Finished!

TA-DA! Finished except for a final coat of varnish to even out the colors. This Greyhound is the most ambitious painting I have every undertaken. It is huge (for me) about 30x 36 inches. It has taken me about two months of working on it to get it done. I think it will be while before I attempt one this complicated and big.
Hope someone likes it well enough to purchase it.  I do not have a wall big enough to hang it at home. But I think I can find a spot a the Emy Frentz Center. Later this spring, all these paintings that you see me finishing will go into a show at the Landkamer Building gallery space.

There is a little cropped off the bottom that I did not notice until I up loaded the photo from the camera. So in the original you see all the Ford logo and more of the chrome trim. I think the viewers eye is carried around the painting very well, from the focal point of the dog's head and feet down to the logo around the trim and back again.
Now on to a new series that should not take so long to finish. I have lots of photos from Italy that are just waiting to get up on canvas.
So two posts in one day. Been saving all the good stuff till now.  Merry Merry everyone!

Merry Christmas!

I got in the spirit of season and bought a little poinsettia plant for my studio. It is so pretty and bright that I decided to paint it for a Christmas gift for my friend Bonnie and then one for who knows??

This one is framed in silver very festive just 4x6 and fun to paint. Acrylic on primed paper.

This is the pot of poinsettias. It  is16 x14 acrylic on canvas.
I was trying for a loose style of painting with lots of color.

Hugs to all my two readers and Merry Christmas.

Margie

Black rocket

I forgot to post this one when it was finished. It really turned out just the way I want these chrome pieces to look. The greyhound is getting to me and I am totally ready for a more forgiving subject.

This photo was taken at the November show for the members of the Emy Frentz Guild. It was one of three that I put up. It was a fun show but as far as I know only one painting was sold. Not one of mine. We took this one up to Jerry's Shop in Belle Plaine to be with the rest of my chrome paintings. They are hanging there and hopefully giving people the idea that I could do this with their car too. Here is a photo of my display at the show.

The first is an oil plein aire of the flowers in my front yard this summer, the second is a watercolor of Dan's 35 dodge. That one is NFS obviously! And the third is the black rocket. One of these days I might start painting in only one media....not yet though. I like the experimenting.

One room school house.

This is a commission that I just finished yesterday. I painted this from an old photo copied photo and so had to do some considerable editing. The trees were not in the photo but I felt that it was too barren without them and the customer told me that there were some along the lot line. The original photo had a whole string of students lined up in front of the school house I pulled a few of the students out for this version. The wonky little shed has been straightened out. The customer did not like the original color of the shed. I painted it a old barn red and when he saw the finished painting asked to have it changed to white. When I over painted the red the angles got crooked.  I really liked the red but the customer is always right. Here is the version with the red shed.

I think the balance is better with the red on the shed.  I also had to recreate the bell tower. It was cropped off from the photo.

I am still working on the grey hound. Making progress and I hope to work on it more today. What a project it has been!

Warm Autum

A few weeks ago we spent a weekend biking on the trails around Lanesboro, MN, a small city that has built a local economy around all things biking. We stay at a very nice campground outside of the town called Eagle Cliff on the Root river. It is about a mile to the trail and once on it you can ride between several towns following the Root River all the way to the Mississippi river.

Dan took a photo of this bridge that is a few miles east of our campground. The light this fall has been so muted and warm. I did this one from the photo in acrylic on canvas. My big paintings seem to take about a week with lots of corrections along the way. This is one reason I like acrylic paints if the fence is crooked or too wide or the shadows not right--I can paint right over them and make the corrections. I had the most fun with the foliage because after I made an under painting with brushes, I changed my brush to a sponge and did most of the leaves in the trees and the weeds along the trail with a sponge dipped in a pile of slightly mixed paint. After every thing was done to my satisfaction I covered every thing with a warm glaze that pulled it all together.

In the mean time I still am working on that Ford Greyhound. What a job I cut out for myself with that one. With luck it will be done before Thanksgiving.
If I don't post before then have a very happy Thanksgiving holiday.

Newest Work in Progress

This is my biggest painting since I started working this summer. At approximately, 30x40, (can't remember exactly) I am standing to paint this one. As you can see I have been working all around the grey hound. He has really complicated highlights on his body and the pedistal where his hind legs are is totally confusing. I have picked away at the chrome and black paint all around him for almost two weeks now. Yesterday I worked on all those lines in the grill. A little tape helps in the beginning but the shading does not let you get away with tape lines. It needed lots of softening for the shadows between each grill piece.
Knowing that I have a show coming up in March, I may not do one of these chrome paintings in such a large format again. They just take too long. I figure that in order to fill the halls of my new venue I will need to paint at least one painting a week. There were only 13 weeks until the show in March when I first started counting. And all the holidays are in between now and then. So painting more landscapes and fewer really large chrome car ornaments is the plan.

Opening Reception

For the full month of November, nine artists at the Emy Frentz Arts Guild, are displaying samples of their current work. The opening reception is on Nov. 5th from 6:30-8:00 pm.  We really have a wide range of art from jewelry to loom weavings to larger than life paintings. Come and enjoy some wine and refreshments and the new art.
If you can't make it on Thursday night come down to the gallery M, T, W, and F afternoons from noon to  4pm and on Thrusday night from 4pm to 8pm. I am often at my studio during the afternoon. So if you are come in to the gallery then, be sure to visit me too!

Very Small One Person Show

Today, Dan and I, made a trip to Belle Plaine, MN. There is a very nice car restoration shop there. We know the owner and asked him one day if he would be interested in displaying and showing some of my chrome paintings. I figured that guys coming into the shop might want to decorate their homes with some art that calls to their hearts. Jimmy's CRC Auto Restoration and Sales has a very different feel from other shops. You can see by the photos that his motto for the shop is "We think of cars as art that goes fast."  That logo caught my eye one day last summer and this is the result. A small display of four of my chrome paintings. I hope to have one more to add next week. Another rocket done in black and blue.

Display wall at Jimmy's CRC

 Swan Drive and Ram Tough

Want to Race? and Red Rocket

In the show room with the big guys.

Much thanks to Jimmy Gaboury for providing a venue for my new chrome art.