Amidst every element of weather – sun, clouds, rain, thunder, lightning, heavy winds, light breezes – the tether keeps the boat safely attached to the grounded dock. What serves as your tether that keeps you grounded?
9″ x 12″ Acrylic Painting on Gallery-Stretched Canvas – $300
Here’s an inside look at a couple art studio photos, from working on a portrait painting and drawing:
Wow, the months keep passing by fast! Seems like just yesterday that my baby son turned 7 months and now he’s almost 10 months!
This is a pencil portrait drawing on paper of him:
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The other night, I stepped out onto our front stoop to admire the beautiful evening sky, warm air, and blooming flowers. I wave of inspiration washed over me, and I painted these the same evening:
– “An Evening at Home”
“Everything is Connected”
With the new pathway to the One Loudoun clubhouse, it’s easy to walk from our residential part of the neighborhood to the clubhouse. Not only that, it’s a nice walk through nature! You get to walk along the creek, cross over it on the bridge, and continue along the wooden pathway as the trees yield to a bird-watching wetlands. After that comes the clubhouse! I love our neighborhood.
This watercolor painting on paper is painted from the view of having crossed the bridge and looking through the trees towards the clubhouse, which has an awesome architectural design. This painting is part of my growing One Loudoun Art Collection.
Yesterday was such a beautiful day outside that I decided to pack my art supplies and walk down to the Saranac Linear Park here in One Loudoun with my son in his stroller. Painting ‘plein air’ (painting outdoors on-site) isn’t something I’ve normally done, but the idea of it sounded fun, so we gave it a try. Well, it was worth it! Lots of people outside, fresh air, warm weather, chirping birds, green grass, flowing water…we even saw a beaver building its dam and a great blue heron walking in the creek. There is actually a great blue heron rookery nearby that is recognized by the State of Virginia’s Department of Game and Inland Fisheries (VDGIF) as a “Critical Wildlife Resource.” I sat on a bench overlooking the creek, while my son sat in his stroller next to me playing with his teething toy. Just in the past few days, everything has turned so green with the rain from last week!
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– watercolor on paper
Over the past week I’ve been trying to do a painting of the Barn at One Loudoun, which is a beautiful sight to behold, but I didn’t particularly like what I did each time I made an attempt at it. Not that they turned out ugly, but rather, it just didn’t feel like my style anymore, which is much looser than the ‘realism’ I used to paint. I realized after the third time that where I was going wrong was drawing the lines out before starting the painting, which ended up confining my creativity. Just like in real life, sometimes when we try to draw out exactly how we want something, it can be too rigid and not allow for flexibility, and then we don’t end up getting what we wanted. So I took a break from the barn painting and turned to another photo I had taken in Central Park, and decided to do away with drawing it out beforehand. I also decided to use watercolors, which flow more naturally and allow for more flexibility.
Do you know where this is in One Loudoun’s Central Park?
– original watercolor on paper, 4/8/15
In our One Loudoun neighborhood, there’s a beautiful restored historic red barn that was originally built in 1875. Behind the barn lies Central Park and in front of the barn is a large lawn for crowds to gather during events. My wife and I had some of our maternity photos taken at the barn, as it serves as an eye-appealing backdrop!
This weekend I’ll be starting a new painting of a couple barrels of flowers in front of the red walls of the barn.
Now that the weather is warming up, my wife, son and I have been going out to ‘Central Park’ in the neighborhood we live in (One Loudoun). It’s probably the best residential park I’ve seen in Loudoun County. The landscaping is beautiful and the park is very well laid-out. There’s areas for kids to play that are built seamlessly into the landscape, there’s a dog park, there are benches, there’s a lake, and it’s within close walking distance to the downtown plaza area. So, being an Artist, I always find inspiration for paintings when I’m there. So after two years of living here, I finally started my first piece of Central Park. I just finished sketching it out and adding some color, with more color to be painted in. I envision pops of brick red, deep purple hues, dark browns, and a tad bit of orange on the ground, with luminous sunlight shining down.
