Gail G. Slockett Aspiring Artist

"Roses & Clementines", Oil on Panel, 12"x 16" I frame most of my paintings and hang them all over my house.  I spend a lot of time studying them, deciding what I like and what I don't like.  I think we can learn a lot when we take stock of where we were and where we are now in our journey.  One of the things I love about working in oils is the ability to go back and rework a painting even years later.  I just reworked this painting for the second time. The first time I had a very flat background and decided to go wild on it with a palette knife and lighter color.  (See Below).  After a year of looking at it I realized the background was just way to busy and took away from the subject of the painting.  I also saw that the inside of the roses on the right were too large of a mass of one color.  I have done many more roses since I did these and I knew just how to fix them.  While I was at it I figured I might as well fix the the leaves on the left. 

"Gerbera Daisies", Oil on Panel, 16"x 12" Happy New Year!!  I have been very busy with the holidays and my daughter moving into a new apartment.  So I had very little time to blog.  I did find some time to paint though! This particular one was a struggle, but I am very pleased with the outcome.  Since the light on the petals was coming from behind some of the flowers, I finally figured out that I should paint the light in the petals first and then the dark over them, (instead of painting from dark to light).  It made all the difference!  Sometimes you have to break the rules. The tablecloth was just a quick underpainting that I intended to go back and paint properly.  But everyone who saw the work in progress commented on how much they loved my tablecloth.  So I left it alone. Sometimes less is more. This is for sale on my website .