Under Lock and Key

Hellooo,
Had fun painting this and submitted it to a contest. Now it's a wait and see.
Cheers all!
Karen

Oil on canvas, 8x10", Still life   May become available at some point

I'd tell all my friends, but they'd never believe me

I started this years ago. And got rather irritated with my daughter when she posted it on her Facebook  page before I'd finished it. (Well, it's her image that I used.) So stupidly, I put it away. But now I've pulled it out and finished it and I'm rather happy with it. I hated - hated - hated the spaceship! It fought me at every turn but it's OK now. 

The title is from a Radiohead song that I just love - and is so...fitting.

https://youtu.be/QYAvrvglBnI

And in my perfect world, I'd follow that up with Bowie's Starman - but that's just me.

Oil on canvas, 18x14", fantasy, figure, portrait

Available

Cheers all,

Karen

My Hills

Hello,
Painted our hills here. Everything is so, so, so dry and dusty already.
Cheers all.
15x13", landscape, oil on canvas available

Click to Buy

Pepperdine Skyline

My husband took a lovely photo on his cell phone while waiting for the stop light in Malibu near Pepperdine. I enjoyed painting this. Oil on Canvas, 20x13", landscape, available

On a sad note, my 94 year "sound of mind and body" old mother in law passed away. It was all so sudden and tough. She served overseas from the States in WWII as an RN. I love this picture of her. It's my favorite. Hard to imagine she's gone. She was such a fixture in my life.

Love the people who love you. It's easy to be mad at someone you know will forgive you. 

God's peace.

Karen

The weight of feathers

You know when you've done a set-up and you have it sitting on your desk in a not so good place but you think it will be safe because it's your desk and your husband gets the brainiac idea to use your computer instead of his and he jostles your still life set up as you're hustling into the room saying, "Don't touch my set-up!" but it's too late.....

Don't you just hate that?

Colored pencil, charcoal, Wolff's carbon, graphite and whatever else I could throw at it - on illustration board, 7x8", still life

This was much smaller and didn't take as long as the last.

Cheers all.

Karen

The World is Not Enough

Hi and hello,

Finally feeling better these days.

Been sitting around tinkering with this.

Colored pencil on illustration board - which I don't think I'll use again for colored pencil.

Any type of layering was burnishing as far as the board was concerned and I couldn't get the smooth darks I was going for even with a bit of solvent.

9 1/2 x 15" 

Available

Cheers,

Karen

Radish multiplied

Me speaking in a nasally voice: I've been sick. cough. yuck. painted radishes. first one. then two.
I think I liked the single one better.
bye now. must blow nose. yuck.
Watercolor and colored pencil. 11x11"

Datura, Angel Trumpets

Colored pencil on Stonehenge paper 6x8"

Not Available

I was inspired to "somewhat" of "an after" of a painting with the same title by an artist named Wilhelmina (Billie) Greene. She did hers in watercolor with a lot more leaves in the lower half and I just loved her use of the coral color in the background. 

I've been doing a bit of studying about negative space and I wanted to try a bit of blending using solvents with colored pencil so it seemed obvious to drop off Billie's lower leaves.

This C9 bulb was my first attempt at blending with solvents and colored pencil. (My husband is going to really miss these C9s when they completely go away.)

On another random note: I read an inspiring article about the illustrator Elaine Duillo who said she used a lot of negative space in her paintings. In case you don't know her name, she was the artist who did all those romance covers featuring Fabio back when and made him famous. Ooooh Fabio. So fabulous! You can see loads of her work on Pinterest. Dang that Pinterest! It's so addicting!

 Cheers all.
Until we meet again.
Karen

He loves me not

Well, as threatened, here is the other half of my post yesterday He loves me. This one was done on Stonehenge paper and I have to say I liked the texture of the Stonehenge a lot more than watercolor paper for colored pencil. I did not use solvents on either one of these, but that's not to say I won't be trying colored pencil with solvent SOON! In fact, I can count on it.

He loves me

He loves me not

Available.
Each 7x13"colored pencil on paper. Portrait.

Cheers all,

Karen

He loves me

I've been having fun (with a bit of liberty) tinkering with my youngest daughter's selfies. You know, those silly smooshy, kissy faces all teenage girls were doing when they have unlimited access to a digital camera. Except now it's all on her phone and I don't have access to it. Dang it! I'll have to coerce.

Colored pencil on hot press watercolor paper 7x13" portrait

Posted the second half: He love me not. I'd like to frame them together as a diptych.
Cheers all,
Karen