Day 19 - Seeing Clearly

Todays painting is tentatively titled "I can see clearly Now"... there are so many odd things going on in this painting, I was having trouble landing on the meaning...Plus I'm a little under the weather so also having trouble coming up with words!   Here goes.. We have a Llama, of course, and the rainbow in the background.. the Llama is wearing the funky 80's, square engineering glasses and, what is the leaf doing on his head?  I don't know!  Sometimes when I design images, I'll have ideas fly through my head and I put them together not necessarily knowing why or where the ideas came from.. and this is one of them.. the best I can do is say that I do have a rainbow theme going in some of my paintings this month and I wanted to explore that a bit more.. plus, as I've said many times, I love making images that make people smile, so I hope this one does that. :)

And thinking about it, its quite ironic that I chose the temporary title "Seeing Clearly" when it is clear I am seeing anything but clearly about this one!

"Seeing Clearly", oil, 10"x10", purchasing details can be found here

Day 28 of the 30 in 30 - Llama Brush My Teeth

Every room in the house deserves artwork on the walls, including the bathroom! And while Degas' bathers are an obvious choice, what about Llamas brushing their teeth? This gal is sure to bring a sparkle to your smile... :)

Seriously though, this painting has a little more integrity than all that .. beneath it's silly exterior is an ongoing exploration of white on white, a value experiment I've been playing with for the past few months. :) So, I'll explain a bit more where this white on white thing is coming from..

Awhile back I began noticing that the artwork I was attracted to when I looked at other people's art tended to have a soft, quiet feel to it... with subtle colors and value shifts. I began to realize that my artwork tended to be just the opposite of quiet and soft.  Nothing wrong with that, but really, it was all quite bold and in-your-face...  the difference continued to become more and more apparent and I started feeling like my paintings were shouting, where as the softer artwork I would find myself looking at was whispering to me and I wanted to be able to paint like that too..  I decided I needed to try to tone my art down some... Not because I didn't like my own style of painting, but because it was obviously different and a challenge to me. This is early on in my soft experiments, but for some reason, painting white things on a white background (or mostly white) is helping me to understand subtleties better...I still paint my loud yip yaps.. because I love to paint that way.. but I'm loving these softer paintings too... It's always good to broaden the painting vocabulary.. 

Llama Brush My Teeth, oil, 8"x8", click here to purchase

Day 16 of the 30 in 30 - No Prob Llama

 Well, I've gotten on the Llama train and painted a Llama. :)  And... fell in love with these frankly adorable animals. <3 There is no hidden meaning to today's painting..  Instead, No Prob Llama was purely for fun.   Llamas are too cute and Chickadees are one of my favorite birds to paint and I wanted to continue exploring white on white (something that has been a bit of an obsession this challenge).   I love the sweet expression on this guy's face and how the chickadees all seem to be watching each other.  

Check out the pics below too for a peek at how it would look framed, and a close up of some juicy brush strokes.

No Prob Llama, Oil, 10"x10", click here to purchase