Oil Cans 8x10 oil on panel I hope you're fortunate enough to still be close with some of your best friends from childhood. I'm blessed in this way, a number of the kids I grew up with are still a part of my life. Sharing decades of experience is simply delightful, and the depth of understanding is beyond belief. In the mid 60's the tomboy who ruled the neighborhood on the other side of the school yard and I decided to join forces, and we sealed the deal by climbing down a storm drain, pricking our fingers and pressing them together. My blood sister and I have made each other laugh while riding bikes, boards and horses, while confessing hopes and fears, and while exploring new places, lifestyles and fashion choices. We've celebrated countless birthdays, holidays, highs and lows and have stood by one another's side through thick and thin for over 50 years now. We spent a weekend together on the central coast of California a couple of years ago and talked endlessly while walking the rocky shoreline and poking through antique (junk?) stores. It shouldn't be a surprise that we both fell in love with the same thing in one store, but you have to admit that it's a little unusual that it was a grouping of beat up old oil cans. Yup, our co-mingled blood called out for the very same odd ball stuff!  The cans went home to her place in Santa Ynez, but I borrowed them so I could have a painting of them!

I began by doing a tone drawing in Burnt Sienna oil paint

After the paint dried I applied the base color for all the objects and the environment. While working to capture the color I try to remain true to the values that I established in the underpainting.  I let this stage dry and then I analyze my decisions and make note of where I want to make changes or corrections. After seeing to them I go in and fine tune all areas and add the finishing details. The completed painting is at the top of the post.

In The Shed, a 12x16 oil on panel I finished yesterday. String, who doesn't love it? How many purposes does it serve, and how long does a spool of it last? Every household develops a collection of various weights needed for different projects, and they sit together nobly waiting on a shelf in a shed or a garage to be called to duty.  Mending, wrapping, fixing. It occurred to me while painting this that you might be able to judge the stability of a family by their string, twine and rope collection. A wide variety represents not only many years together, but an active effort to care for, maintain and improve things.  I inherited a few spools of my father's collection that now nestle in with the collection we had developed, all destined, I'm sure, for some shelf in our children's future homes.

I started by covering my panel with a thin coat of Burnt Sienna and then doing a line drawing using my brush. Once I felt that I had the objects properly placed I differentiated the tones by lifting out the light areas, and stroking in a little more Burnt Sienna in the darkest areas. This helps me see the value pattern and will give me  a structure of values to abide by as I develop the color.

This is part way through my first day of working with color. The first step is to get  the average of  each color, abiding by the light and dark pattern I established in my tonal sketch.

Here I have completed getting the basic colors down and I begin refining. I  look at how the light hits each object and develop it's light and shadow, and the overall relationships of color and value.

Then comes hours and hours of detail. I begin to introduce the tiny paterns created by the way the string is wound on the spool or ball, darken the back wall and the shadows cast on it by the uprights in the shed,  and continue to become more accurate with the local color of the objects.

I stand back and look look the overall. The final step is to make last minute adjustments ( I realized that after all the hours of looking at this, the tall white spool was too narrow at the top, and leaning in a Tower of Pisa kind of way)  I tone down the blue of the basin, thicken and darken the knotted rope on the right, and eventually find myself making such small adjustments that I realize that I'm done.

 I found these well worn, stacked galvanized buckets on the floor of a big barn. The doors were thrown open and the late afternoon light bounced off the concrete floor and illuminated these old work horses as if they were devotional objects. The notion of all the loads they'd carried, the powerful hands that had clutched their handles and the velvety soft muzzles that had carefully found every oat within them made me smile. I think I might have heard the angels sing.

Here are the first two steps I took in making the painting. I covered the panel with a layer of Burnt Sienna and then did a line drawing with my brush to place the objects. I then wiped the paint off the panel where I wanted to place light tones, and brushed in more Burnt Sienna in the areas I wanted dark. This helps me to place the objects and make sure it is a composition that I think is interesting.

After this initial decision making I got so caught up in the painting that I NEVER ONCE remembered to pick up the camera in the many days that followed. Suffice it to say that it was an epic battle between light and dark, warm and cool, hard edges and soft and painting time and sleeping time. I can only hope that all the right forces won out.

As promised, I've been dilegently working. No, that makes it sound too unpleasant... I've been spending long and happy days at my easel. I'm letting the house, garden and the bulk of my social life go (not without some regret) in the interest of creating a chunk (that's a technical term) of work.

This 11x14 is one of a series that I will share with you piece by piece that I came in very close on, creating an abstraction as well as a specific vision. I love that zone between realism and pure design. What a beautiful place to be!

I see it's been an entire month since I last posted. Well, I want you to know that I've been busy in all the right ways. I painted up a storm before the holidays, selling things before I had even completed them! Then of course I took time off to properly whoop it up with family and friends for Christmas. Directly after that our entire Fletcher family gathered for a week on the coast of tropical Mexico. It was delightful to be there and soul satisfying to see 20 some relatives from 87 to 1 year old laughing and playing their way through the days together.

I am now back at work like never before. I have been juried in to the Festival of Arts in Laguna Beach this summer! Since I sold virtually every painting I have ever made at Christmas time, I have buckled down, cleared my calendar and am enjoying painting in an uninterrupted fashion.

I will be posting more regularly once again… I promise!

This 8x10 oil on panel is a shiny bit of joy. Last Christmas I bought our son a surfboard and it was too large to wrap, so when I saw a big bright bow in a store I snapped it up. When we were cleaning up after Christmas I just couldn't throw it out, so, like many things do, it came to live in my studio. In the following months I found that it cheered me whenever I focused on it, and one day when at a loss as to what to paint, it caught my eye.

I love this painting and may not give it up. It describes the complex shapes of the shiny ribon without becoming too careful. I have photos of my easel next to the set up with the bow under studio lights that I 'd share if I hadn't just returned from a holiday party… Instead, I will wish my beloved family and friends, who have been so receptive to my work, a big wide merry, happy and all the best. I love you and hope that the new year brings you the joy that you so richly deserve.