Red Roses, 9067

A client who recently purchased my Yellow Roses painting wanted me to also paint red roses, so this is what I came up with. It felt so godd to be painting again. I think I actually had withdrawal symptoms.
This original 6x6 oil painting is sold, but I can always do another similar one. For more information, please email me at carolnelsonfineart@comcast.net.

No Rest for the Wicked

I have not fallen off the planet, but I haven't posted any work lately because of a project on which I somehow managed to become totally in charge. We are fixing up a rental house to get it ready for listing with a realtor.
I have been driving all over looking at cabinets, flooring, carpeting, appliances, lighting, picking paint colors, making 20 trips to Home Depot. I have been cleaning and painting. Make that CLEANING AND PAINTING. I wake up at 5am thinking about more stuff to do. It's endless.
I want to be painting art, NOT WALLS!
Next week, I'm going to a family reunion, so that will put everything with the house back a week at least. At least I won't be going to bed dead tired.

Yellow Roses, 9066

This painting of yellow roses that is a repeat of a previous similar painting. It is a commission for someone who saw the previous version. I welcome anyone visiting my website to request any painting that has been sold to be created again. These are not prints, but original paintings done from the same reference photo. As such, they are similar, but not exactly the same. SOLD

Father and Son, SOLD

This painting (top) is a private commission I've been working on all week. My reference was a slightly overexposed flash photo. Of course, since the camera flashed, there are no shadows on the faces which makes it much harder to define the planes of the face. My favorite portraits have a strong light coming from the side. A basic understanding of the bones of the skull is helpful in painting portraits, especially if the reference is a flash photo.

Clothing can add a lot to a portrait. I loved doing the boy's striped shirt because the stripes help define the lay of the fabric. I would have liked a shirt with a few more details on the father.

I like to blur the background on portraits. Too much detail in the background of a painting can compete with the faces for attention and the faces should be the most important thing.

When pricing commissions, I usually consider how many faces and hands are in the photo. In this portrait I blurred the boy's hands, but showed more detail in the father's hand. Adult hands usually show the underlying bone structure which makes them look believable. Small children do not have a lot of definition to their hands.


My series of 12 portraits I did a while ago in fauvist style are a favorite of mine - see the category of "figures" on my website. Fauvism was a style of painting popular around the turn of the century and is characterized by wild colors and strong brushwork. My 12 people are mounted on my bathroom wall so they are all looking at you when you're using the facility. I know that's a little weird, but I really like them there. We call them the Bathroom People.

Poppy Trio, 9064, original poppy floral triptych

Here's more of these little cube frame paintings. I can think of so many things that would look good in this format. Poppies have always been a favorite of mine. I made each one a slightly different shade - orange for the middle one, then one with more yellow, and one with more red - the black frames are smashing for all of them.
I guess I'm so taken with these cube frames is because I have always liked squares and cubes - they show up a lot in my abstract work. Scroll down and look at the previous post with the little cubed abstracts. They each have several tiny metal squares.
For purchase information, please see my website.

Trilogy, 9063, abstract, mixed media triptych

I loved working on this little triptych. Each piece has reflective elements in it making for a photography nightmare. The cube frames make this such a fun piece. They can be mounted on the wall, stacked on a shelf, or displayed individually.
Each cube measures 5x5x4. They are sold as a set. Please see my website for purchase information.

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My last outdoor show in Breckenridge, CO, was not as successful as I had hoped. Once again, I was plagued with the double pestilence of rain and a less than stellar turnout - probably one is a result of the other. I have lived in CO for over 30 years, and I can't recall such a wet spring and summer.
One bright spot was the camaraderie several of us exhibitors had together - good times.