Dragon Fruit!

 

I saw this dragon fruit in the grocery store and I thought... 'I could never paint that thing'! and then I thought... 'could I'? So, I took on the challenge and here are the results. 

I love the 12x6" format. And I also love the 6x12" format. ; )

Painting the little seeds was like painting snowflakes, little radom dabs of paint.

They are $120 each or the set for $225. I think they look great together. Click here - Daily Paintworks for purchase info. 

Here are some process pics. Enjoy and Thanks for looking. 

swimming persimmons

 

SOLD

$100 - 6x6" original oil painting on 1/8" panel

I called this swimming persimmons for the 'mm's"

Cheers. ; )

pumpkin glow

 

SOLD

$80 - 6x6" original oil painting on 1/8"panel

Halloweeeeen! Only a few weeks away. I painted this little glass pumpkin and candy rockets in my studio. Since I painted by candlelight, there was a bit of a 'trick' to it... but it was a 'treat' to paint. ;)

let's talk

 

click here to purchase - 

 $100 - 6x6" original oil painting on 1/8"panel

This colourful parakeet has just turned his head towards you... he's ready to listen. ; )

pumpkin pals

 

click here to purchase - 

$60 - 5x7" original watercolour painting with 8x10"mat

I've been painting with watercolour lately, thanks to Inktober so, I decided to jazz up this little pumpkin harvest.

knock your socks off

 

SOLD

$100 - 6x6" original oil painting on panel

Check out my Instagram page at noramacphailart to see the time lapse video of me painting these feathers. It's a good one! ; )

This painting is available at my DailyPaintworks Gallery, just click the PayPal link to see more. The bird series continues!

Dottie

 

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$140 - 8x10" original oil painting on panel

Another Two-Colour Palette! For this wonderful model, (thanks RawUmberStudios for the YouTube paintalongs), I chose Pyrrole Red and Cerulean Blue. I love dark blue with red. The Pyrrole is a Cobra oil brand and it's basically a warm Cadmium Red. Here are some palette pics.

 

When I saw the wonderful red scarf on her head, I knew I just had to paint her. And glasses to match! Such a great expression too.

Thanks for checkin' out my blog. Cheers and Be Well. ; )

Peacock in Profile

 

click here to buy - 
$90 - 6x6" original oil painting 1/8"panel 

I really wanted to focus on this proud friend's beautiful turquoise crown, or crest, today. It's quite stunning and sometimes overlooked since people get dazzled by the feathers on the peacock's tail. I enjoyed painting this beauty. (Very happy with the eye!). See my Instagram page for step by step pics. Cheers. 

story time

click here to buy - 

$90 - 6x6" original oil painting on 1/8" panel.

The lemon is telling a story to his little grape friends... obviously. ; ) There is actually a lot of transparent green in purple grapes. So, I added a green paper to the set up to match. Cheers.

the lemon chain

click here to buy - 

$120 - 12"x6" original oil painting on panel

I love this long and thin format. I've used it many times in the past and just rediscovered, (or rather reminded myself) how much I like it #doh. The photo reference, which is square, is from the gracious and talented Sarah Sedwick. It was quite a challenge to figure out how to crop the pic, but I enjoy that part of the process. I think it's important to zoom in, cutting parts of objects off, so the still life doesn't just sit in the centre with a bunch of boring space around it. 

I also changed the original plate colour of blue, to purple, in order to balance the lovely yellow lemons.

Cheers Y'all! 

kindred spirit

 

SOLD  $90 - 5x7" original oil painting on 1/8"panel.

Well, the bird painting series continues! I think I'm on number 12 and 8 of them have flown off to new homes. I'm especially happy with this little yellow-breasted blue titmouse. He's got his own little branch and he seems quite content. You can check out the time-lapse painting of him over on my Instagram account here - https://www.instagram.com/noramacphailart/ . Cheers. : )

oil and watercolour bird

 

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"turquoise wonder " - $90 - 6x6" oil painting

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"lighthearted" - $80 - 5x7"watercolour with 8x10"mat

I painted "turquoise wonder" in oil a few days ago. I'm so happy with all the luscious blues and purples. I wondered what the little cutie-patootie would look like in watercolour so... the next day I painted "lighthearted. I love both oil and watercolour since they both offer such different unique qualities. Two qualities of watercolour are transparency and splatter! I took advantage of both. And one of the great qualities of oil is strong confident brushstrokes, which I hope I achieved. 

Cheers and thanks for stopping by!

dynamic duo

 

click here to purchase - 

$90 - 5x7" original oil painting on 1/8" panel

I love the glow of light behind these adorable Kingfishers, it shows off their distinctive crowns. The bigger one is peeking around the smaller one. #socute

Details - 

curvy shadow

 

click here to buy - 

$90 - 6x6" original oil painting on 1/8" panel

This little garlic clove is casting a cute curvy shadow. 😉 I tried to get overhead and close up for an interesting composition for this piece. Also, I love it when the shadows fall onto two different coloured surfaces. So fun to paint and 'match up'.  I really wanted to paint from life today because it's a good colour reminder and it really helps when I go back to photos for reference.

dashing

SOLD

$90 - 6x6" original oil painting on 1/8" panel

I chose to paint this dashing beauty because of his bold look. His orange beak and blue body are perfect complimentary colours. He just seems to confident! And I think my bird paintings are getting more confident too. ; )

Here's a detail of him. I happily left a bit of the original pink panel colour to pop through. Cheers.

lilac roller

SOLD

$90 - 6x6" original oil painting on 1/8" panel

This colourful beauty can be found amongst the trees in Africa. One of the most colourful birds known to us, the lilac-breasted roller. So fun to paint! And I kept the brach flowers loosey-goosey so he stayed the star of the show.

Birds Birds Birds!

 click here to buy - 
"little wonder" - $90 - 6x6" original oil painting on 1/8"panel.
Hummingbird

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"from dawn to dusk" - $90 - 6x6" original oil painting on 1/8"panel.

Yellow-Breasted Blue Tit

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"longevity" - $90 - 6x6" original oil painting on 1/8"panel.

Red-Breasted Grosbeak

Well, the long weekend came and went... that was fast! #doh  

I'm just catching up on my three latest bird paintings. I'm super happy with them. I really tried to make clean and colourful 'one-brush-mark' marks. 

You can see the videos of me painting them over on my Instagram page. (can't get blogger to upload them here...?)

Cheers Y'all. (email me if you're interested in a set of 3). ; )

opposites attract

click here to buy - 

$90 - 8x8" original oil painting on 1/8"panel

I totally get now why people put spoons in their still life set ups! This reference pic is curiosity Sarah Sedwick, and she uses spoons a lot, just like Carol! So, they're super fun to paint because of the lights and darks and, more importantly, they create negative shapes by dividing up the round plate shape. Cool.

p.s.

I added a few bits of pink here and there. I couldn't help myself. 

; )

on the look out

SOLD

$90 - 6x6" original oil painting on 1/8" board

These lemons are working together, with an eye in each direction in case, you know, there's trouble. ; )

Here's the black and white 5 value study that we did in the awesome Sarah Sedwick Online Oil Level 2 Class on Saturday.

It was really helpful to do this! I often do a value sketch with pencil or charcoal first however, doing it in oil first really made a difference. 

Here's my set up, very similar to my iPad view during the Zoom class, so Sarah could see. There were about 18 of us and Sarah shared her screen, so she had her demo and her palette showing. It was really an excellent workshop. Very informative.

And here I am, sneaking into the photo. Cameras love to make one of my eyes wonky. #shrug

Cheers Y'all and Be Well.