I just spent most of my day today working on this commission for a client.  I really love the composition.  It was one of those paintings that just seemed to paint itself.  I might ask for permission from him to do one larger to try to sell.  It was the first pastel I have done in a few months.  I have been doing primarily oil paintings, so this was alot of fun.  Your input?

This is an 8.5" x 17" pastel painting of my daughter Halee.  The eye icon represents her inner eye.  They say that if a person uses their inner eye that they are using one of their psychic abilities.  I had the painting almost completely done when I decided to add the third eye just for fun.  This is one of the last pastel paintings that I did before moving on to focusing on oil.

                                           "Halee and Leo"  Scherenschnitte. 16" x  20"  2008

Here is a lovely little scherenschnitte of my daughter Halee.  Scherenschnitte is a German word, meaning literally "paper snipping".  It was a very popular form of folk art in Germany, Poland, France and China long before it made the leap to the American Colonies around the mid 1600s".   The early American immigrants adorned their homes with paper cuttings using scraps of what ever paper they could find, and would glue them onto wood objects painted black.  They would also create lace like mantel piece decorations from cut paper and embellish their official documents such as birth certificates and wedding announcements, with cut paper designs. They would eventually create little tiny profile portraits cut out of black paper, called Silhouettes.  I loved these little creations so much that I started experimenting with them myself, but attempted to use a more contemporary composition and brighter colors. 

Small Iris.  Watercolor Scherenschnitte, 8" x 10"

I thought now would be a good time to start digging through my old portfolios to see what all I had out there.  I cant believe how many paintings I have stashed away.  I just paint and paint and tuck them away into the dark cavern of my garage. I am not sure why I do that, except that I just love the process of painting.  Here is an early example from my scherenschnitte phase from 2007.  I discovered this long lost style of colonial folk art when I was researching for a class I was teaching on silhouette cutting.  I will tell you more about it in a later blog.  For now just know that the color part of the painting is watercolor paper, which I cut very carefully with a knife and then mounted onto black mat board.  The black parts that you see is the mat board.  It is for sale.