"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.

"County Fair" has been delivered to a happy customer

I have just delivered the "County Fair." The customer appears very happy. As I have mentioned before, it has been a commissioned project for a client who wished to document his boyhood memories.

The 16 x 32 inch oil painting on canvas, is a recreation of a 1940's County Fair at the small Kansas, USA, town of Burden. To start project, I asked him to prepare a sketch map of the fairground area as he remembered. Then together we decided on a viewpoint. From this beginning the finished painting was developed, and now includes: the home stretch of a horse race in progress; a packed grandstand; a judges' tower; horse barns; a Ferris Wheel; a busy carousel; picnic grounds; crowds of people; and many details of a fairground midway.

The project was exciting because it required research as to conditions and styles in the late 1930's and early 1940's. Such things as clothing, dress lengths, hats, jockey clothing, horse tack, automobiles, trucks, and many other details required investigation, often using Google Images. As the painting developed, my client was able to add guidance from his memory.

Such paintings, memorializing a time period or event, are both challenging and interesting. Let us discuss such a painting for you.

New Painting Completed.

Just finished this new painting "Friends." As usual these days, this 16 x 20 inch painting is an oil on canvas, unframed, and with painted edges.

Two women, one well dressed, the other – perhaps best described as a bit of a slob – are sitting on a street bench. Both have a paper cup of some drink in their hands – probably picked up at a nearby stall.

They are in a deep discussion of some problem. The woman in yellow looks worried. The other is offering helpful ideas and encouragement. After all, that is what friends are for.

Quite possibly it is about a man, or a relative, or maybe about a health issue. All the usual possibilities. It is left to the viewer to decide.

I wanted to push the images a little, to make them more dramatic. The story is the key element. The result is a rather more styled painting than my more recent work.

Last summer I took some photographs at the Thursday evening Street Fair and Farmer's Market, while visiting Palm Springs, California. In the background of one photograph, very small, I saw these two women sitting on a bench and talking. From that fragment I developed this painting.