Please see my website at http://billsharppaintings.com
My studio is undergoing an expansion that I’m very excited about. I’ve been working in the back of my garage with only one small window. It was kind of cool in a monastic cell kind of way but I’m really looking forward to having a larger lighter space.
I’m still a couple of weeks (at least) from completion but I couldn’t wait to start using it.
We had a great crop of tomatoes this year.
6″ x 6″ oil on panel
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8″ x 12″ oil on panel
This juicer was, at one time, a big part of our lives. My wife, who has been battling cancer for over 10 years now, has followed the recommendations of Dr Nicholas Gonzalez, which includes the daily intake of massive amounts of freshly juiced carrots. We used to buy big bags of carrots to keep in the garage and one of my jobs was to wash bunches of carrots everyday and prepare them for the 3 daily juicing sessions. Leslie turned a beautiful shade of orange and stayed that way for many years.
As Les developed a reaction to part of the therapy, the juicing fell away. I love fresh vegetable juice but it’s a lot of work to make it three times a day.
I like the the old timey look of the machine. It was sitting out on the counter in the sun and, since Les was away for a week, I set up my pochade in the kitchen and made this painting.
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8″ x 8″ oil on panel
I spent the last week sitting on my deck painting my Weber grill. It was just really fun to paint and since it’s still raining on and off most every day, I can duck into the house quickly when it gets wet.
6″ x 6″ oil on panel
I don’t eat meat so I have to get some use our of this thing.
8″ x 8″ oil on panel
Hoping for dry painting weather soon.
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6″ x 4″ oil on paper
I painted this little study as a birthday gift for a friend. (I won’t mention her name because she doesn’t like having her name associated with an image on the internet.)
Rescue Remedy is a Bach Flower Remedy . It’s “aimed at treating stress, anxiety, and panic attacks, especially in emergencies” (Wikipedia). It’s not clear to me whether it really works or not but I like the concept.
The rose hip in the bottle is also something that has historically been used for healing and preventative medicine. This one is from a Rugosa rose in our garden, which produces magnificent, cherry sized hips.
Happy Birthday, Friend.
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8″ x 8″ oil on panel
Another grouping of similar objects as the last piece. I was thinking of a compositional device I’ve seen in Renaissance era paintings where a figure is looking directly at the viewer leading the viewers eye into the picture. In this case it is the bottle lying on it’s side with the opening pointed directly at the viewer.
Here’s an example in Sandro Botticelli’s ‘Adoration of the Magi’. He paints a self portrait into the composition, at bottom right, looking directly at the viewer. (detail below)
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8″ x 8″ oil on panel
We’re having a very wet November so I’ve been painting comfortably in the studio.
I’m struggling again with the support I paint on. I tried a new ground. It’s the first time I’ve actually prepared a lot of panels but the ground really sucks up the paint leaving dull spots and it even seems like some of the ground mixes with the first layer of paint. I’ve been trying to add other stuff on top of it to seal it with mixed success.
I’ve tried Gamblin’s oil ground, which I find unpleasant to work with and it dries out in the can. I find that I’m moving away from Gamblin products in general. I used to use Galkyd lite but I’ve never finished a bottle before it dried out in the container. I mostly use Utrecht paint now and mix my own medium.
I’ve also tried putting a layer of lead white over this ground I’ve been using and that makes it much nicer to paint on but I left brush strokes in the lead paint layer and they seem to making it almost impossible to get a good photo of the finished piece because of glare from the brush strokes.
I may end up going back to straight acrylic gesso.
The painting above was done on the ground I don’t like and you can see that the background is weird with parts of it sunk in. I even oiled it in with medium before taking the photo and it’s still sunken.
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8″ x 6″ oil on panel
It’s been a while since I last painted a still life. I think this is the last rose of the year. We tried to buy a rose for each member of the family, when we were into gardening. This rose is named ‘Clair Matin’ and was planted for our younger daughter, Clair.
I’m not patient (or thoughtful) enough to spend time composing a still life setup. I look for an arrangement that happened naturally around the house. These objects happened to be on a table in the studio, the rose, paint brushes, a couple of prepared panels and the channel lock plyers.
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I’ve been spending more time drawing than painting lately. I’ve been re-inspired by one of the people who first turned me on to sketching, Russell Stutler. He has an amazingly wonderful site. Something new there, since last time I visited, is his book on sketching. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in urban sketching.
I’ve been working on reducing my blood pressure without using drugs. For about a year, I was taking a drug to control my BP and it made me sick, coughing and tired all the time. When my Dr recommended I switch to another drug that would slow my heartbeat, I decided to see if making some changes in my life could eliminate the need to take BP drugs. I’ve increased my cardio exercise and tightened up my diet. The biggest change to my diet has been a drastic reduction of salt. My BP has gone from around 140/90 to around 115/65 in about 3 or 4 weeks. I don’t know if it’s related to the BP drop or perhaps the increased cardio, but my resting heart rate has also dropped several beats as well.
Thanks to the wonderful painter, Kathryn Law for the inspiration and information to do this.
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5″ x 7″ oil on gessoboard
Quick study in bright saturated color. This is the first time I’ve painted on gesso board. I like that the paint sits up on the surface and it didn’t seem too slippery, as I thought it might.
The green sphere is a Chinese Baoding Ball. I have a couple of sets of them that I enjoy rolling around in my hands but, having looked them up after I painted this, I didn’t realize I’m supposed to do it without allowing the balls to touch. That’s hard! Here’s an interesting video about using them.
Three of my urban landscapes have been accepted in the Town and Country: Oregon at 150 juried exhibition at the Froelick Gallery. The show opens June 2 with a First Thursday opening reception on June 4 from 5 – 8 pm.
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9″ x 9″ oil on canvas
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6″ x 6″ oil on canvas
After completing this I wonder if it’s better cropped as below.
6″ x 5 1/2″
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It was a gorgeous weekend and I enjoyed a walk through Old Town Portland with my sketchbook. You can see a couple of my sketches at my other blog – HERE.
This painting has been on my easel for weeks and I’m frankly bored with it. I’m posting it because of a problem I’ve noticed with my camera that I wonder if anyone can help me with. My camera will not photograph turquoise. It comes out blue. The top photo was taken in RAW mode and then the green was pumped up as far as it would go. It reads pretty close to what the actual background is but it greyed out that bottom. The bottom photo is more representative of what the bottom half of the painting really looks like. I wonder if anyone who wanders by here has had, and hopefully solved, a similar problem. My camera, btw, is a Canon Powershot G9. It takes great photos except for this problem.
These are also different states of the painting, btw.
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6″ x 6″ oil on canvas
When my wife saw this one she seemed disappointed that she couldn’t recognize the clip. I want to lose the objects in the paint. I think my efforts are a bit self concsious at this point, however.
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6″ x 6″ oil on canvas
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8″ x 8″ oil on paper
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6″ x 8″ oil on paper
This pitcher is kind of a weird color because it’s a very tarnished silver vessel.
I had a little too much fun with this one. I couldn’t restrain myself from overdoing the shiny or semi-shiny surfaces. It’s been a while since I’ve done a still life in the studio and I indulged myself.
I’ll try not to let it happen again.
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6″ x 8″ oil on paper
I attended the first of a 4 session ‘Head Studies’ painting class last Saturday. I’ve accepted that I shouldn’t expect to make good paintings at a workshop, where you’re trying to paint using unfamiliar materials and techniques (although I have to really resist the urge to try).
This lemon study is an attempt to get more comfortable with the materials and palette we’ll be using in the class. The instructor, Gage Mace, has asked everyone to use a palette of White, Burnt Sienna, Ult Blue, Cad Yellow and Terre Verte and to use a Gamblin medium called Neo Megilp.
Neo Megilp is a safer alterative to maroger medium. It’s very different to work with than what I’m used to. I usually use only a little Gamsol for most of that painting and maybe little thinned down Galkyd Lite toward the end.
This painting was constructed by first toning the support with Terre Verte mixed liberally with medium. This creates a kind of waxy, buttery surface to paint into rather than onto. Eventually you end up with a surface of paint that you can really move around. I could almost move that entire lemon a quarter inch to the right by pushing the paint. It’s interesting but a little hard to get used to, as is the palette.
Another thing that is different for me is that, I’m used to putting in my darkest values first. Gage is encouraging us to put in the mid-tone darks and mid-tone lights first and work out from there. It actually makes a lot of sense in that, since the value range of a painting is compressed from life, you’re less likely to get outside your boundaries by working from the middle out to the lights and darks.
One more thing that he stressed, and I’m guilty of this, is that you’ll make a richer color harmony if you depend less on white to raise values.
Anyway, there’s a bit of shared insight for what it’s worth. Gage Mace is the instructor at Hipbone Studios in Portland.
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6″ x 6″ oil on canvas
For sixteen years I made my living with these shears in some very beautiful gardens around town. Now I rarely touch them as my own garden goes to seed.
From comments I’ve received on the last painting I did of one of these Mexican glasses, every one has some of them. They’re fun to paint because the glass is a little smoky and wobbly.
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Although it’s still cold and rainy outside I started a guilty pleasure summer reading type of book, The Fifth Woman, an Inspector Wallander mystery by Swedish author Henning Mankel. Listening to Sam Amidon’s All is Well.
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In an effort to add a little meaning to these rather academic studies I’ve been doing, I’m putting this one forth as a metaphor for the state of our political system in the US. It doesn’t matter which side of the spectrum you favor, I think you can find an interpretation that works for you. I, personally, had a specific character and vice-character in mind but one could see it as the House and Senate, (note the lobbyists). Or perhaps the Democrats and Republicans. My opinion is that it’s not hard to see rot wherever you look.
It’s a pretty weak metaphor if you have to say it’s one, and I’m only identifying it this way because I’ve been discussing this with a friend but it’s an effort.
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6″ x 8″ oil on paper 6″ x 8″ oil on canvas
Two more pear and plucot paintings. one painted direct and the other is one of the earlier value studies glazed with color. My camera doesn’t seem to want to register turquoise. The colors are way off in these especially the backgrounds which are turquoise in both paintings. I messed with them quite a bit in Photoshop trying to get the color right but it just made them look weird so I’ve posted them without any of the color adjustments.
I admire the paintings of Deborah Paris who uses an indirect painting method. I had those value studies sitting around from last week so I decided to try some glazing.
This is after a couple of layers but I think I need to get some softer brushes for the technique to be effective.
Deborah Paris explains her method here.
Quick monochromatic value studies. Rather than using black, the greys were mixed with different combinations of complements and Titanium White. Some are made with Ultramarine Blue and Burnt Sienna, Alizarin Chrimson and Pthalo Green, Prussian Blue and Cad Red Medium.
All 6″ x 6″ oil on canvas, paper or board.
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This is a really weird color scheme. I wanted to see if I could make the oranges read against a red backdrop. The red is pretty much pure cadmium red medium. I found it challenging to read the values with all this red.
6″ x 6″ oil on canvas
I would have to say that the end result is pretty ugly. I don’t think I could live with this on my wall but it was an interesting exercise.
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I’m falling in love with this brick. I think this is another self portrait.
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8″ x 6″oil on canvas
I’ve been wanting to paint a brick since I saw Odd Nerdrum’s painting of one. I recently also saw a great painting of a brick by William Wray, whose work I’ve found inspirational.
This was really fun to paint. I may have to do it again.
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6″ x 6″ oil on canvas
I never was inspired by this still life but I slogged through it anyway for the practice.
It’s been really cold here, in the teens at night and still below freezing in the daytime, and my studio is not heated so I’ve moved into our downstairs bedroom. I find I’m being more productive here, staying up late painting.
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6″ x 8″ oil on canvas
While visiting Silvina Day’s blog, I was admiring the drawings and painting she did of a skull she recently acquired. I was thinking about how much fun it is to draw skeletons when I remembered that we had some tiny bird skulls tucked away in a box that I collected with my daughters, when they were young.
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study after J. Matt Miller – 6″ x 8″ oil on canvas
Sometimes I like to do copies of paintings I admire as a way of studying technique. I generally try to keep my work loose and broadly painted partly because I like that kind of work but also because when I try to take my paintings to a higher level of finish, they often fall apart.
I’ve admired the daily paintings of J Matt Miller since I became aware of daily painting blogs. Matt has the ability to reach a high degree of finish while preserving loose brushwork and he has a really beautiful sense of color that makes his paintings glow like jewels. I don’t own many oil paintings, besides my own, but I do own one of Matt’s that I got as a Father’s Day gift last year. It’s titled “Horned Melon” and the study above is a copy of it. You can see the original on Matt’s May 18th blog entry here.
It was really fun to do this, especially since Matt solved all of the problems for me. To see some really masterful still life painting, visit Matt’s Daily Life Painting blog.
Bill Sharp - paintings blog 
