Oil Painting
24 x 18 inches
One of the things I had in mind with this painting was the idea of "shape harmony"...i.e. shapes that are similar but not identical, in this case the shapes of the shoots of water. The eye seems to enjoy wandering about in shapes like this, comparing one to the other.

Oil Painting

30 x 24 inches

A statue and its visitors in Washington, DC

Oil Painting
20x16 inches
Looking up Pennsylvania Ave at the US Capitol in Washington.

This painting is unusual in a couple of ways. I normally paint strongly-lit scenes...but the challenge of dealing with overcast light and reflections on a wet pavement had a certain appeal. Often in painting these days I am looking for something that throws up a challenge.

I also do not generally do paintings of famous buildings. Here it was the arrangement of light and dark shapes in the scene which I found exciting. The Capitol was not the strongest contrast in the scene so in theory might not be the center of interest...but when something as iconic as the US Capitol works its way into your painting, it is hard not to make it the center of interest.

Oil Painting

18 x 14 inches

Sometimes I finish a painting and wish there were more red in it, but here I felt there was just the right amount.

Oil Painting

30 x 22 inches

A street scene in France. Recently I reworked some paintings where I felt the big-shape composition was good but the light, color and some of the small shapes were not. The two images above are the before-and-after...top before and lower image after. Sometimes I only rework a certain area, such as making the sky or sunlit sides of buildings lighter...but here I reworked everything, also making some of the dark shapes darker, redefining a lot of the small shapes such as the doorways and shuttered windows, and re-positioning most of the figures. I rework probably fewer than 5% of my paintings...I like to go from start to finish in one painting session, but sometimes one has to admit that a painting could be better with a little more work. With the above painting, I spent one day painting it and another reworking it...the 2 days were roughly a year apart.

Oil Painting
30 x 40 inches
A summer scene in the midwest. I hope to get these postings going again on a more regular basis...I got out of the habit while traveling recently. I have been back for almost a month and painting a lot!

Oil Painting

11 x 14

A midwest farm scene at the height of summer. I called this one "done" at the earliest possible time.

Oil Painting
24 x 30 inches
A scene in Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming. This is a scene at the end of the day, with just a little sunlight coming between the peaks to the right and hitting the treetops...creating a series of similar sunlit shapes. Colors are mostly cool, emphasizing the warmth of the colors at the sunlit treetops. The study of warm/cool colors has been of particular interest to me lately.

Oil Painting
20 x 16 inches
A street in Albi, France.
I have had some computer problems...I believe they are now fixed, so I should be able to resume postings on a more regular basis.

Oil Painting
24 x 30 inches
A scene in a city park in Barcelona

Oil Painting
11 x 14 inches
The last light at the end of the day, Grand Teton National Park.

Oil Painting
18 x 24 inches
Traveling west at sunset.

Oil Painting
12 x 16 inches
A scene on the road in West Virginia. We just got back from a road trip to the east coast, and I found a wealth of material to paint. Most interesting to me was the different light and colors made possible by the warm humid air. The more distant shapes really recede, unlike here in the west where things 50 miles away look quite close.

Oil Painting
18 x 14 inches
A sunny day in New York.

Oil Painting
14 x 18 inches
A sidewalk cafe in New York.

Oil Painting
8 x 10 inches
A highway scene. Sometimes I end my painting day by dashing off a very quick painting, as freely as possible. With these paintings I am really not looking for perfection, rather freshness and the fun of painting. Sometimes I like the resulting painting.

Oil Painting
18 x 14 inches
I call this painting "A Contemplation of the Infinite". It is a scene I found while driving across west Texas.

Oil Painting

16 x 12 inches

a view of St. Elmo, Colorado, an old town in the mountains.

Oil Painting
14 x 11 inches
a corner flower market in New York City. As is often the case with urban scenes, there was more information than needed or wanted in this one. In fact I thought I was done with this painting and then turned around and looked at it again and realized that I had included a lot of things like hanging traffic signals etc near the top of the painting. These things were in the actual scene, but did nothing but detract from the painting and guide the eye away from the more interesting parts. So I painted them out and was much happier with the painting.

Oil Painting
18 x 14 inches
A quiet street (unpaved) in Taos, New Mexico, very early in the morning.

Oil Painting
20 x 16 inches
A scene in New York City, near the S.E. corner of Central Park.

Oil Painting
9 x 12 inches
a scene at Como, Colorado. I wanted to be out plein-air painting this week, but it was too cold and snowy, so yesterday I painted a scene I'd like to have painted on site, and tried to paint it more in the plein-air style.

Oil Painting
9 x 12 inches
light and shadow in Chicago

Oil Painting
10 x 8 inches
early morning light in Taos, New Mexico.

Oil Painting
14 x 11 inches
a street corner in Chicago

Oil Painting
14 x 11 inches
a small patch of light hitting a street scene in Chicago

Oil Painting

20 x 16 inches

An orange tree in Cordoba, Spain

Oil Painting

14 x 11 inches

a street scene in Chicago

Oil Painting

14 x 11 inches

a quiet street in Washington DC

Oil Painting
11 x 14 inches
A scene in the south of France

Oil Painting
20 x 16 inches
View of Wisconsin Avenue, Washington DC
The idea of this painting was a scene mostly in shadow, but with the main area of interest bathed in warm light.
A few days ago someone asked where I am showing my Washington paintings...I am showing them at a gallery in Georgetown, SUSAN CALLOWAY FINE ART, 1643 Wisconsin Ave.
www.callowayart.com

Oil Painting
20 x 16 inches
A view of Lake Michigan from Chicago.
It was in early August, and the lake was catching a lot of light. A sky with subtle gradations of color. A joy to paint it.

Oil Painting
20 x 16 inches
a scene in Chicago
The driving force behind this painting was the color strategy: black, white and red.

Sometimes the reason for creating a painting has more to do with the color scheme than the subject...that was the case here. Although this is a composition similar to others I have painted, the thing that really got me interested here was the arrangement of primary colors. The red and blue were almost straight out of the tube, while the yellow of the wall was very much tinted with white. The painting is actually a little less yellow than shown here...I must have had some warm lighting on while I photographed it.

This oil painting is 12 x 9 inches.

Hi Everyone, it's been awhile since my last posting so I have some catching up to do. Ellen and I were in Washington DC most of February, and in fact got there just in time for the 2 big snowstorms. We spent much of the time there on snow removal...but I did have a gallery reception which went very well, and I had time to paint almost every day. With apologies to Washingtonians, who have undoubtedly seen more than enough snow by now, here is an oil painting commemorating the great snow of 2010. This is a scene just a few blocks from the US Capitol...a scene which rarely looks like this! This oil painting is 12x9 inches.

This oil painting was a study in painting the warm tones of dusk. Once again I used a small team of colors, Cobalt Blue, various Cadmiums and Titanium White. I like the way the overall colors hold together...which seems much more natural with a small group of colors.

This oil painting is 14 x 18 inches. The scene was along the Gulf Coast in Texas.

I like to explore a subject by painting a series, probably the largest one of which has been the ongoing series of French landscapes. But sometimes it's very good to paint something I've never painted before and have no plans to paint in a series. Such is the case with this rose, which is a 10 x 8 inch oil painting. In reality the background was a mix of a dark passageway and a sunlit wall...in order to avoid a distracting contrast in the background, I had to choose between a light or dark background. I wavered, and think that either could have worked...but am happy with the dark background for the rose.

Those who have been following this blog know that I am very much drawn to light-and-shadow scenes. Today I did a painting of a much more softly lit landscape, this time in Spain, just outside the town of Trujillo. I also decided to use only a few colors, i.e. Cobalt Blue, Titanium White and a range of Cadmiums from medium-yellow to light-red. The color mixing was much more subtle than usual. This oil painting is 14 x 18 inches.

This oil painting is of a scene in the south of France and is 20 x 16 inches. There are several things in this scene that tell you we're not in the US, but to me the most interesting is the fact that we have a woman herding cows into the barn while wearing a skirt! I also liked the angles of the old stone farm buildings and the little patches of sunlight on parts of the roofs. It was in the early summer and although not yet sunset, it is getting late in the day...which is of course why the cows are heading home.

This oil painting is of a Spanish landscape and is 9 x 12 inches. I did it very quickly at the end of a day when I had struggled with more difficult subjects. I often find it relaxing to work on a nice peaceful landscape at the end of a challenging day.

My brush of choice with this painting, as with many lately, was a #14 Bright. The one I have been using is quite soft but has very good edge definition. I really like the action of this brush. I can produce narrow lines, get into little spaces, put down a strong angular stroke or just cover a lot of area quickly. For larger work I still like to block in with a larger brush with stiff bristles, as this lets me get the main shapes defined quickly, while the idea is still fresh.

I find it helpful to try new types of brushes from time to time, and to vary the brushes I am using. It seems to keep things more interesting without really changing my style of painting.

This is an oil painting of a scene next to the Mediterranean in Barcelona, Spain...maybe a good image to look at in mid-January!

One of the things I have struggled with at times is the tendency to stand too close to the easel and hold the brush close up to the painting end. This can produce paintings that are too "tight" and fussed-over. In recent weeks, to guard against this tendency, I have placed a soft carpet remnant some distance from the easel. I don't wear shoes when painting in the studio and it is very easy to tell when I'm standing on the nice soft carpet at an appropriate distance from the easel, and when I've stepped off it to overwork my painting. This helps me to use more of my whole arm to paint (not just the small muscles of the fingers), to hold the brush at the opposite end from the bristles, and to see more of my painting while I paint. One gives up a little control but gains a freer and more expressive stroke. Plus it's more fun.

This oil painting is 20 x 16 inches.

This oil painting is one of a series I have been doing...walking in Colorado. This one is 9 x 12 inches.

This oil painting, which is of a landscape in the south of France, is 18" x 36". It's unusual that I paint a scene this elongated, but it is fun to work with a different format. Sometimes I do perfectly square canvases too.

I like the gently rolling hills, small fields and tree-borders in this countryside, in this case creating what I felt was an appealing diagonal going up from the middle left of the canvas. I also liked working with the complementary colors of red and green in this early-summer scene where there are still bare fields but the trees are fully leafed out.

Greetings and Happy New Year!

This oil painting is 12 x 9 inches and is of a scene in Colorado. I enjoy spending time in landscapes like this even without a paintbrush. One thing I liked about painting this one was the high horizon and therefore lack of sky, which is often one of the lightest and brightest parts of a scene. This composition allowed me to create (for the most part) one light and one dark shape.