Flowers, mourning for a loss

A sweet woman in my ward at church suddenly lost her husband.  This was my gift.  I often feel weird about making paintings for others, and I hope that they like it.  I don't want to force my art on anyone.  So far people usually love having a painting, but it's not always easy and sometimes a little embarrassing.  I don't share paintings to seek praise.  I just am touched that a painting means anything to someone else.  I received a FB message this week from another person suffering a loss who I gave a painting to, and she said it deeply touched her.  I'm willing to put myself on the line if there is a chance that it will lift someone else.

I did a larger version of this painting this week, and I'll post that next.  The colors are a little different.  I love both of them for different reasons.

The final

Experimental Abstract

My friend Heather was working on an abstract DIY, and fortunately she needed my help.  She tried to do it on her own and she realized it was a little harder to do an abstract than she though.  It was a weekend where we were snowed in, so she came over and I fixed her paintings.  I've really wanted to try out some abstracts, so it was nice to have chance at one on my own for practice.  I think it's something I would be good at because I don't like love drawing a ton.  It's not amazing or perfect, but it was fun to have her there telling me what she liked and didn't like as I painted it.  I think it's beautiful now.

How it started. (Heather's attempt)

In progress. My work.  I just covered up everything she did.  Woops.

Hung in her house.  It certainly could even be bigger.

Framed Art - a landscape

Here is a piece I did last year for my uncle Stan.  I love seeing art framed and hanging.

Bountiful Temple

This is probably the best temple I have ever done. I was very invested in this piece, and loved working on this piece.  It was a special commission temple for my Grandma Richens.

The final

Mount Olympus

The final:

I spent 10+ on this.  I'm proud of this.  I'm sending on its way today.

Instead of doing lots of little projects lately, I'm focusing on nicer bigger projects.  And I'm just focusing on one project a week.  I'm taking my sweet time on this mountain. It took about 3 weeks, which turned out to be about 3-4 painting sessions of 2+ hours each time.  But I'm trying to do about 4-6 hours of serious painting a week.

Personally, I would almost like to leave this painting in this state and not mess with it, but I'm going for a little realism, so I must add color.

Valentines Decor

I wanted to do some Valentines Decor, so I painted these.  It also happened that I was doing a baby shower, and needed to update my paintings and finally take down my Christmas paintings.  These might carry over for the spring.  We shall see, but I thought a bike and Eiffel tower were a little romantic.  You can copy these and print them as you like. 

Barn

This was based off an original photo, so this painting is 100% original Libby.  I'm starting to see how an underpainting can really help.  I haven't been able to properly connect the work of underpainting to a final product.  It just really helps the values.