced no pears. The second year, one of the trees grew a tiny ping pong ball sized pear that never got any bigger. Year three produced nothing. This year, the other tree produced one pear. It only got to about the size of a small plum! I've done four paintings of it so far...I'm trying to get all I can from it! Who knows if and when another might appear! I love how the mini vase and tiny pear are the same size.

Here's the actual pear next to the 6" x 6" painting.

Oil on panel, 6" x 6", $100 + $10 domestic shipping

 
or contact brenda@brendaferguson.com

Lefty

Here's the other half of yesterday's feathered friends. As I mentioned in the previous post, it was cool to paint both of these at the same time...working back and forth from one panel to the other. There are a few images of the paintings in progress below. With the similar and consistent background, I think they'd make a nice pair

either curious...

or aloof.

 

Oil on panel, 6" x 6", $100 + $10 domestic shipping

 
or contact brenda@brendaferguson.com

 

Righty

This is one of a pair of seagulls. The fun part was I painted them together...at the same time. They were on my easel side by side and I worked back and forth between the two. I'll post the other half tomorrow as well as photos of the process.

Oil on panel, 6" x 6", $100 + $10 domestic shipping

 
or contact brenda@brendaferguson.com

It's All About Balance

This painting was done from an old set of reference photos. I painted many from this shoot, but was going through them recently and wanted to try this set up. I just love painting pears...have I mentioned that before? Sometimes ya just need the comfort of the familiar. For some reason this music seemed appropriate. ;o)

Oil on panel, 6" x 6"

SOLD

An Apple a Day

We're fortunate to have an apple orchard nearby where you can pick-ur-own. That's what I did...but I photographed these beauties in a BIG crate full of already picked apples. I'm really pleased with the light in this one. This is my second submission to last week's Back to School Challenge at Daily Paintworks. And here's some really fun painting music I enjoyed. You can see some steps in the painting process below.

Oil on panel, 6" x 6"

SOLD

Drs Orders

I submitted this painting for the Daily Paintworks Back to School Challenge. If you click on the link, you can read about the challenge and see all the entries. It was a blast getting the shine on these apples. I did another submission for the same challenge I'll post tomorrow.

Oil on panel, 6" x 6" SOLD

Sunny Daze

This one was done plein air in my back field. We have literally hundreds of sunflowers this year! I've included some photos and a few steps in my painting process below.

Oil on panel, 6" x 6"

SOLD

After toning my panel with Cad red and blocking in the composition, I laid in a background. I wanted this to fade into the distance so used a large soft brush to soften the edges.

Rocksie loves when I paint plein air. She catches flies, rolls in the grass, barks at an occasional neighbor, snoozes and just generally does happy dog things. 

I put in the less defined sunflowers in the background and then applied paint heavily to the bright yellow foreground flowers.

The painting's done... 

 ...and Rocksie has made her way over to have a look for herself.

Some of the 'crop' up near our house.

and back near the shed

They're everywhere! :o)

Monhegan Mallard

This female was right under our feet as we sat on the rocks overlooking the water on Mohegan Island. And here's some painting music you're sure to enjoy! I know I did when I dug it up.

Oil on panel, 6" x 6", $100 + $10 domestic shipping

 
or contact brenda@brendafefguson.com

Breakfast on the Rocks

On a recent trip to beautiful Monhegan Island, we left our house at 4:30 a.m. to make the 7:00 ferry. This shot is from the dock at Port Clyde while waiting for the ferry to come in.

Oil on panel, 6" x 6", $100 + $10 domestic shipping

 
or contact brenda@brendaferguson.com

Mellow in Yellow

I am really pleased with the subtlety in this painting. I wasn't able to quite capture it in the scan but it's the best I could do. 

Oil on panel, 6" x 6", $100 + $10 domestic shipping

 
or contact brenda@brendafeguson.com

Hello Sunshine

Here's a different version of yesterday's sunflower and the process of painting it. And by the way...Hello, Sunshine!
Oil on panel, 6" x 6", $100 + $10 domestic shipping

 
or contact brenda@brendaferguson.com
I drew a grid on the reference photo to assist in placement and accuracy of the initial drawing which I did with diluted burnt umber. The canvas is toned with Yellow Ochre.

 I wiped off the dark umber lines and used a bit of turp on my paper towel to clean up the flower so the light yellow petals remain vibrant.

 I started with the warm petal colors.

 Laid in the cooler shadows.

Refined the petals.

 Worked in the cool and warm greens of the leaves.

  

Painted the flower center, stem and vase.

Cleaned up the vase edges and put in the background and shadow.

The final highlights on the vase.

The completed painting with reference photo.