New paintings at Pasión

It's the holiday season and that means parties and special events. If you happen into the wonderful Cuban style restaurant "Pasion', my paintings from Cuba 2016 have been replaced with Buffalo area scenes. Besides these photos, there are more in the halls and by the bar. 

The very large paintings belong to the restaurant, these small ones are mine. Once winter gets intense I will change these for some warm weather flowers; with the music, fresh cuisine and flowers on the walls, Pasion may feel more like summer than winter in Buffalo.

Small Works Holiday Studio Show

Friday and Saturday, December 9 and 10 dawned cold and windy. After a mild fall the cold was a surprise and keeping the front door open got chilly whenever a cloud passed in front of the sun. Usually, sun streams in and warms the front of the house.

Nevertheless, I was ready and art work of small sizes were on the first floor and the gallery room was jam packed with Niagara paintings. 

The studio is always full of drying paintings and new work and this weekend was no different. You can see here that I often neglect to post some spectacular paintings. As usual, all studio sales are discounted a bit with double discounts for my repeating customers. People like to see work in progress, that painting is now finished and will be posted soon.

Back to My Roots?

Flowers. First it was apples, and I learned to draw by using apples as my subject, over and over, as instructed by Walter Prochownik at UB in the 80's. It was flowers, not apples, that intrigued me and I later spent many years looking deeply into the lines, curves and details of all sorts of plants and flowers, working large and small in my tiny Niagara Falls studio as my practice improved.

Since I became a plein air artist I have spent many Thursdays in winter painting the flora and architecture of the Botanical Gardens, usually small and often with pastels.

For this painting, I was invited to show a wall full of work related to gardens at the Twentieth Century Club in Buffalo and chose to paint outside in their gardens while my work was up. I have painted there several times, choosing bits of architecture as my focus. I made several sketches, the garden statuary is quite attractive, there are fountains and sculpture, groomed trees and brilliant colors against an interesting Romanesque architecture.

At each column in the back, large pots of Canna Lilies and Begonias glowed in the light. These urns became my subject and I wound up surrounded by a large garden party while I painted. It was interesting to be in that space with so many people yet nearly invisible as my work transported me right out of the crowd and few were interested in what I was doing there.

Cannas and Begonias oil on board, 20x10 c.2016