The same path

April 25, 2012May 5, 2012 | Doreen E. Lepore

So, after I posted and edited and updated “This Way to the Beach” I was thinking about it and it seemed like something that would be a fun monotype print. Apparently, that thought ran across my mind before because here it is – done already:

Monotype Path — This Way to the Beach Again

In fact, it’s posted on my original WordPress blog, that I haven’t been using because it didn’t link me to my location.

That blog is found at: http://useallthecrayons.wordpress.com/ and oddly enough, my last post was on monotypes, this one included. Hope you don’t mind the resurrection.

Please let me know if there is too much redundancy because obviously it doesn’t occur to me. Sometimes I’ll draw or paint the same thing until it’s right or because it’s a pleasant composition. Don’t you think it’s interesting to see how the same subject looks with different mediums?

Chorus Line

April 19, 2012May 5, 2012 | Doreen E. Lepore

The practice of setting up a small still life and limiting the time you spend on it has been around for a long time and it’s a practice that I enjoy. Some of the most inspiring subjects are in the produce department and I find myself there testing the bartlet pears quite often. Most people might be looking for softness, ripeness, but my tests are: can the pear can stand on it’s own, is it a shapely pear, and of course, how good is the color?

Once they’re home with me, I set them up with dramatic lighting, as if they are on stage! With this painting my goals were to improve my brush work and to keep the colors light and appealing.

Using a bristle flat brush is greatly improving my brush work since it holds more paint and the marks are showing how luscious the paint is. The pears were juicy and luscious, so they should be depicted that way. My palette is a simple rainbow palette that I’ve been using for years but I’ve lightened things up now, reminding myself to stay in the higher value range.

Pear Solo — The Soloist - 5x7 oil on panel

This guy needed his portrait painted and didn’t have anything to do with that other group.

Thanks to the sale a Jay Mar, I’m stocked up on canvas now and will be painting more still lifes in the near future.

My collection of thrift store finds will be a future series of paintings and great composition practice.

Feel free to give me feedback or ask any questions in the comments section and thanks for looking!

Harry and the Natives, Hobe Sound, FL

February 10, 2012May 5, 2012 | Doreen E. Lepore

A few years ago I did a special project that I called “The Hobe Sound Project” where I left post cards around town and asked everyone to tell me what they wanted me to paint and in the spring there would be a show of all the paintings. This particular painting is one of my favorites from that project. It’s a pastel on La Carte pastel paper. This paper has a lot of tooth to it and it has a luscious look to it when you fill the tooth, probably from the coating, which they say is vegetable matter, and I think some cork. You can’t use liquids on it though because it will just fall apart.

Harry and the Natives is located on the main intersection of Hobe Sound at Route 1 and Bridge Road and serves local delicacies, such as gator burgers. The street light is from the old part of Hobe Sound and there isn’t actually a glass globe on it but I thought it needed one.

Hobe Sound Beach Umbrellas

January 28, 2012May 5, 2012 | Doreen E. Lepore

The actual title of this painting is “Postcard from Paradise” but it’s the usual spot at Hobe Sound Beach. This was done from a photograph that I had taken, actually I had taken many photographs that day because while I was there painting another painting more umbrellas kept popping up. I wanted to be sure that I had the maximum number of umbrellas and this is what I ended up with. The beach drops off and people set themselves up on the edge of the dune.

This is a pastel painting on Wallis Museum Grade paper. It’s a decent size – 18×24 and I started with a water color underpainting. The underpainting is mostly a block in of complementary colors. So, in the grassy foreground I used a reddish brown and pink for the sky and water. An underpainting also saves on pastels, because the Wallis paper is a sanded paper that will eat up the pastels fairly quickly.

Hobe Sound Beach continued………..

January 15, 2012May 5, 2012 | Doreen E. Lepore

It occurred to me this morning that I have more to show from Hobe Sound Beach and don’t know why my post was so short yesterday. My plan isn’t to blog daily because then I wouldn’t get any painting done, but will post frequently to start anyway.

This is a full shot of the painting that I use on my header and avatar. If you walk down to the end of Hobe Sound Beach this is what you see. Because it’s such a hike I painted this from a photo instead of hauling my art supplies out there.

I’ve also painted this view in pastels and it usually is hanging up at JayMar in Stuart, FL where I sometimes teach pastels.

Here is the larger version of the lifeguard station that I painted on location:

Hobe Sound Life Guard Station — Oil on panel - plein air knife painting - 12x16

Hobe Sound Beach

January 14, 2012May 5, 2012 | Doreen E. Lepore

This is one of my small works – in fact I’ve painted this in a larger format as well. The lifeguard station is actually not the coolest type of lifeguard station in FL. It’s one of those metal things that seem to be portable. I’d prefer a nice old wooden structure with more character like the ones down in South Beach.