sold the same painting twice -Oops!

First one

The first painting pictured here sold at my open house. I marked it sold on my web site, but forgot to remove it on an on-line gallery and was surprised to be notified that it had been sold from that site. What to do? I tried to re-create the image. What do you think? Of course it is not exactly the same, but it is as close as I could get.

second painting

Another dance painting

I finished this painting today. It is 32" x 40". Time for a break.

I re-photographed the painting I posted yesterday. It looks better and I am not so discouraged. That do you think?

Where is my muse?

This week has been a creative struggle. I was so pleased how the painting with the masked dancer turned out, I thought I could keep painting with that ease and spontaneity. I worked 3 days on another encaustic Hungarian dancer painting - a much bigger one, but it never clicked. Ignoring my tightening solar plexes, I kept telling myself, "I can fix this" After too many hours, countless layers of encaustic - it was really getting heavy, I looked at the painting after the third full day of struggle and said, "This is crap" and put it back in the stacks with the other failures.

I finished this one today, but the excitement is gone and I find it without passion.  I will take a break from the studio until my muse shows up again.


















Tomorrow is the life drawing session. At least, I can keep drawing. Here are some sketches that I have done. We start with 30 second drawings and end the 2 hours with 15 minutes sketches. I do enjoy this and the time flies.

How to paint figuratively in encaustic

I just published a new YouTube video on how I made my last painting. Please check it out and let me know what you think.
Process of figurative encaustic painting
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbtcgM2wNFk

crazy carrots

I took a break from the studio today to work in the garden. It was lovely to see the winter vegetables poking through the dark, composted earth. I pulled some carrots for a carrot and sage pasta dinner and they are some crazy shaped and colorful vegetables.
They were delicious.

Hungarian Dance paintings

Both of my parents were born in Hungary and I grew up hearing the music of that country and my mother's stories of the traditions.

Years ago, I saw the Hungarian ballet in Budapest. At that time is was the only color I found in that city. There were still very much under the communist rule. A few months later the same group came to Scottsdale AZ, where we were living.

Just a couple of weeks ago, the Hungarian Dance Company came to San Miguel.
I was so impressed with the passion and action of the company's performance that I chose to start a new series based on those dancers.

24" x 24"

12" x 12"

!2" x 12"

Here are the first three paintings.