Celestial Overload

"Celestial Overload"
30" x40"
Oil on Museum wrapped canvas
I've gone from painting on a ridiculously small to a ridiculously large canvas within a day or two. The brushwork is similar, the colors too, but the physical exertion on my body reminded me of my mural painting days. This is not like painting a rose. Nothing at all like it. 

Remember, none of these paintings are signed on the front. There is no right or wrong direction for them. It will be up to each individual owner to decide.  They are, however, signed on the back.

Carol

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Far Away Farm

"Far Away Farm"
6" x 6"
Oil on hardboard
Far away, but not long ago, this sweet little farm was visited by a friend. The soil was the same color as the crops when the photo was taken. But for the tread lanes, it would have been mistaken for some sort of grain.  

Today was a landscape kind of day. A landscape of THIS world, not the world where I've been hanging out lately.

Carol

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Celestial Synapses II

"Celestial Synapses II"
12" x 36"
          Oil on museum wrapped canvas
Number five in the series is in complementary colors. I narrowed the field to two colors on this piece, opting to explore how little value change I could get away with before rendering it boring. 

I'm loving this process. It frees me to pull from within, rather than exercise my power of observation. I have two more large canvases to explore, then I'll have to order more and do something smaller in the meantime.

Carol

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Celestial Synapses

"Celestial Synapses"
16" x 20"
Oil on wrapped canvas
Happy Valentine's Day, my loves! 

Number four in my celestial series was painted in three primaries. The secondaries and vague tertiaries were a result of blending. I'm enjoying developing this new process so much, it hardly seems possible that at this stage of my career anything could generate this much enthusiasm.  I feel as comfortable with this as I am when I paint a delicate petal of a rose. 

As with the other three, I have not signed my work on the front. They can be hung in any direction. It's not that I'm ambiguous, I'm giving my viewer options.

This post is number 800 on Dailypaintworks.com.  Eight hundred paintings in nearly as many days.

Carol

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Celestial Overtones

"Celestial Overtones"
20" x 24"
Oil on stretched canvas
I had been drawing a huge intricate canvas of about 60 rusted wagon wheels when I realized I didn't want to paint them. I wanted to paint something tempestuous, passionate and wild. So I looked at some photos from the Hubble and closed my computer and made my own version of what it looks like "out there."  

This was a profoundly satisfying painting to produce.  I did it in one sitting tonight. I figured out the process of making these marks with a Princeton brush and the tip of one of my fingers and had my way with the canvas.  I'd love to make more like this one.

Carol

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"Dusty Field"
6" x 6"
Oil on hardboard
It was evening over the dusty prairie, late in the autumn. Particles of sand blurred the sky, but made for a resplendent sunset. 

I begin every sky in the upper left hand corner. The colors are usually whatever I've been using on a larger painting, not yet ready to post. This is one of from a yet to be seen piece.

Carol

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Festival Rose

"Festival Rose"
6" x 6"
Oil on hardboard 
I found her blooming in a park that coincided with a festival whose celebrants wore many of these same colors.  I was surprised that she hadn't been snipped and tucked behind an ear, or clamped between teeth while dancing.  

It's harder to paint small roses than large ones. There just isn't as much room to vary the colors from one edge of a petal to the other. And I use about the same brushes to do both.

Carol

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Pearly White

"Pearly White"
5" x 5"
$75
I loved the papery wrinkles on the petals of this hibiscus. They resembled the tissue that cradles oranges from damage when they're shipped. I saw a painting with that very tissue paper when I visited the Art and Appetite show at the Art Institute in Chicago on Thursday. Click here to see for yourself.  

She's not a rose, but she's pretty soft, delicate and feminine.

Carol

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Dahlia Delight

"Dahlia Delight"
30" x 40"
Oil on wrapped canvas
Dahlias were in bloom outside the Walled Garden when I was at the Botanic Gardens last month.  I found this one swaying in the breeze and had to sync my body to her rhythmic dance to photograph her. Fortunately, we coincided on a few of them and I got a terrific reference photo for this painting.  

Amazingly, the background took more time to paint than the gazillion petals of this bloom.  I'm delighted with the finished piece, and hope you dahlia lovers enjoy her, too.

Carol

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Pines in the Fog

"Pines in the Fog"
5" x 5"
Oil on hardboard
Morning was about to burn off the fog that had hugged a stand of pines throughout the night. It wasn't much, but the breath of moisture that the low-slung cloud afforded sustained those living things another day.

I derived quite a bit of pleasure as I made up this little painting. I've been to a place like this, all crunchy and parched, and recalled it through the tip bristles of my brush.

Carol

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Heavenly Hollyhock

"Heavenly Hollyhock"
11" x 14"
Oil on wrapped canvas





















Holly's ruffled petticoat fluttered in the sunlit garden like Marilyn's white "subway" dress in "The Seven Year Itch." 

I painted this heavenly hollyhock tonight in one sitting, ala prima, and with ONE brush. I normally use about eight to ten brushes during a painting. This one would have required more.  I purchased a brush on Friday that has realized my every painting fantasy. It's a number 4 Princeton Catalyst, a totally synthetic, polytip bristle brush. It was billed to remain responsive with water-based paint. I paint with water miscible oils, so I thought I'd try one; their smallest brush. This painting fairly painted itself as I willed the brush to do things I normally only dream possible. Wow. I want more of these!

Carol

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Backlit

"Backlit"
4" x 4"
Oil on canvas panel
I was fascinated by the verdant halo around a cluster of trees as the sun nestled below the horizon the other evening. I liked the way, it  glowed the color of kiwi against melon.  

I acquired a stack of these tiny canvas panels and ... LOVE them. It's fun to paint this small again, like I did when I belonged to the miniature painting society in Florida. Strangely, I also painted murals during that same stage of my career.  Ridiculous AND sublime.

Carol

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Hanging Geranium

"Hanging Geranium"
12" x 12"
Oil on wrapped canvas
In late spring, a basket of geraniums was hanging at eye level in my neighborhood. I saw her from afar and I knew she'd be outrageous subject matter when photographed close up. To my delight, there was even more going on than merely colorful, full-blown blossoms.  Her hanging buds enchanted me. I love summer flowers! 

I've been wanting to paint this since I shot it in April.  After painting so much green in the last few weeks, for a change of pace I treated myself to the complement of 

green.

Carol

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Waning Crescent

"Waning Crescent"
6" x 6"
Oil on canvas panel
The waning crescent, or old moon hangs in the sky when more than half the moon is in shadow.  
She's old because her lit part is decreasing and she will soon cease to be ... visible.  I love all things related to the moon. 

This fulfills the weekly challenge for DPW. The theme was to feature the moon, predominantly. You can imagine how much restraint I exercised in not submitting my own ... moon to this challenge.  I may be growing up, after all.  Perhaps I'm in my waning crescent phase.

Love,
Carol

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