Beautiful Butterfly on Daisy Painting.

This is such a beautiful painting of an orange butterfly on a daisy.

I saw a picture in a calendar of a monarch type butterfly on a daisy and took it as inspiration for this painting in acrylic.

My vision was to make a beautiful and colorful painting.

It took about two weeks to paint since I did a lot of building up of colors and layers in order to get a kind of textured effect. I tried to make it almost abstract by using a background that was more undefined than actually representing anything. I wanted to use bright colors to celebrate the beauty of the butterfly. I used black to black to give accent and drama to the colors. The orange is a great contrast against the green.

I am very happy with the results. It looks very dramatic in a black frame. The size is 16x20 and painted on canvas board.

I wish I could take better photos so you can see how beautiful it really is. The image below has a washed out look.

If you are interested you can contact me through the comments and arrange to see it or I can send you additional photos.   You can use the Paypal button below to purchase and I will ship it to you UPS free.

Painting of Butterfly on Daisy 16x20 acrylic on canvas board

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Beautiful Painting of Tulips and Blossoms

This is a beautiful painting of a floral with tulips and blossoms, and I am very proud of it. 

It is a picture of some Tulips with some blossoms and greens. The background colors are lavenders and rose colors. There are a lot of places that I put in black and dark hues to give it contrast and a modern feel.

I spent a couple of weeks on it. People think that artist just slap paint onto a surface with accidental ease and it is somehow art. But the fact is, even something like this picture, that appears to be loose and freely executed, is the result of many hours of work involving hundreds of decisions and reliance years of developing.one's skill.

I enjoyed painting it, even if I stayed up past midnight many times to get it done.

I have enabled some products at my Society6 store that are very nice, see the link below.

A painting of tulips and blossoms flowers in acrylic

It is painted on 16x20 canvas board.

The original sells for $500.00.  It will be in a simple black frame and ready to hang. Basic shipping will be free. Contact me through the comments or through my profile if you want to see more images of this painting, or to see what it looks like framed.

Or CLICK HERE to buy prints and merchandise with this art at my Society6 Store.

Thank you for looking. 

Acrylic Portrait of a Young Woman at 19

This is a beautiful painting of a Young Woman at 19.

It is done in acrylic on canvas board. I was aiming at a freestyle approach to try to get something dramatic. The size is 16x20. I did it mostly to relax. I used a photo to compose the picture.

The background was painted several times and the portrait itself was a process of building up layers of acrylic until it was right. At first, the hair was white but it needed color so I put in the yellows but it still needed something, but the red was not my intent however when I saw how dramatic it looked I really liked it.

I had to go over the face several times before I got it right. I am very happy with it.

The original is for sale for 500.00. use the Paypal button below. It will be in a simple black frame and ready to hang.

Basic UPS shipping will be free to the US if you are outside the USA then contact me for a shipping quote before you buy. If you want to know more you can contact me through the comments field below or the about me feature.

Acrylic Portrait of a Young Woman at 19

You can also purchase a framed print reproduction of this painting through Society6, CLICK HERE. They have several options for sizes and frames.
To purchase unframed print reproductions at Society6 CLICK HERE.

Greeting Card Watercolor of a ship with a square sail.

Painting in watercolor of a sailing ship for a greeting card. 

I designed this as an illustration for my next book of poetry but liked the image so much that I couldn't wait to do a watercolor of it. It is a very simple picture with a classic, almost generic design: a sailing ship approaching with the sunset behind it.

It is a miniature, only about 8 by 11. I took a few days to paint it, and I am afraid that I may have overworked the picture. So, I had to call it quits before I ruined it.

I downloaded a copy of the picture to a site so it can be made into nice things, like the greeting card you can see in the link below. These greeting cards are very nice and come with an envelope. They are blank inside, so you can write your own special note. This is not a card they will look at once and throw away; they will keep it and maybe even frame it to enjoy forever.

It is a colorful picture with a nice balance between the lights and the darks.

Watercolor of Ship on Sea at Sunset. 

How I Used Microsoft Word and Paint to Make Art for My Coffee Mug

What can you expect when your designed art is produced and finally delivered to you?

I designed the art for a coffee mug that I hoped would be a conversation starter and a motivator to help people think about practicing responsible stewardship of the earth. The artwork was produced using Microsoft Word and the companion Microsoft Paint program. It was pretty simple even if it did require a lot of readjusting and start-overs.

I had a little experience using the many features of Microsoft Word and Microsoft Paint. I started with a Word Doc and opened a tab marked insert and used a text box to create the background with the drawing tools. One of the features of the drawing tools is the shape fill with the gradient option.  It is easy to customize the colors but I kept fiddling with the tabs and the hues to get it just right.

I brought up the paint program and entered the size for the screen I needed to be able to download to the website that was going to make the mugs. Then using cut and paste I brought the Word background to the paint program. I had already worked out the text in Word so I opened a feature in the paint program for text and copied and pasted the test from the Word Doc into paint doc. I used the transparent background so the colors showed through.   There was a little artwork to do over one of the words in the script and a second piece of above it. It was all very easy to do.

It is not my first time using these programs but after you play with them for a while you can do some very cool stuff.

I downloaded the file to the Society6 website and ordered a mug.

If you are interested in getting one CLICK HERE.

So it came and here it is.

The Heroic Coffee Mug,
Use it instead of styrofoam cups.

I am very happy with it. 

Can The Heroic Coffee Mug Help Save The Planet?

This coffee mug can create change in your corner of the world by starting a dialogue over reducing single-use styrofoam cups. I designed the art on a coffee mug to give a message. 

THE PROBLEM AS I SEE IT
Where I work we go through hundreds of Styrofoam cups each month. It is a waste to spend money on single-use cups and then just throw them away. They do not decay; and in my community, Styrofoam cups are not recyclable. Everybody knows they end up in landfills, city streets, and in the oceans.

I saw that some of my coworkers had brought mugs to work, so I brought one in too, that way I can drink coffee or tea without using the disposable cups.

But there are a lot of events and meetings where disposable cups are stacked up by the dozens and discarded after they are used. I wondered what I could do to start a dialogue with the aim of changing the culture. I wanted to do something without being preachy and offensive.

SO, THE HEROIC CUP WAS BORN

I got an idea of designing a cup that had an environmental message but with a lighthearted tone. I envisioned a simple coffee mug with large stencil letters that said, "GENERIC COFFEE MUG," but the word "GENERIC" is crossed out and above it is the word "HEROIC." It would get people's attention, and they would wonder what that is about. The print below says, "Helping to keep up to 100,000 Styrofoam cups out of the landfill."

THE MESSAGE
It is all about our choices. The point is that if everybody chooses to use a ceramic cup instead of Styrofoam cups, together we could keep not only hundreds of thousands but possibly millions of Styrofoam cups out of the landfill.

The downside is that you have to wash out your mug,

The Heroic Coffee Mug,
Helping to Keep Styrofoam out of the landfill.

but is taking a few minutes to wash out a mug too big a price to pay to help save our planet?

The cup is a two-tone yellow with black type. I think it looks great. It took me about four hours to work out the design.

If you agree that we need to keep the landfills free of as much as possible, then consider buying one of these HEROIC COFFEE MUGS and get people thinking. You could even buy a few to place in your office and generate awareness of being responsible stewards of our earth.

It is available in 11oz and 15oz sizes. (I bought the 15oz size).

To see the mug just visit my storefront, CLICK HERE.

YES, I BELIEVE ART CAN CHANGE THE WORLD!
I believe art can be a great motivator, a great inspiration for good and that art can help change society. Sometimes art shocks people into change, and other times it helps to set a tone in a community by raising awareness. Every artist has a responsibility to use their gift with care and to help create positive change.

Finished Painting of The Still Life With Flowers in Red Vaise and Oil Lamp

I set this picture aside for a long time while working on other projects, such as writing and illustrating a book of poems.

I finally found time to get back to the easel and finish this one up. I made some of the colors deeper, and I brought out some details, especially the leaves. It was tricky to finish this in my basement with artificial light when I started it on a friend's patio outside.

It was painted on canvas board, and you can still see some of the cloth texture.

I wanted to have a sloppy style with bold contrasts in colors and drama between the lights and darks.

I am thrilled with how the painting turned out.

Acrylic painting of Still Life With Flowers in Vase

This painting can be purchased at my Society6 store; CLICK HERE to learn more.

Painting a still life picture of a Vase and flowers with the Painter's Club

The Painter's club got together for a little paint out party at Wiley's house on his patio last week. We had such a great time painting different scenes that were available. All the artist are pretty good and some are good enough to sell their work. At this event, Wiley set out some things to paint. Some artist chose to paint the scenery some choose to do portraits of other artists, and a few of us did still life subjects that were on the tables.

I spent a lot of time deciding and that is a problem I always have but I made up for it in working quickly to get a painting done before the light went completely away.  There was an oil lamp, some books and a vase on a round table that looked both challenging and inviting. I sketched it quickly and then did layers in acrylic working as quickly as I can. It was a little muggy so the water based paint didn't dry so quickly which it wants to do under normal conditions.

I have begun to use more black in my work and I think it has given me a new depth in my paintings. I over paint the picture several times, it is a way to not get too caught up with mistakes and situations that are not satisfactory in my work, but as I painted over I would add color and black and color again to build up the depth of the value and color.

I am very happy with the results, but later when I have some time and all my art stuff is all out then I will do a little touch-up when I do I will post the final finish.

Painting of vase and lamp.  

It was as much fun to talk to the other artist and learn from them as it was to paint.

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