16" x 12" Oil on canvas

This is a portrait done for the Different Strokes From Different Folks web challenge. It’s always interesting to try something new. I have not done a full portrait painting since I was in college quite some time ago. Enough said. This was a lot of fun and I hope I came close to capturing her character. Once again, I really wish I could get myself to loosen up. I need to practice that. Maybe next year. The fun thing is that I have no idea who this is. I suppose I will find out eventually. Get on over to the challenge web site and check out all the work that is there. There is a great mix of styles to peruse.

9" x 12" watercolor

This was done for Karen Jurick’s, “Different Strokes From Different Folks” web site. She posts an image there and then challenges artists to paint it and she posts them back to the site. It is amazing to see all the different ways that people interpret the same image. Check it out.

For mine I decided to try a watercolor. Recently, I watched a video on watercolor painting by Alvaro Castagnet. That guy is amazing. Once again, he is loose and captures the essence of a place with as few brush strokes as possible. Something I strive for. So this painting is a result of watching that video. No comparing please.

This painting is done as a part of the Different Strokes from Different Folks challenge. This is very timely as I just had sushi for the first time this past week. I was visiting a client in Indianapolis and he took us out to a great sushi place. He ordered this huge boat full of sushi. All of it was really good, although i have to admit that i left some of the seaweed wraps on my plate. The sore spot of the evening was that we decided to try Sea Urchin at the end of the meal. They had some fancy name for it. I could have done without that. Thank goodness for the ginger that I could chew on afterwards so that taste didn’t linger for very long. Overall, it was a great experience. I have no idea what kind of sushi this is but it was fun to paint with all the bright oranges that bounce off the black surface.