"Parasols and Purses" another new painting

Five ladies are walking purposefully in line, along a path on a bright sunny day. A green field lays behind them. The first lady shades herself with a colorful red parasol; the last, with one that is yellow. Each woman caries an equally colorful purse or handbag. The rear lady carries a rolled pamphlet.

Though each is looks towards their destination, beyond the painting. Somehow there are interactions in their eagerness to move forward. Are they of the same family? Or, maybe part of a tour group? Where are the going? Only the viewer may guess.

This 12 x 24 inch oil painting on canvas, is the latest in my Social Realism series once again shows a group of ordinary people going about their daily lives. It is loosely based upon some photographs I took of these women walking along a path at the Huntington Library and Art Museum near Pasadena, California.

New Painting

Have recently finished another painting "Sunset Stroll." It is a hybrid between a Landscape (which I have not painted for several years) and a Group of people. This painting shows two people walking on the beach at sunset, and is different than what I have done lately.

My intent is to enter it in a new show at Gallery 113 next month, a benefit for a local charity "Heal The Ocean."


The image was created by scanning the painting in four sections on my scanner. And then using Photoshop Element's Panorama photo-merge feature to knit the four images together. I found several problems. The scanning of the painting directly on the glass table produced many highlights where the surface of the paint touched the glass. These had to be edited out by hand. Also, the brightness/contrast of each scan had to be closely balanced to reduce color banding between the knitted sections.

The knitting process takes quite a while on the computer, and the result is very effective. But the preparation is very time consuming, and the result is still not perfect.