I painted this from a photo of one of my daughters as she was being fitted for a dress she had designed.  She used to hate it when I would ask her to sit for me, or I would take pictures of her.  So getting this image was a lucky click of my camera because she kept saying, "Mom....stop taking pictures!!!!"  You might know how that goes.     This painting, "The Fitting", is in the M. Graham & Co. painting competition.  Right now I'm in 7th place.  The top 3 winners gets a very generous budget for M. Graham paint.  I would [...]

I was experimenting with using pastel as an underpainting and thought I would post the process and result here.  I was doing a small painting of a green and yellow pear and a red apple.  I wanted a color that would be both somewhat complimentary and harmonious.  I chose orange as it worked well with the yellow and red of the pear and apple and was one away from being a direct compliment to the green pear  After doing a quick drawing and massing in of dark tones in an orange pastel I took a brush and washed it all down [...]