What can you do: Bunnies ARE cute

I usually avoid cuteness in my paintings. Beautiful colors and breathtaking light effects seem worthy challenges and their reproduction in a painting is usually a creative process. Just depicting an already beautiful face may be a challenge, but it's not art.. The same seems true of the image of an animal that appeals mostly through its big eyes, round face, fuzzy softness... I would have the same kind of problem with the fierceness of an eagle portrait...

But now I am painting a series of hares and bunnies. Please check out my natural history blog about Jackrabbits here. The first painting showed a Jackrabbit in a light-infused grassland. I just loved the bunches of dried cheat grass glowing in the afternoon sun.

Then I needed a wildlife portrait for a series of local animals and  found the long  Jackrabbit ears a nearly impossible composition challenge.

 The next one was vaguely inspired by Duerer's 'Ein Junger Hase' and was anything but cute. I used some old hot pressed paper and was unhappy how it handled, but the result wasn't bad and the painting sold the second time I showed it in a weekend show.

The next one was all about motion, and while the anatomical study of the  hare worked out fine, I am not quite happy with the high definition all over the painting - I think it should be blurred in places to further enhance the idea of rapid motion.

But the newest painting is of a back-lit Cottontail and - it's cute, nothing I can do about that. At least I stuck to a color scheme that is based on only blue and its complimentary burned orange ...In the end I liked it so much that I gave it a special barn wood frame and immediately produced a couple of 6x8 canvas prints.

Printing Orders from Germany

I had an order for a big canvas with extra space for gallery-wrapping, and to fill the space so no canvas is wasted, some little portraits are running on the side. This canvas is 42 in wide, so you can see how much space the printer needs. This used to be a guest bedroom..

These florals were ordered as a collage - I think that's a great idea. They are on paper but they will be framed without a mat in a very simple, contemporary frame.

New Pages!

The Wildlife and Bird page and the Western and Equestrian page are now ready, complete with  flickr gallery!

A new Art Season, a new e-medium

As the art show season 2011 in Arizona is beginning, I hope to connect with all  my collectors, fellow painters, and art students in this dynamic blog format instead of my old static web page. 

On this site, I will announce upcoming events like our popular out-door art shows and other exhibits, open studio invitations, new paintings and printing projects, and maybe in the future some new art classes.

On additional pages you will find my event calender, themed collections of paintings, and my latest favorite, bold, decorative collages of  insect photographs.