Bibi and Madeline are referred to as "The Girls" by their loving owners. One of them is quiet and reserved, and the other is outgoing and energetic. Can you guess which description fits which dog?
This portrait was commissioned by the dogs owners. If you would be interested in having your own pet, (or perhaps someone else's pet as a memorable holiday gift) please contact me at info@juliekirkland.com. Portraits start as low as $100. You can see more of my animal paintings on my website.
Grateful Bouquet 6 x 6 inch oil on stretched canvas
This month, I'm giving away the small painting pictured above! If you are already subscribed to my blog, you're automatically entered for a chance to win it. If you haven't already subscribed, just go to the top of the sidebar on the right and enter your email address.
That's it!
On September 30th, I'll have my handsome husband (David) pull a name out of a hat and I'll announce the winner here in a blog post that should arrive in your inbox no later than October 1. I will actually post the email address of the winner, as that is the only record I have of my subscribers. Since I object to having my personal address posted online due to the spam it generates, I'll only post the part of your address that come before the "@" and leave off your email provider.
Long, hot summers....I soak them up knowing that winter comes quickly. I like to think that I can store summer's warmth in my bones to summon up on cold winter days.
Sunflowers, and now Rudebekia, continue to entertain me and I'm having fun exploring different ways of painting them. Now that the stores are no longer selling sunflowers, I've purchased some gallon plants to model for me in the sun. I have photos to continue working from, but have noticed that the subjects that I paint from life are so much more expressive.
I'd love for you to sign up to have my blog posts sent directly to your email inbox. Sometime in September, I plan to give away a small painting to someone on my subscriber list!
Looking at this painting, I feel the weight of late summer heat on a still day and hear lazy, buzzing bees and chirruping cicadas. Ahhhhh....where's my iced tea?
While sunflowers are tall and narrow, I put this blossom in a short, wide format because it communicates the calm, drowsy mood and the weight of the flower's heavy head. The composition I chose is unusual, but I really like it.
"Indian Summer" is a 6" x 12" oil on canvas panel.
I'm really enjoying painting sunflowers--each piece seems to unfold with an energy that's all its own. I need to take a break from them temporarily to complete a couple of commissions and to prepare for a show that I have coming up in mid-September. That show is at Retrospect, a store featuring nostalgic items from the 50's and 60's in Monument, CO. I'll be creating works featuring some of the retro pieces in my still life collection and expect to have a lot of fun with it!
This painting is now being auctioned on Daily Paintworks with an opening bid of only $39. I'm new to the auction game, and still building a following, so right now, the auctions are a great opportunity for you to own my work at very low prices. Until there is a bid on "Glamour Girls," I offer a "Buy it now" option in case you'd like to insure that this painting will be hanging on your walls!
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Sunflowers are harbingers of summer, sunshine and happiness. When you see one, you're obliged to smile! I'm having fun with lusciously thick paint. My painting process is a combination of brushwork, scraping and palette knife.
The sunflowers that I brought to the studio on Monday are holding up beautifully, especially considering the heat. As long as they continue to pose so prettily, I'll happily keep painting them. Today I tried a closer cropping, and really like the result. Next, I'll paint them with a blue background in hopes that the coolness of the blue will help me ignore the air temperature!
The temperature in the studio today was in the 90's. I can even feel the heat in the colors and haziness of this little painting. Maybe gazing at "Three Sisters in Blue" next winter will bring back a little of that heat!
This mug fits the pear to "pearfection" and she looks so comfortable that I don't think she'll be leaving anytime soon! "Pearfect Fit," 6x6" oil on panel. $65 unframed, or by auction at my Daily Paintworks Gallery.
According to the Oxford American Dictionary, "a pig in a poke" is something that is bought without seeing it first (with reference to the formerly common trick of selling a cat concealed in a bag (poke) to someone who was expecting a pig.) It is apparently a centuries old piece of advice to unwary shoppers. When one went off to market, they had to be certain to check the contents of the sack they were handed, less they risk being defrauded by an unscrupulous merchant.
There is no greater painting pleasure for me than painting outdoors! I love being out in nature with all of her sights, smells, and sounds. This meadow with it's contrasting greens caught my eye last week. Starting bid is only $35, or you can buy it now for $95.
The Impressionists hung out in a cafe, the artists in Old Colorado City hang out at Jives, a local coffee shop just beneath my studio. While getting my coffee last week, I spied this striped mug and asked to borrow it to use in a painting. 24 hours later, I returned to the coffee shop owner, mug pressed against my cheek to say, "We're in love. My facebook status now reads "In relationship with Striped Mug." I MUST HAVE THIS MUG to paint for the rest of my life." And so, after a strategic trade, the mug is now mine. Expect to see it again!
I live in what's considered an alpine desert climate with a short growing season. Between that and the 6 or 7 deer who hang out in my yard, my flower options are very limited. The jewel in my garden is a white peony. It's so gorgeous, and I'm always torn whether to cut a bouquet to bring inside, or to admire them in the yard. This year, I selected one to bring indoors to model for me. This 6 x 6" canvas was painted with the flower on my studio windowsill.
Carol demonstrated glass today and I enjoyed painting this little jar and daisy. I loved painting glass and reflective surfaces in watercolor, but have stayed away from those subjects in oil. I think I'm ready to get back to them now though.
I highly recommend Carol's workshop to anyone who enjoys painting still life, and if you are interested, she'll be teaching a streetscape workshop in San Francisco this upcoming October. The students going will include many of my classmates here in Sedona, and I can recommend them as a great group to paint and play with.
Stop by my studio on the first Friday ArtWalk (June 1) and see in person the paintings I did this week as well as the work I do between now and then. I'm pretty excited to get back to work tomorrow!
If you are interested in purchasing this painting, click here:
I'm very happy with this strawberry painting and accomplished it on my own with only one comment from the instructor. Carol pointed out that the background strawberry on the left was blending in too closely with it's shadow, but that was an easy fix.
We did a color mixing exercise using the warm and cool primaries. Carol doesn't use the terms "warm" and "cool" though; she instead likes to talk about a color "leaning" toward red, green, blue or yellow. I talk to my students about this "leaning" when trying to explain what colors are warmer or cooler than others, but personally will probably always think in terms of warm and cool as I did when painting these strawberries. Cool reds in shadow and distance, warm reds closer and in warm light. If you look at the painting, you'll be able to distinguish reds with more blue in them and reds with more yellow.
2 paintings today, but I forgot to photograph the second one. Carol's emphasis today was on brushwork and composition. Those skills are ones that I've spent a lot of time on, so I was able to focus on painting whites. I think that I tend to paint shadows and things in shadow too colorfully, so I struggled to neutralize my colors a lot more. In the end, I may just prefer sticking with luminous shadow colors, but the other students really responded to this piece, so I'n paying attention to that...
By the way, this was a brushstroke exercise. Every single brushstroke had to be a different color. No dipping into previously mixed piles; every stroke had to be altered somewhat. Looking at the photo now, I'm happy to see that my edges are coming along.
