Hobson WIP II

"Hobson" WIP
12X9
Oil on Linen Panel
Commission

Click on image to enlarge the view.

Since I am still recovering from surgery, I have been slow at this one. He is too dark and too brown at the moment. Lots of light and more reddish tones to add. It is always just difficult when working from photographs where you have to add and subtract elements and fictionalize too much. But I'm not giving up....will post again on this one..
Thanks for stopping by!

Hobson WIP I

"Hobson" WIP
12X9
Oil on Linen Panel
Commission

I've been down for a bit, had surgery last week and was not doing great before that. Now I am on the mend and slowly (emphasize the word "slowly") getting back on my feet. I am anxious to get going again, but having to pace myself. I'm not allowed to drive for 2 weeks and not allowed to lift much more than my tea cup..and of course a paint brush. Oh, the frustration.

Hobson has been waiting in queue while I finished up entries for the show at the end of February. He is a sweet fellow who is no longer with us, but his owner is wanting an oil painting to have him with her, at least on the wall, forever. I think he is darling. He was also a rescue and was a good companion all the way 'round. You can tell by his face what a good fellow he was.

So I'm back to the easel...just going ever like a snail. Will post as I go along.
Thanks for stopping by...

Red and White Pansies - Garden Painting

"Red and White Pansies
8X10
Oil on Linen Panel
Available

Click on image to enlarge the view.

One of my favorite flowers in our garden is Pansies. Mostly because they don't fail me...except for the squirrels trying to dig them up all of the time. There is a garden supply company close to us who sells an antique variety that I particularly love, so that is what these are. Now that we are having a warm spell, the pansies are starting to perk up. If we are lucky we will have them through April before they take a nose dive. I usually plant them in October, but they don't look happy until spring.

Anyway, I took my camera out to the garden, which actually is in pitiful shape right now. But there they are, doing their best to come along and make us happy!

Hope you like them.

Off to the Pond

"Off to the Pond"
12X16
Oil on Canvas
On Hold

Click on image to enlarge the view.

Finished late this afternoon. I'm holding this one back to consider it for a show entry. The only trick with that is all that white paint may not dry in time, but I'm hoping it will. Thick layers of white paint always seem slow to dry...at least for me. I did add some galkyd in hopes to quicken the process. The show entries are due in under two weeks now.

On to the next one...stay tuned!

Off to the Pond -WIP

"To the Pond"
Oil on Canvas
©Cheryl A. Pass

Still painting options for the coming show. I've worked on this for several hour each day for the last 4 days.  The trick here is going to be the details on the ducks, their feathers, their personalities.  The upper background is finished for the most part.  When my husband and I went to Blowing Rock a couple of years ago, I took several photos of ducks around the lake in town.  This is a composite of photos from the inspiration of that trip.  The plucky walk and the determined looks on their faces always make me smile.

Still working....will post when it is finished.

Landing In Honeysuckle - Bluebird Painting

"Landing In Honeysuckle"
8X10
Oil on Linen Panel
©Cheryl A. Pass

SOLD
Click on image to enlarge the view.

One of the sweet surprises of living in the south is the wildflower, Honeysuckle. There's a fat bunch of it just down the street from my house and when I walk in the summertime the yummy smell of it wafts over to me as I walk by. It can get out of hand if it grows in your yard, but for obvious reasons, the bluebirds love it.

This painting turned out somehow different than I expected it to....or maybe that I chose a color scheme that is not my usual choice. The background gave me fits...I had to grey it down twice to make it fade back away from the Honeysuckle and the Bluebird which I wanted to pop. I put a few brush strokes in the background just to give it more of a feeling of movement, as if the leaves are shaking a bit from the recent landing. I had every blue tube of paint out of my paint box, from Manganese to Ultramarine to Cobalt. It is hard to capture the vivid blue of this gorgeous bird. We are lucky to have some of them living in our neighborhood. As it turns out, I think it has sort of a Victorian feel to it.

Once again, another attempt for the Nature Show. Not sure if I will put this one in. I'm going to keep painting from now until then to try to come up with what I would think is my best work.

Carolina Wren II - Sweet Tweet

"Carolina Wren II
8X10
Oil on Linen Panel
©Cheryl A. Pass
SOLD

Click on image to enlarge the view.

The local, annual, Nature Show is coming up in one month at the Schiele Museum of Natural History. It's never hard to come up with subject matter for this show, especially if you love the natural world around us as I do. I painted a Carolina Wren last year and loved painting it. Happily, it was bought immediately. I had taken lots of pictures of these little darlings since they hop about out back feeders and bushes all year round. I also went looking for other reference photos to help me figure out a background for this one.

I'm having to back-track on the paragraph below....Donna emailed me immediately to say she wanted this painting, so I am just going to have to come up with something else for the Schiele Show and put this one aside for her. She's a very sweet collector of my work, and had asked me for a Carolina Wren last year...so it is her's! Now I'll have to speed up and get one done for the show!

There is a lady who wished me to do one for her.....so Donna, if you are reading this, I have not forgotten you. I need something to put in this show for now, but if it doesn't sell from there, you will have first dibs on it. If it does sell, I promise I will do another one just for you!

Bosley in the Hallway

"Bosley in the Hallway"
6X6
Oil on Gessoed Board
Available

Click on image to enlarge the view.

Here is the little rascal who distracts me with those eyes. He also is just like the "Doggie in the Window" because he is the "one with the waggily tail." This is actually a warm up for another dog portrait I am just beginning to work on. I hadn't painted for a couple of weeks, so I felt I needed to feel the paint again before I work on a commission. Maybe I should explain the odd angle. I was once again trying to catch Bosley for a photo, when he decided to be camera shy. He headed into the hallway and I called him back. He reluctantly turned around, but his desire was still to go the other way. I barely caught the photo and it is really a blurr. So this is the best I could do with it. Little rascal.
Thanks for stopping by....

Cows By The Lake - Framed Finally

                                                              "Cows By The Lake"
                                                                         24X36
                                                                   Oil on Canvas

                                                    Detail from "Cows By The Lake"

You may click on the images to enlarge the view.

 Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all of my Painted Plums friends!

This past year was a juggling match between various competing passions in my life.  Because of that I have painted fewer paintings this year, but hope next year will afford me more time to devote to my paintings.  I thank you all for your interest in my work!  You are my audience and I appreciate you more than you know!

Bringing the year to a happy ending, I finally have this one framed and on the wall.

From having to re-stretch the canvas, to framing snafus, maybe the lesson for this one was "never give up." The painting part was fun, getting it framed was an exercise in "try, try, again. It took nearly nine months from finish to frame, involving re-ordering a frame from some distant foreign location twice. At the moment it is hanging on the wall next to our table in our kitchen. Inspiring Beef Wellington? or Prime Rib?? These bovines are too pretty to eat, frankly. Better for milk cream and butter, I think. This was the largest painting I've done to date. I enjoyed painting it very much. The canvas was very fine and was a delightful surface on which to paint. Now I am having a hard time finding the same type of canvas. Leave it to me to find something rare, fall in love with it, and then have to search forever to find it again. Those of you who know me will have a good laugh over that.

Here comes 2011 faster than a freight train.....Happy New Year everyone!!

Commercial Art - You Never Know

"Goin's Ad for ARK SAFE"
18X24
Acrylic on Canvas Panel

©Cheryl A. Pass

Click on image to enlarge the view.
Note: The actual painting is quite a lot brighter and somewhat larger in real life. I cropped it here just a bit.

In earlier years in my art career I was a commercial artist. So occasionally someone approaches me to paint something that is totally commercial and totally fictional and totally off the wall. Since I devote most of my painting time to contemporary realism, dog portraits, still lives, and landscapes, etc., I'm a bit out of practice in the commercial art field. Given the economic climate our socialist government has created today, a lot of galleries have gone out of business and fine art in some sectors has taken a pretty bad hit.

So when a businessman approached me recently to do a commercial piece, I was all too happy to give it a shot. I know the guy. He is the roofer who contracted to replace our roof last year. He and his crew did a great job and we were glad to have them. His business is doing well....and that's a great thing! But an artist he is not, so he brought me an idea and ask me to run with it. Yikes! The problems of the piece were many.

As a side business, he has set up an insurance consulting business for inspecting roofs for insurance companies. Being a devout Christian, he decided to use the Ark as his symbol. His explanation is that the Ark is awash in the stormy sea and the roofer is there to save the day. Hmmmmm....o.k so far. How to depict that, I was asking my creative brain. The only reference he gave me to go on was a comic book line drawing of an Ark and that is exactly what he wanted for his Ark. O.K. says I, the ever intrepid artist thinking I can do anything. LOL.

So the research began. I went looking for pictures of stormy skies, rainy scenes, oceans roiling in stormy weather, and for a roofer who would be working on a roof in a good position to show up in this scene. I immediately determined that if I did the roofer to scale, he would not show up at all. Mr. Goin's, the roofer, also told me he wanted this art to accommodate billboard size and letterhead size. Whoa...that means it has to be blown up huge and shrunk down to very small proportions. That means details could be good, but also could be totally lost on the small version. He's looking for manly colors and strength in this painting to convey confidence and ability to "save the day for his clients." But he only gave me a cartoon line drawing of an Ark? (Oh, my...my brain did fry.) I hope the message is clear from the working roofer up there in the storm. Another requirement is to accomodate type to either be applied to the art or around the art. Sheesh...

Finally, today I have finished painting this completely fictional version of a roofer working on top of Noah's Ark in the worst of the storm. Whew. It took me a few weeks, off and on, to pull this off. He is coming this afternoon and I hope to heaven he likes it because I have stretched my brain and tried to put into this exactly his directions as to what he wanted.

I am picturing some family driving down the road and upon seeing this billboard, a child from the back seat will yell out...."Look, Mommy and Daddy, there is a man on top of the Ark!"

So, when faced with advertising and commercial art pieces, you never know what you are going to get. And I want to say that doing this was a small way of celebrating something that is left of our American economy! I was happy to have the job, and I am happy Mr. Goin's is doing well and ask me to do it for him.

Now you have the story of my side step into the commercial art kingdom for this week. Next up comes some more dog portraits that have been commissioned. I hope I can switch gears through and after the holidays. It will be fun to tackle those!

Oscar, Bella, and Odie Finished!!

Oscar, Bella, Odie
18X24
Oil on Canvas Panel
Commissioned
Click on image to enlarge the view.

...Ta Da!! I am finished with these babies!! I don't know if I remembered to mention that these are rescued dogs. Oscar, in the middle, is no longer with us. Bella and Odie, left and right, are the current lucky dogs belonging to a darling family in Florida. The next challenge here, besides hoping it dries in time to varnish it, is the shipping. I have a Fed Ex account, but have never used it...and since Fed Ex brought me the frame in good time and great shape, I think Fed Ex is the shipper of choice on this. Meanwhile, it will be sitting here drying until the last minute before Christmas. Fingers crossed!

It has been a fun painting to do. I was stretched to do this format with the solid background...not something I've done before. There was an inspiration picture of a painting with this type of format and background, so that was helpful.

Onward to the next challenge!

Oscar, Bella, and Odie WIP

Oscar, Bella, and Odie
18X24
Oil on Canvas Panel


After I posted this morning I spent the rest of the morning and two hours this afternoon working to get this more finished.  I leaned the frame up there just so I could get an idea of how that will look in the end.  Frames make such a huge difference.  The khaki background was not as hard to mix as I thought it would be. 

I have to say...I've been painstakingly slow with this painting.  I've not painted three dogs in one painting before, plus the format is different from anything I've done before.  I've been very tentative on the whole thing.  I still will tweak the edges of the dogs and add some more red to the one on the right.  But..I am glad to be nearing the finish.  I think it is turning out just as ordered, which is a relief.

An aside to this whole thing is that the person who commissioned this piece is a dear friend from my childhood who grew up with me all through school.  We had not been in touch for years and years, so we are catching up on a whole lifetime of experiences.  She became a culinary arts teacher for her career, another creative creature from our beautiful home town.  She is a very sweet person and commissioned this to give to her daughter for Christmas.  The pressure was on to make this over-the-top wonderful for my friend and her family.  I wish I could see the daughter's face when she opens this up on Christmas morning!

I'll post this one more time when it is dry enough to put into the frame and I have finished tweaking this and that..plus signing it.  Now I am thinking of what the next painting will be...stay tuned!!

Oscar, Bella, and Odie WIP

Close-up of Odie

I'm still working on this painting of the three dogs. Odie is not quite finished, but is coming along. I plan to finish him up today and then comes the ultimate challenge of adding the background color. We'll see how that goes....soon. I'll be back. :-)

Oscar, Bella, and Odie WIP

"Oscar, Bella, and Odie
18X24
Oil on Canvas Panel
Commission

Blogger is acting very weird tonight so I have no idea if this will actually post. First the photo upload would not work. And now I'm getting a message about an HTML tag being broken...which makes no sense. I think Blogger has bugs, but I'll try this anyway.

I have worked on Bella, the black beauty here, for the past couple of days. Black is always tricky..at least I think so. Looking for the blue greys and the brown greys and the infinite value differences on black is just one of those things....you don't know until you've tried it. In color is not the same thing as with charcoal or pencil where you just deal with the values. In color. it is a matter of noticing the way light plays onto the fur and brings in those shades of lavender or blue-ish grey...and then there is a tad of brown tones on the edges of her ears. Yes, black dogs are challenging...but she is worth it in the end. I like her. She looks so earnest, I think..like she is trying really hard to stay still for her master's camera.
Now onto the cute, shy Odie on the right. We'll see if he comes across as well. Stay tuned...

Oscar, Bella, and Odie WIP

"Oscar, Bella, and Odie"

18X24

Oil on Canvas Panel

Commission

I hope you will forgive the glaring photo. It is 11:00 pm and I just decided to take a progress photo to send off to the person who is commissioning this painting. This is the first commission for Christmas this year. I have not done three dogs in one painting before this...and we decided on just the head shots. Oscar, the one in the middle who is mostly painted, is gone now, sadly.  Bella is the next addition on the left. And then Odie came along on the right. They are all rescue dogs much loved by the owners. It may take me a while on this one...and I am hoping the background, when I get to it, will be subtle and the dogs will still pop. 

Long way to go...just thought I'd let you know I am still at the easel.  Stay tuned...