Laguna Beach

Laguna Sunset 20" X 16" Oil on Canvas

Another sunset from my Laguna Beach Photos. I really wanted the glow of this amazing sunset to be featured along with the vibrant color in the clouds and sky. Wish I was there right now! Catalina Island in the distance. This a view from the opposite direction of the last painting post.

Yellow Stone Landscape -Heiner Hertling Workshop!

11" X 14" Oil on Masonite
Yellow Stone Park, Grand Tetons (Day 02)

14" X 11" Oil on Masonite
Yellow Stone, (Day 01)

Heiner Hertling Workshop
Your Brush With Nature

This past weekend I was fortunate enough to take a 2 day workshop with Heiner Hertling, the artist who hosts the PBS show, "Your Brush With Nature"! It was such a great learning experience. We worked on landscapes and techniques to prepare us for plein air painting. This is something I really would like to start doing. We completed a finished piece each day. These are the paintings we completed. Both are scenes from Yellow Stone National Park

What I loved about this workshop was learning to paint with a large brush and not worry about the details. We focused more on shapes, color and values.

Main Street Art Bev Larsen Featured Artist!

This month Main Street Art in Milford, MI will be featuring my paintings in their front window!

I am very honored & excited to have my art work displayed in their gallery . If you haven't seen any of my original pieces and are in the area please stop by and check them out. Its a great gallery, filled with wonderful artwork by local and national artists along with framing, art supplies and great gift merchandise.

Main Street Art is located at:
432 N. Main Street
Milford, MI 48381
248.684.1004

Sprinkle Row

10 X 8 oil on canvas

This is my submission for the DSFDF challenge. It really went along with my theme of recent paintings! I was a bit nervous about attempting this one, but once I got started it was much easier than I thought. I am glad I did it. Like I said before, DSFDF challenges me to paint things I would never have considered. It is such a great learning and expanding excersize!

Strawberry Row

Strawberry Row 22" X 16" Oil on Canvas

I had so much fun painting the apples that I thought I would do same with these strawberries. Its a little smaller painting, but I still like the graphic boldness to it. I may continue doing this as a series. I am working on the DSFDF project right now with the cupcakes, which incidentally is in the same fashion as these last two paintings! I may have to add it to my series!

Apples

I finally got a break this weekend and was able to do a painting! These beautiful red apples were just calling me and they wanted to be big! So these are painted on a 28' X 22" canvas. It felt really good to get a painting done. I have been very busy with my graphic design business (which is also not a bad thing), but really needed to to chill out and do a painting. I really like they way it turned out and this one is definitely one of my favorites!

P.S. I ate the apple on right when I finished!

Tea with Grapes!

6" X 6" oil on canvas

Those darn grapes just keep popping up everywhere! LOL! Another quick study on canvas. I'm not sure if I will even call this done. I wanted to limit my painting time so I stopped here. I kind of like it right now, but I will decide tomorrow. Sometimes you need to step a way for awhile to really get an idea of what it needs or if its fine. Because this is small, I really didnt't want to much detail and I wanted it to be more expressive.I think I am really starting to favor the hardwood boards to paint on instead of canvas now!

Blueberries

"Blueberries"

7" X 5" Oil on Canvas

This is a quick little study I did this morning on another one my most favorite fruits! Doing this on canvas right after painting on the masonite is an adjustment. Because there is so much tooth to the surface quick paintings seem to have a more painterly look. Here I forced myself not to blend to much which is really hard for me to do.

Farmer's Market

Farmer"s Market 24" X 18" Oil on Canvas

Its funny how certain subjects dictate a certain size. For me the sunflower dictates large. Its such a commanding flower that requires space and attention. That is why this painting was done on a larger canvas; 24" X 18"

This was painted from a photo I took in Chicago during one of their many farmer's markets. There was this long row of these outstanding sunflowers! I modified it from the photos slightly only for compostition sake.

I am working on trying to loosen up my painting style. I concentrated on value and color in this composition and left out a lot of the detail I would have normally put in. I am hoping to capture the light and the feeling of this farmer's market by placement of values and color. I also tried to slow down my painting and to calculate each brush stroke. So each stroke has a purpose. That is so hard to do! I am so used to get right in there and painting away sometimes not realizing what I'm painting. Painting more deliberately, I made less mistakes and used less paint brushes. I also really tried to keep to a specific palate of colors. I am still not used to mixing colors ahead of time and found myself mixing paint with my brushes.

Below are images of my process. I thought this would be a good learning experience for myself to, to see how I progress and where I am going. I thought you may enjoy these photos too.

Finished Piece

Garden Wall

"Garden Wall" 16" X 14" Acrylic on Masonite

This was a painting I did a couple of weeks ago during the Milford Garden Walk. Local artists were painting in the featured gardens that were on the tour. I started it there as a plein air, but threating weather and rain drops forced me to finish in my studio. I was sort of glad. I am so out of sorts painting plein air because I do not do it enought. It was so hot that day and my acrylics were drying faster than I could use them. Of course I forgot my spray bottle to keep them wet. Anyway the finished piece was a success and the garden owner purchased it!

Joelle's Cake

Joelle's Cake 9" X 7" oil on canvas

This is a scratch and sniff painting!

JUST KIDDING!!!!My husband's sister, Joelle, made him this amazing decadent chocolate cake for his birthday. It was so amazing that I took a picture right after Doug cut the first piece. The cake has chocolate pudding & other secret ingredients. The outside is crumbled cake pieces! This is a chocolate lovers dream.

Two Of A Kind

"Two Of A Kind" 8" X 7" Oil on Canvas
I have been inspired lately by oils. This is my first oil study in over 25 years! I really do miss them. Now that I have my studio with exhaust fans and great ventilation, I plan on painting in oils again. I need to get used to them, since they are quite different than acrylics.

Summer Bounty

10 x 8 Acrylic on Gesso's Hardboard

A new challenge for myself... I decided to paint on gesso'd hardboard or masonite to keep costs down. Since the hubby has been laid off we need to conserve and I heard lots of great things about painting on gesso'd hardboard. Hardboard is inexpensive and you can purchase it at any hardware store, like Lowe's or Home Depot. It also preserves paintings very well because of its rigidness. Many historical painters, I have found, have painted on hardwood instead of canvas and their works have with stood the elements better!

This is my first piece experimenting with this new and strange surface. I am finding it a very different animal. Its like painting on your walls or on illustration board. The paint just soaks right up into the surface. On the contrary though, if you prep the gesso really smooth its like painting on glass and the paint just slides around.

That's sort of the beauty of this, you can prepare your surface how you like it. I am researching and working on finding my best prep surface and board type and will let you know what I have discovered in later posts.

In meantime I hope you enjoy the paintings!

Cheers,
Bev

P.S. My painting photo reference is from a challenge called "Different Strokes for Different Folks." A photo is provided and numerous artists create their rendition of the same photo! This is a great concept and I will be planning on hosting this challenge with my artists friends! Look for more info soon!