"Zilker Gardens Water Lilies" 9x12 oil on canvas board I forgot to mention that I attended my first Plein Air Austin paintout at Zilker Gardens last month and my painting of water lilies was accepted for the PAA show which is up right now at Bass Concert Hall, 5th Floor Gallery. The reception is Sunday, October 10th, 2-4 pm. I understand that the gallery is open during the weekdays as well if you can't make the opening.

Further work on "Sami's Sonata Lilies"

Ready to be signed. "Sami's Sonata Lilies" 14x18x1 1/2" oil with knife on gallery wrapped canvas. What a thrill to finally get to put in the yellows! What a chore to work through all the shadow colors, though. Why is yellow so hard??

Sami's Sonata Lilies

Daughter Sami is moving to Richmond, Va. in 4 weeks to live and work at their state health department as an Emerging Infectious Diseases Fellow, a position she got through the CDC after graduating with honors with a degree in Microbiology from University of Texas. She's one smart cookie. I decided to do a couple of paintings for her new apartment and have started on the first of the series of Sonata Lilies from a bouquet she got from her boyfriend celebrating their 1st year anniversary. They were the most wonderful flowers, staying fresh and opening more and more for over a week. I took two series of photos, once at 5 p.m. and another time at around 10 a.m. I liked the light on both of them, but wanted to do the more golden light of late summer afternoon for Sami. I'm sure the other photos will provide plenty of inspiration for more Bonga Botannicals. I like to do a value sketch in a complimentary color and then bring in layers of glazes on top. That means that nothing I do is ala prima and can take 4-5 painting sessions for these smaller works (18x24). I'm looking forward to using the painting knife more tomorrow and bringing in the wonderful yellows of the lilies.

Sorry 'Bout That

"Berkeley Bird of Paradise" 24x30x1 1/2" gallery wrapped canvas. Oil with knife. "Hibiscus II" 24x30x1 1/2" gallery wrapped canvas. Oil with knife. "Tulip" 24x30x1 1/2" gallery wrapped canvas. Oil with knife. "Off Season" 30x40x1 1/2" gallery wrapped canvas. Oil with knife. "Turtle Tree" 30x40x1 1/2" gallery wrapped canvas. Oil with knife. I thought that perhaps I was a few months behind on paintings postings, but not 6 1/2 months! I had hip replacement surgery on my right hip, at the end of March, which went well. I was back to painting within 6 weeks and have had some good success with paintings since then. I'll just post them all and let you browse a bit. Pretty soon I'll be changing the layout, so that I can use this site as my primary paintings site since ekaweeka seems to be down permanently. Bummer.

Update coming soon