Grateful for Beauty -- Wherever I Find It

Gift Bag in Oil, 10 x 8", Oil on Canvas, by Tracy Feldman

       Beauty sometimes comes in unexpected placed.  For instance, we had friends over for Valentines Day, and friends brought us some kit to use for dipping bread in olive oil.  It came in a beautiful bag. And while it probably was not intended to be a work of art, it was so lovely that I knew I'd wanted to paint it as soon as I saw it.  

       As you can see from this post, I did just that TWICE: first in watercolors and then in oils.  I  like the feel of the oil painting better than the sketch, but I've included it so you can compare them.

Gift Bag in W/C, Watercolor on Paper

      Notice that I changed the setting and the cloth on which I placed that bag, and I think I think those choices also make it more interesting than the sketch.  I ever paint it again, I'll center it a little more. But even so, I had a great time painting it and like how it turned out.  I hope you do too.

      As is usual with the small oils I paint (this one is 10 X 8"), it available for auction in my gallery on dailypaintworks.com.  Check it out if it interests you.

Oil Sketch #2 for the Dahlia Commission

Dahlia Sketch from the front -- 16 x 20 Oil on Gallery-wrapped canvas

 This is the second of the Dahlia oil sketches I created as part the process for my last commission. But because I wanted to focus on the large commission, as you can tell (by comparing the sketch to the left to the painting below),  I decided to put aside this piece until now.  Creating the piece wasn't a waste of time --even at this stage of its development, the work helped my client realize which version of the image most appealed to her.  

Dahlia of My Heart (commission)

 I'm really happy I kept the unfinished sketch at the studio to inspire me as I worked on the final piece. It also proved very helpful when I met with my client near the end of the painting process.  The meeting's purpose was to find out how she wanted to have me finish the work-- specifically how she wanted me to handle the 1.5" sides of this gallery-wrapped canvas.  

I explained to her that I could go two ways. If she wanted the work to have a more traditional presentation when hung, I could paint the sides black and she'd have the painting framed.  If, however, she wanted to have the work have a modern feel, I'd wrap the image around the sides and put a hanger on the back of the piece.  I explained that if she wanted the latter,  she'd be able to have a beautifully finished piece -- without needing to think about framing. And I was able to use the sketch to show her what I meant.  She quickly decided on the more-modern look; then we went on to talk about why this type of Dahlia held so much meaning for her and her family.  But as we spoke about other things, my eyes kept on returning to this sketch.  I couldn't understand why until it dawned on me.

Dahlia Sketch from the right side 

If you look that this photo of a side view of the sketch, you may be able to spot what it took me a while to notice.  The petals wrapping around the right side of the painting were wrong.  I had truncated them -- as if the flower ended long before it would in real life.  Thus, when viewed from that side, the image felt wrong.  I pointed that out to my client, and assured her that that wouldn't be the case on the finished piece, and it wasn't.

After the Labor Day weekend, I'm going to be working on this oil sketch again.  It will stay a "sketch" so I won't dilute the uniqueness of my client's piece. Because it is a sketch, I'll be able to sell it for about half of what I'd charge normally for a work -- which will be great for some lucky buyer. 

As I said earlier, the piece will cost substantially less than I would a standard work on my site.  If you are interested in buying this piece before I put it up on my gallery on dailypaintworks.com, email me at tracyfeldmanartist@gmail.com.

   

Once Again For Something Completely Different

Layered Levels of Cool, 10 x 10" Acrylic on Canvas by Tracy Feldman

I have been painting so many realistic paintings recently that I decided to dip my toe back into abstraction.  For the basis of this piece, I used a painting I did several years ago of the closeup of dark clouds at sunset.

     In the original photo, I loved the swirling darks and bright shot of orange against a shot of clear, mid-range blue sky.  The bright orange hue was created by the late day sun glinted off the edge of the super-dark clouds.  However, when I got the image down on canvas, the resulting piece just didn't click.

    So, when I was looking to do a layered abstract, I loved the idea of using this painting as the base for something completely new.  By covering sections of the work with tape, I preserved some of what I liked about the earlier piece -- the color and value (dark vs light) contrasts -- while creating a new image on top of the piece.

     In Layered Levels of Cool, I used tape to create a set of very sharp "lines" on top of the original.  Then, I swirled cooler, lighter, whites, greens, and yellows over that.  Lifting  the tape allowed me to recapture the very dark, cool blues, and the very warm orange of the sunset-lit cloud edge.  I then went back and put some of the mid-depth colors over a few areas of tape-created "lines" to mess with the depth perception even more.

     I really like this piece, and hope you do too.  One of the things I really like about it that isn't obvious from this photo is that the original canvas is an inch and a half deep so the image pours over the sides

    As usual, I'm posting this little painting for sale on my Daily Paintworks gallery and auction site.  Check it out there if you might be interested in this piece. I'd love to hear your thoughts too.