Vase with Cherry and Bougainvillia

1/1/09 Vase with Cherry and Bougainvillia
Oil on panel -- 5 x 4"

I think there are too many letters in "bougainvillia". Probably named by a Brit. :-)
I'm back to painting still-lifes again. I guess I'm in my red phase. I like designing with color, and related reds, like the middle-spectrum red maraschino cherry, almost but not quite on the warm end of the red spectrum, and the much cooler bougainvillia blossoms, magenta in hue, look really good together, in my opinion. That's an application of the fundamental principle of design: Unity with Diversity. The reds are in the same family, for unity, but they are different in temperature, for diversity. A wonderful principle. Plato understood and wrote about it around 400 BCE.
I plan to do two more miniature paintings by the end of January, maybe more. When I get up to speed ( if ever) , I should be able to paint one a week. That's what I'm shooting for.

Charcoal portrait

This portrait was commissioned by a co-worker of mine. The little girl is grown and married now, and her father recently passed away. She had a small black and white photo of them together, and the photo was slightly damaged. She had seen other charcoal portraits I had done for her husband's cousin (my co-worker), and wanted a portrait to remember her father by. This charcoal drawing is the result.

Sketch 1/1/09

Commissioned painting

Jan 1, 2009 -- This is the painting I was working on during the first half of 2008. Earlier posts on this blog (March 2 - 4, 2008) showed some preliminary work on the painting, including sketches, the reference photo I worked from, and the beginning of the painting on the actual canvas. This is the finished painting. The photo was taken by Tom Ivicevic. My thanks to Tom for the great photography. I recommend that viewers of this blog visit Tom's website, Zenfolio -- click on the link, on the list of links on the right side of this blog. Tom has included some of my paintings on his site, and some photos taken at the "unveiling" party at the client's home. Browse around Tom's site.

This painting is oil on linen, 16 x 24".