Little Angel - An original oil painting by George De Chiara

Little Angel
6x6 inches
Oil on Canvas Panel
by
George De Chiara

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 For the last few days, I've been working on a few commission paintings and haven't had a lot to post. Today I needed a break from those paintings, so I thought I do a little still life. We have a lot of our Christmas decorations out now and I just can't resist using them for my props. I grabbed this little angel and quickly set up a little still life with it. I have to admit this was just the kind of diversion I needed today.

To see more of my paintings visit my web site here.

A Little Christmas Cheer - An original oil painting by George De Chiara

A Little Christmas Cheer
6x6 inches
Oil on Canvas Panel
by
George De Chiara

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 I've been looking forward to this time of the year for a few months now. Our oldest daughter, who's just 2 years old, is just starting to understand Christmas and the holidays in general. Almost every night before bed for the last few weeks, we've read her current favorite book, Santa Mouse. So it's been with great anticipation that I've been looking forward to getting the Christmas decorations out. Not only do my wife and I get the great joy of explaining all the traditions and mysteries to our daughter, I get a whole new set of subjects to paint for a few weeks.

To see more of my paintings visit my web site here.

Dutch Barns - An original oil painting by George De Chiara

Dutch Barns
9x12 inches
Oil on Linen Panel
by
George De Chiara

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To get this painting, I actually used two different reference photos that I took somewhere in the Midwest many years ago. I liked the landscape in one of the images and the building structures in the other. That is one of the few advantages to working from photographs. If I had painted this from life I would have had to choose between the barns or the landscape I liked, but probably wouldn't have been able to use both. I took a lot of photo reference over the years, and, for all I know, the two I used could have been hundreds of miles away from each other. I can't remember exactly where these barns are located any longer, but I think they are along the Illinois/Wisconsin border.

To see more of my paintings visit my web site here.

Guard Duty - An original oil painting by George De Chiara

Guard Duty
9x12 inches
Oil on Linen Panel
by
George De Chiara

Contact me to purchase this painting ($230).

 About a year or so before I actually starting painting still lifes, I started to collect things that caught my eye as something I might want to one day include in my paintings. As any still life painter will tell you, we all love our "stuff" and usually have it stashed all over the studio. You never know when you will need just that perfect thing to complete your still life. You'll find us hunting through the thrift stores for that must have tea-cup or bowl or even the odd knickknack. I've noticed that sometimes I use what I buy very quickly; other times, things that looked good when I bought them seem to lose their appeal once back in the studio and are doomed to sit and collect dust until I notice their charm once again. Well, that little statue in this painting was one of the first things I ever bought for my still life collection. I actually have two of them, along with a few other little figures that I got for $2 at an estate auction almost 3 years ago. Then, there it sat on the shelf in the window collecting dust. I tried it in a few other set ups over the years, but it never really worked out so I always removed it and put it back in its place. Well, I'm happy to report after three years, I finally used this little guy in a painting! Hopefully another three years don't pass before I use it again.
 
To see more of my paintings visit my web site here.

Partly Sunny - An original oil painting by George De Chiara

Partly Sunny
6x6 inches
Oil on canvas panel
by
George De Chiara

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One of the unexpected outcomes of the drought we had this year in Texas is views like this one. Normally the spot I stood to paint from would have been underwater, along with most of this scene. I was standing about 20 feet from where the shore line is normally. When I pick this spot for my painting the sun was shining though the rain clouds that threatened the day. After about 10 minutes of painting, the sun ducked behind a cloud and never came out again. Well, that's not totally true. Almost on cue when I stopped painting, the sun came back out for rest of the day. With any luck we'll have a very wet winter and spring to fill our lakes back up again. 

To see more of my paintings visit my web site here.

Last Light - An original oil painting by George De Chiara

Last Light
5x7 inches
Oil on Linen Panel
by
George De Chiara

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Mondays are busy days.  I take care of our baby daughter until my wife gets in from teaching and then I have to pack up to get my painting in for the day.  Between feedings and tummy time, I figure out where I am going to catch the last light of the day.  It can't be too far from the house because the sun sets awfully early these days, so I am grateful that we live in an area that has so many parks with leaves that are changing in color.  Last night, I got lucky and stumbled upon this scene just before sunset. There where just a few rays of sunlight reaching the tops of these trees and in the back of the field. I had to paint fast to capture this scene before the sun was gone and it disappeared. Adding to that, even in November, Texas has mosquitoes and they tried to carry me away as I worked.  As for the painting itself, the biggest challenge was capturing the large foreground. I loved the cool colors of the grass and path and thought I could use these to give the foreground some interest.

To see more of my paintings visit my web site here.

Lake Como - An original oil painting by George De Chiara

Lake Como
6x6 inches
Oil on Canvas Panel
by
George De Chiara

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 It's been a few days since I've been able to update my website. I've had some technical issues that seem to be worked out now and it looks like I'm up and running again! I painted this on Friday afternoon at Lake Como in Fort Worth. This wasn't the area I set out to paint. I originally had two other locations in mind, but I wasn't able to find either one of them because of a GPS malfunction. Well, it may not have been entirely the GPS's fault. I forgot to get the addresses of the places I wanted to go. Instead, I just had the names of the parks, which I thought would have been good enough, but alas, it was not. So after an hour or so of driving around in the area, I thought the park I was looking for was in I finally gave up and went to this park that the GPS was able to find. I had never been to this park and lake before, but wasn't disappointed at all becaue this is a beautiful little lake. The changing fall color was a very nice addition to the scene.
 
To see more of my paintings visit my web site here.

Fall At Trinity Hills - An original oil painting by George De Chiara

Fall At Trinity Hills
6x8 inches
Oil on Canvas Panel
by
George De Chiara

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We are just starting to get our fall color here in Texas. I'm not sure how much we are going to get this year since we just experienced one of the worst droughts in recent history, but we are slowly getting some. A painting friend of mine suggested painting at Trinity Hill Park, but had to cancel at the last minute. I decided to go anyway and paint. Trinity Hills Park has been described as "the best place to stand in Fort Worth". While I'm not sure about that, it is a very neat place. First off, it's huge! You can hike for hours along the meandering trails. It also has some unique views of the city skyline with rolling hills in the foreground. I was lucky to come across this scene late in the day when those great cast shadows where going across the hillside. I really liked the pattern of light and dark that they created along with the little pops of fall color.

To see more of my paintings visit my web site here.

Winter Tracks - An original oil painting be George De Chiara

Winter Tracks
9x12 inches
Oil on Linen Panel
by
George De Chiara

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This painting started off as a demo painting for the Ellis County Art Association last night. I had a great time painting and talking with the artists there, but, despite my best efforts to paint as fast as I could, I didn't have enough time to finish this painting. In fact, I would say in the hour I painted last night I made it to only about the block-in stage. Nothing had any detail to it and a few areas had some drawing mistakes that would need to be corrected. Since I was happy with the start I had made, I decided today I would take the painting into the studio and finished it off.
 
To see what this painting looked like at the end my demo visit my blog here.

To see more of my paintings visit my web site here.

Tea Rose - An original oil painting by George De Chiara

Tea Rose
6x8 inches
Oil on Canvas Panel
by
George De Chiara

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Opening bid just one penny!

Believe it or not, the Botanical Garden in Fort Worth is still in full bloom this late into November. In fact, in some places it looks more like spring than fall as flowers bloom and reach for the sky. The Rose Garden is no exception with every rose bush full of fragrant full blooms that are all popping with amazing color! This morning I met a group of fellow painters out there and it seemed like almost everyone fixated on the flowers today. I chose to paint these Tea Roses between the fountain and the lake. These are just a few of the many flowers blooming on a very large bush. The whole time I was painting this I could smell the roses, even over the oil paints! What a lovely surprise.

To see more of my paintings visit my web site here.

Homestead - An original oil painting by George De Chiara

Homestead
5x7 inches
Oil on Canvas Panel
by
George De Chiara

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Opening bid just one penny!

 I have a few demos coming up this month. On Monday night, I'll be doing a painting for the Ellis County Art Association and while thinking about what types of subjects I wanted to paint, a scene like this one came to mind. Since the time frame is relatively short, about an hour to an hour and half, I wanted to do this little piece for a number of reasons. First, it gives me a chance to work out how I might approach a subject like this without the pressure of a crowd watching. I could also time how long it takes to paint and make a few mental notes about how far I should be in the painting at a few given time intervals. Normally, when I'm not under any time constraints, I may take a few hours to complete a painting like this, so trying to complete it in a relatively short period was a real challenge. Luckily, I made it with a few minutes to spare. With any luck I'll be able to do the same on Monday night. If you're a member of the Ellis County Art Association be sure to come by and watch my demo. It should start around 7PM.

To see more of my paintings visit my web site here.

Purple Basil - Original oil painting by George De Chiara

Purple Basil
6x6 inches
Oil on Canvas Panel
by
George De Chiara

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My wife and I have been experimenting with our green thumbs for the last few years. Slowly, but surely, they are getting greener, and, every now and again, we hit one out of the park. We are lucky that in Texas, we can garden almost year round and try to make the most of that by re-planting after we pull up the old crops. This year we had one whole bed of onions that we harvested early in the summer. Afterwards, we planted a bunch of plant seeds we had for a while. We weren't sure if they would still be good or not, but we figured we take the chance and see what happens. Almost everything we planted sprouted up, some faded fast or never produced fruit. Others, like this purple basil, took off beyond our dreams. I'm not sure how much for sure we harvested, but below is a picture of the plants pulled up and placed in a bucket so I could get them all in the house. Tomorrow we'll make basil ice cubes for the winter. If you're a gardener and haven't tried this for your herbs, it's totally worth it. They are very simple to make. Just chop up your basil or any other herb. We've done parsley and oregano, in addition to basil. Once you have it chopped up, mix in either a little olive oil or water and fill up an ice-cube tray. Once they are frozen, you can pop them out and put them in plastic bags to store. Then when ever you need some just throw a few ice cubes in what ever you are cooking. I think it tastes much better then dried herbs.

To see more of my paintings visit my web site here.

Fruit Stack - An original oil painting by George De Chiara

Fruit Stack
5x7 inches
Oil on Linen Panel
by
George De Chiara

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Opening bid just one penny!

 Back in the studio today. It's been a few days since I've painted indoors. My last few paintings were done outdoors, but I had set this still life up a couple of days ago and really wanted to paint it once and for all. I actually attempted this one right after I set it up, but about half way through that painting, I wasn't happy with what I had. Today I started over with a new approach. Okay, that's not totally true. I tried this new approach the last time I attempted to paint this still life. Like I said, it didn't go well, but with the knowledge of where I went wrong last time I approached my easel once again hoping to get a little further this time.
 
To see a complete step-by-step demo of how this painting came to life visit my blog here.

To see more of my paintings visit my web site here.

Fountain at the Botanical Garden - An original oil painting by George De Chiara

Fountain at the Botanical Garden
6x8 inches
Oil on Canvas Panel
by
George De Chiara

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Opening bid just one penny!

 I painted this over the weekend at the Fort Worth Botanical Gardens. This is the fountain that's at the end of the trellis in the Rose Garden. I was struck by the sharp contrast of the fountain water shooting through the air against the background that's mostly in shadow. Plus, there's the added benefit of the wonderful color of the fountain pool water. At first I passed this scene by, thinking it wouldn't make a good painting, or, rather, that I wouldn't be able to make a good painting out of it. I was worried about having the shooting water be such a dominant element in the composition. I knew if I didn't handle that correctly, it would take over the painting and possible divide my canvas. After looking around at a few other possible locations, I finally decided to just go for it and paint the scene that I really wanted to paint, which is the fountain. I noticed I painted a little slower and more deliberate than I normally do to make sure I had enough in the scene to support the shooting water when I painted it in. In fact, the shooting water was the last thing I painted after I had everything else worked out. In the end, I was happy I pushed myself to try something I wasn't sure would work and came out with a painting that I'm proud of. It's good to stretch, which is something I need to keep in mind more often.

To see more of my paintings visit my web site here.

Lake Worth Harbor - An original oil painting by George De Chiara

Lake Worth Harbor
6x6 inches
Oil on Canvas Panel
by
George De Chiara

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Opening bid just one penny!

 I must have driven by Lake Worth a hundred times while my wife and I were dating. In order to get to her house from where I lived, I had to drive over the bridge that's just a stones throw from where I did this painting. Somehow, I forgot this lake existed after we got married and moved. Then, yesterday, I was in the mood to go out and paint, but where...? Whenever I get stuck with this question, I usually go to Google maps and do a virtual search for places to paint. That's when I noticed this lake again and the promising looking boat harbor, so I grabbed my painting gear and headed out. It turns out the harbor is private property, so I had to find a different location to paint from. I've gotten pretty use to running into situations like this, so I had already scouted out a few other possible locations to paint from on Google maps. Luckily, the public boat ramp isn't too far from the harbor, so that's where I painted from. A few minutes after I started painting, a gentlemen came up to introduce himself and see what I was doing. It turns out he's an artist too and invited me to paint from his house and pier when ever I want to. It looks like his pier has a great view of the lake, harbor and a few of the other boat houses on the lake. I can't wait to go back and paint from there. Until then, here's the painting I did from the shore.


To see more of my paintings visit my web site here.

Along County Road 256 - Original Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Along County Road 256
6x8 inches
Oil on canvas panel
by
George De Chiara

Click here to bid. (Starting 10/25 @ 8PM)
Opening bid just one penny!

 Over the weekend, my wife went to a baby shower for one of her friends that was way out in the country. Never one to pass up the opportunity to explore a new area and get in a little painting, I volunteered to drive her and our daughters to the shower. Once I dropped them off, I quickly went to work searching for a good location to paint. There where so many places I wanted to paint that my decision on what to paint came down to finding a good spot to park the car and paint from. For this spot, I found a nice little area on the shoulder of County Road 256, right under a nice live oak tree for some shade. There were many things that made me want to paint this view. First, was the great clouds we had in the sky. The added benefit of this was the wonderful cast shadows going across the foreground from them. And, finally, the occasional cow wandering through the field made me really want to capture this scene.

To see more of my paintings visit my web site here.

Pumpkin Trio - An original oil painting by George De Chiara

Pumpkin Trio
6x6 inches
Oil on Canvas Panel
by
George De Chiara

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Opening bid just one penny!

 I finished this painting late Friday night and had meant to post this entry sooner, but it's been a very busy weekend around here and this is the first chance I've gotten to write this blog. I really wanted to do one more painting of all the little pumpkins and gourds we bought this year. They really area a treat to paint because of their wonderful colors and variety, which keeps me on my painting toes.

To see a complete step-by-step demo of how this painting came to life visit my blog here.

To see more of my paintings visit my web site here.

Howdy - An Original Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Howdy
6x8 inches
Oil on Canvas Panel
by
George De Chiara

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Opening bid just one penny!

 Last week, we were at the Fort Worth Stockyards. I couldn't help but take a few photographs of the cowboys riding around on their horses and getting ready to drive the cattle down the street. I rarely paint this type of subject matter, but it's good to stretch occasionally and push in new directions. With this in mind, I decided it was time to try to tackle the challenges presented by these two rugged figures of the cowboy and his horse. I loved the lighting in my reference image. It's very strong and cast a great shadow of the cowboy hat across his face. That and the wonderful contrast in the outfit he was wearing made this painting a joy to paint.

To see a complete step-by-step demo of how this painting came to life visit my blog here.

To see more of my paintings visit my web site here.

The Smaller Falls - Original Oil Painting by George De Chiara

The Smaller Falls
6x8 inches
Oil on Canvas Panel
by
George De Chiara

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Opening bid just one penny!

A few years ago, our paper ran a little story about some of the best but least known nature trails in the area (Tarrant County). I clipped the article out and taped it to the back of my studio door for safe keeping. Well, it must have been very safe because I sort of forgot about it until a few days ago when I noticed it hanging there again. One of the spots listed is a great looking waterfall in Westworth Village. With the recent rain we've had, I thought that it might be worth trying to find this spot since it would probably have water running through it. I grabbed the article and our GPS, packed up my painting gear and headed out to find it. The directions in the article were a little vague, with clues like "where the curb on the street is cut, turn". After a few wrong turns, I finally found the area the article talked about and after a short hike along the paved trail, the waterfalls. This spot turned out to be more than I could have hoped for. The waterfalls are stepped with about five different drops varying in size from a few inches to several feet. There's even a few benches right where some of the best views are! I went in the morning, but the sun was slow to shine on the falls. After a little exploring, I finally found an angle where the sun was shining on the top two falls, so that's what I focused on with this painting. I'm already planning my next trip to paint more of this wonderful little area soon.

To see more of my paintings visit my web site here.

Natalie's Pumpkin - Original oil painting by George De Chiara

Natalie's Pumpkin
6x6 inches
Oil on Canvas Panel
by
George De Chiara

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Opening bid just one penny!

 Last year, I painted one of these small pumpkins and named it after my then one year old daughter, so it only seemed fitting that I use my newest daughter's name for this year's small pumpkin painting. She's way too young (2 months old) to have actually picked out this pumpkin, but it's the smallest one we have this year and it seemed fitting to name it after her. What attracted me to this little one was the stem. I loved that it had that little stringy bit and that I could pose it almost any way I wanted to for my painting.  I had to be careful though; I accidentally broke off one of the little vines off of it while working out this arrangement.

To see a complete step-by-step demo of how this painting came to life visit my blog here.

To see more of my paintings visit my web site here.

In the Flow - Original oil painting by George De Chiara

In the Flow
6x8 inches
Oil on Canvas Panel
by
George De Chiara

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Opening bid just one penny!

Painting scenes like this is one of my favorite things to do. I really enjoy the challenge of capturing the moving water and the reflections, so when I found this view at a local park, I knew this is what I'd be painting for the next few hours. I hiked down to the edge of the water to find a good angle to paint from. With all the rain we had over the last week and the cool morning causing a lot of dew on the grass, the river bank was very slick and muddy. Every time I took a step, I slid towards the water. To keep my easel from going into the water, I had to push the legs into the mud. Luckily, I also found a small board to stand on while painting so I didn't slip into the river.

To see more of my paintings visit my web site here.

Lakeside View - An original oil painting by George De Chiara

Lakeside View
6x8 inches
Oil on Canvas Panel
by
George De Chiara

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Opening bid just one cent!

For the last few days we've had either rain or a good chance of rain, and, with that, we've had these great puffy clouds filling our skies. I have to admit, I'm a bit of a cloud junkie. I'm always checking the sky every time I go out to see what kind of clouds we have for the day. When we get ones like these, I'm just itching to grab my supplies and go out and paint them. Yesterday I was able to do just that. During the late afternoon, I went down to a little park just down the road that has a nice small pond and found this view. Since I wanted to really paint the sky, I gave it a large portion of the painting. With the severe drought we've had here in Texas, I was actually standing where water is supposed to be. You can see just how low the water line is on the shore line I included in the painting. Normally, the water comes up to the grass. With any luck, our recent rain will continue and the lake will be back to its normal level soon.

To see more of my paintings visit my web site here.

Fragile - Original Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Fragile
9x12 inches
Oil on Linen Panel
by
George De Chiara

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Fragile is the latest painting to roll out of the studio. I actually finished this one a few days ago, but things have been super busy here and I'm finally getting a chance to write my blog post about it now. I'm not really sure what inspired this one. I was playing around with a few different objects in my shadow box trying to come up with something that I liked when I noticed that most of the things I had grabbed were all glass. Hmm..., I thought, that might be an interesting idea. All glass! What do I have to lose? So I immediately went to work finding all the interesting glass objects in my collection of still life objects. I spent an hour or two trying a few different arrangements before focusing on and fine tuning this one. The last touch was to add a little colored water into bottle on the little plate. Then it was time to paint.
 
To see a complete step-by-step demo of how this painting came to life visit my blog here.

To see more of my paintings visit my web site here.

Rodeo Plaza - Original Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Rodeo Plaza
9x12 inches
Oil on Linen Panel
by
George De Chiara

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Opening bid just one penny!

This weekend I was invited to go paint at the Fort Worth Stockyards with a group of painters. We had beautiful weather to paint in on Saturday morning. After considering several interesting sites, I chose to paint this view of Fincher's Western Store because I was so drawn to the shadows against the white building and the clear blue sky. The view reminded me of something Edward Hopper (Early Sunday Morning) might paint and after spending the day painting it, I can better appreciate why he chose his subjects for a painting. For me, scenes like this are all about the abstract patterns, like the way the chimney on the roof creates a nice break in the big blue (sky) shape behind it. I am also attracted to the way the windows and shadows create interesting shapes in the big white space of the building's wall. These shapes are really what I was thinking about when I painted this.

To read more about this painting, visit my blog here.
To see more of work visit my web site here.

Pumpkins - an original oil painting by George De Chiara

Pumpkins
6x8 inches
Oil on Canvas Panel
by
George De Chiara

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Opening bid just one penny!

I love this time of the year. The weather finally starts to cool off, the leaves start to change, and the pumpkins go on sale for Halloween. I just love all these miniatures varieties they have out now. When I was a kid, the only type I remember where those that you could carve. Now don't get me wrong, I like those too, but for paintings, I tend to go for the miniatures. They have great color patterns and come in all kinds of colors. Plus, they are a lot of fun to paint so when I ran across these the other day at the gardening store, I just couldn't pass them up. Today, I finally got a chance to use them in painting.

To see a complete step-by-step demo of how this painting came to life visit my blog here.

To see more of my paintings visit my web site here.

Moving Hay an original oil painting by George De Chiara

Moving Hay
6x8 inches
Oil on Canvas Panel
by
George De Chiara

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Opening bid just one penny!

On my blog I have two posts about this painting. One is how I used my reference images in Photoshop to lay out my composition of this painting. The other is a step-by-step demonstration of the painting process.

To see the Photoshop blog click here.
To see the step-by-step demo click here.

To see more of work visit my web site here.

Tin Roofs - An Original Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Tin Roofs
9x12 inches
Oil on Linen Panel
by
George De Chiara

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I'm always gathering reference images of scenes I might one day be interested in painting. Often years can go by without thinking about them. Then one day, I'll get the itch to paint something particular and rifle through my reference images until I find the "one". I can't recall the exact location of this scene any longer, but it's somewhere along the Illinois/Wisconsin border. I must have hundreds of these types of images from when I lived in the Midwest. I took the reference image for this painting at least 25 years ago. There's a date stamped on the back on the image (remember when they use to do when they developed them?), but it's mostly worn off. The only part I can read is it's from September, which seems rather appropriate, though that's not the reason I choose this image. I just loved how these building were sitting down in this little valley. The sun made such a strong pattern of light and dark on them, but what really attracted me to this scene was the background landscape. The patterns of the fields and trees were just too much to resist.

Visit me web page to see more of my work here.

Apples and Peaches by George De Chiara

Apples and Peaches
8x10 inches
Oil on Linen Panel
by
George De Chiara

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Opening bid just one penny!

I thought it might be interesting to write about the process of setting up a still life, so when I set this one up I made sure to take lots of pictures along the way. You can find all of these images, along with my thoughts as the set up progressed from just a few pieces of cloth to the completed arrangement on my blog here. I also have a complete step-by-step demonstration of this painting coming to life on my blog here.

Visit me web page to see more of my work here.

Fresh Clippings - Original Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Fresh Clippings
5x7 inches
Oil on Linen Panel
by
George De Chiara

Win this painting! It's simple, just like my Facebook page and when I reach 200 fans, I'll have a drawing to see who wins the painting. No strings attached, no gimmicks, it's really that easy to win. Currently, I'm at 180 fans, so someone will be winning this painting soon. You can like my page here.

 I've had these flowers growing in a pot out by our garden all summer. Somehow through the 60 plus days of 100 degree weather we've had, I've been able to keep them alive and growing. That is until the other day when I was mowing the lawn and accidentally knocked the pot off the ledge it was on. It flipped over and landed upside down, breaking almost all the flower stems. I couldn't believe my bad luck! When I was done mowing, I went back and cut all the broken stems off and put the flowers in a vase. I originally thought I would paint them that way, but I wasn't happy with the way they looked in the vase, so I finally took them out and laid them down in this arrangement. While this made for a better painting, it did, ultimately, spell the doom the flowers.

To see a complete step-by-step demo of how this painting came to life visit my blog here.

To see more of my paintings visit my web site here.

Hot Terra Cotta by George De Chiara

Hot Terra Cotta
6x6 inches
Oil on Canvas Panel
by
George De Chiara

SOLD

It's been a little over a week, maybe even closer to 2 weeks, since I last painted. Raising a newborn and a 22 month old has really started to catch up with me and my wife. We both are starting look a little exhausted and sleep deprived at this point, but there is hope. The baby is starting to sleep longer at night and our 22 month old is starting to adjust to her new sister and slipping back into her routines. 

Anyway, I've been thinking about doing this painting for a while now. It's a commission piece for one of my collectors who wanted a painting to go along with one of the 50 paintings in 50 days pieces he bought. That painting was of cayenne peppers, so to complement it, he wanted haberneros. Habeneros have beautiful variations in colors that range from bright yellows to deep reds when on the verge of being overripe, so they make great subject matter for still lifes. I really didn't think it would be that hard to find a few good haberneros for this painting, but I had to go to 3 different stores before I found any that didn't look like they've been sitting in the produce section for months.  The first two stores only had the deep red color, which, while pretty, doesn't really capture my interest. Finally, I headed to the Mexican market and found what I was looking for. With these colorful peppers in hand, I was anxious to get back to the studio and start painting again.

To see more of my paintings visit my web site here.
 

Painting 50 of the 50 Day painting challenge - Tools Of The Trade - by George De Chiara

Tools Of The Trade
6x6 inches
Oil on Canvas Panel
by
George De Chiara

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Painting number 50! I can't believe it; I made it! For this last painting, it seemed appropriate to use some of the equipment I've used for the last 50+ days to make these paintings. One of the things that made this painting an interesting challenge is that the palette that everything is sitting on is the one I use every day, so I had to use a different palette while painting today. I didn't think this would matter, but it turns out I've developed a lot of muscle memory as to where each color is on my palette. Most of the time, I don't even think about where a color is, my brush just goes right to it. However, with this new palette I had to stop and think about where the color I wanted was before reaching for it. This made me think about my color mixtures more than usual, thus keeping me on my toes while painting.

To see a complete step-by-step demo of how this painting came to life visit my blog here.

To see more of my paintings and all of the 50 Paintings in 50 Days Challenge Paintings visit my web site here.

Painting 49 of the 50 Day painting challenge - Trails Edge - by George De Chiara

Trails Edge
6x6 inches
Oil on Canvas Panel
by
George De Chiara

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This painting is based on a photograph I took several years ago while out hiking with my wife on vacation. We were in Oklahoma at the time, following a trail in the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge when I noticed this little rock outcropping along the trail we were on. I was struck by the light-colored rocks against the dark background of the forest and snapped a few photographs to remember the scene by. I'm not sure what made me remember this images today, but I'm glad I did. Little landscape scenes like this are loads of fun to paint.

To see a complete step-by-step demo of how this painting came to life visit my blog here.

To see more of my paintings and all of the 50 Paintings in 50 Days Challenge Paintings visit my web site here.

Painting 48 of the 50 Day painting challenge - It's A Girl! - by George De Chiara

It's A Girl
6x6 inches
Oil on Canvas Panel
by
George De Chiara

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 Well, if you've been paying attention to this challenge, you'll know that I'm actually over the 50 days mark. I had to take a few days break when my wife went into labor with our second child this past weekend. Our due date was supposed to be about 5 days after the painting challenge was to end, but our little girl just couldn't wait any longer and made her début on Saturday afternoon. I'm only three paintings short of my goal, so I'm definitely going to finish it up over the next few days. I've thought about changing the name of the challenge to 50 paintings and a baby in 55 days. What do you think?
 
To see a complete step-by-step demo of how this painting came to life visit my blog here.

To see more of my paintings and all of the 50 Paintings in 50 Days Challenge Paintings visit my web site here.

Day 47 of the 50 Day painting challenge - Little Brook - by George De Chiara

Little Brook
6x6 inches
Oil on Canvas Panel
by
George De Chiara

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After yesterday's painting of the river rapids I was still in the mood to paint more rushing water. I once again turned to my reference photos to find my inspiration for this painting. This is actually a location not far from our home. The water isn't always running through this little creek, but after a good rain it looks great. I was lucky enough to find this spot shortly after a rain so there was plenty of running water through it. I snapped a couple of images and today I finally got a chance to use them.
 
To see more of my paintings and all of the 50 Paintings in 50 Days Challenge Paintings visit my web site here.

Day 46 of the 50 Day painting challenge - Where the Water Runs Rapid - by George De Chiara

Where the Water Runs Rapid
6x6 inches
Oil on Canvas Panel
by
George De Chiara

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Today I painted one of my favorite subjects, white water rapids! It seems like it's been forever since I've done one. I'm not really sure why I've had the lapse, but today I put an end to it. I shuffled through my photo references of scenes like this till I found one that I wanted to paint. This scene is from Medicine Park, OK. My wife and spent a week there a few years ago and had a great time hiking around the trials and sight seeing. We took a hike called the 40 Foot Hole Trail, which follows a river for about a mile and a half and is full of scenery like this. Ultimately, the trails ends at a 40 foot hole at the bottom of the river, which is created from the waterfalls pounding down. Now, I'll be honest, I'm not sure if we ever found the hole or not. It's not very clearly marked which waterfall supposedly caused this, but with a digital card full of images like this one I really didn't care.

To see a complete step-by-step demo of how this painting came to life visit my blog here.

To see more of my paintings and all of the 50 Paintings in 50 Days Challenge Paintings visit my web site here.

Day 45 of the 50 Day painting challenge - Pearl Necklace - by George De Chiara

Pearl Necklace
6x6 inches
Oil on Canvas Panel
by
George De Chiara

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 Last night my wife came into the studio after I was done painting for the day and mentioned she had an idea for a still life painting. She then set down 3 or 4 bottles of perfume and a pearl necklace. At the time, I didn't really notice how they looked  since I was busy finishing up some other tasks. This morning, I went into the studio to get the day started and noticed the little pile of goodies she left in there. I was immediately drawn the way the bottles looked. I cleaned out my still life from the day before and set up this arrangement. I had never thought to paint these little bottles before even though I see them sitting on the vanity everyday. I suppose that this is a rather pointed reminder to look at the shapes of things, and not what they are when looking for subjects to paint.
 
To see a complete step-by-step demo of how this painting came to life visit my blog here.

To see more of my paintings and all of the 50 Paintings in 50 Days Challenge Paintings visit my web site here.

Please note: I noticed a lot of the link to my auctions lately did not work properly. I'm not sure what happen, but I've gone back through them and fixed the links. If you  still find one that doesn't work, please let me know.

Day 44 of the 50 Day painting challenge - Fresh Bales - by George De Chiara

Fresh Bales

6x6 inches

Oil on Canvas Panel

by

George De Chiara

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For today's painting, I turned to one of my old plein air sketches for reference. I know a lot of artists work up their plein air studies into larger studio works, but this is the first time I've tried this myself. One of the things it made me realize about my plein air paintings is it's more important, to me anyway, to record more accurate color notes. The drawing can be refined later, but the color can only be captured out there on location. The other thing I need to remember to do is to take a photograph of the scene I'm painting for future reference. Still, it was an interesting experience trying to work from my old sketch. It gave me the chance to address some of the things I wish I had done differently while out painting on location. Plus, I got to revisit a subject that I enjoy painting. I could still recall many of the details from the day I did the initial study, like the heat from the pavement I was standing on while painting and the smell of the horses nearby.

To see a complete step-by-step demo of how this painting came to life visit my blog here.

To see more of my paintings and all of the 50 Paintings in 50 Days Challenge Paintings visit my web site here.

Day 43 of the 50 Day painting challenge - A Cluck Off The Old Block - by George De Chiara

A Cluck Off The Old Block

6x6 inches

Oil on Canvas Panel

by

George De Chiara

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While painting this today, I realized that the rooster in the background is probably the father of this younger chick. Ever since my wife's grandparents got a couple of roosters last year, their chicken count has really started to increase. In fact, the last time we were there, they had more pullets (young chickens) running around than anything else, including this one. Given the similar coloring and timing, I'd say it's a safe bet that he's the father. That's where the name comes from, rather than a chip off the old block, I changed it to Cluck. Get it? Hmm...maybe I'm spending too much time going over animal sounds with our 21 month old daughter.

To see a complete step-by-step demo of how this painting came to life visit my blog here.

To see more of my paintings and all of the 50 Paintings in 50 Days Challenge Paintings visit my web site here.

Day 42 of the 50 Day painting challenge - Changing Lures - by George De Chiara

Changing Lures

6x6 inches

Oil on Canvas Panel

by

George De Chiara

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I've turned to my tackle box several times during this painting challenge for models to paint. For this set up, I once again called on it, but this time I used the whole tackle box. I wanted this to have the feeling of slightly spilled or unorganized, like the fisherman has tried out many different lures to see what interests the fish. Sometimes he puts them back in the box, sometimes just getting them close to the tackle box is good enough. Hmm... this is starting to sound like some of my fishing trips.

To see a complete step-by-step demo of how this painting came to life visit my blog here.

To see more of my paintings and all of the 50 Paintings in 50 Days Challenge Paintings visit my web site here.

Day 41 of the 50 Day painting challenge - Golden Hour - by George De Chiara

Golden Hour

6x6 inches

Oil on Canvas Panel

by

George De Chiara

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I actually started off the day working on a still life painting while our daughter napped. Well, I should say while out daughter was supposed to nap. Less than an hour into nap time, she was up and running around again. Finally, my wife and I decided that we would go and run some errands since she wasn't sleeping. On the way to our first stop she fell asleep in the car. How predictable is that?! Since I wanted to make sure she got at least a little sleep today, I dropped my wife off at the store and took a drive with a sleeping baby girl. The best way I know to discover new places to paint is go out and explore, so that's exactly what I did while she slept in the back of the car. I found a few locations that I'd like to explore further when I can get our of the car and look around. One of them was this little spot.

To see more of my paintings and all of the 50 Paintings in 50 Days Challenge Paintings visit my web site here.

Day 40 of the 50 Day painting challenge - How'd Ya Get Up There - by George De Chiara

How'd Ya Get Up There

6x6 inches

Oil on Canvas Panel

by

George De Chiara

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I can't believe I'm down to the last 10 paintings for my 50 paintings in 50 days challenge. It makes me want to do a NASA style countdown for the last paintings. 10...9...8...Well, you get the idea.

For today's painting, I again turned to some of the fruit I bought yesterday at our local farmer's market. It took some time to come up with an arrangement I was happy with. I initially started off with some tomatoes and onions, and nope, didn't like that. Next, I tried a few lemons and limes... but, no I just painted limes yesterday. Hmm... how about these peaches? They have lots of great color to them, I especially like the one with the yellow stripe across the top. And maybe a plum to go with them. Ah yes, after an hour or so I finally had something to paint. Now I just needed to paint it!

To see a complete step-by-step demo of how this painting came to life visit my blog here.

To see more of my paintings and all of the 50 Paintings in 50 Days Challenge Paintings visit my web site here.

Day 39 of the 50 Day painting challenge - Citrus Party - by George De Chiara

Citrus Party

6x6 inches

Oil on Canvas Panel

by

George De Chiara

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Today I found a new source for my models. It's a little farmer's market just around the corner from our house. They opened a few weeks ago, and I finally had a chance today to go and see it for myself. It's a tiny store, run by a very kind older gentlemen who showed my around the place and talked at great length about his produce. After looking around for a little while, I bought a few oranges, tomatoes, lemons, limes, plums, peaches, and a cantaloupe and even a mango. When I got home I was very excited to set a still life with my new models and go right to work. This arrangement came together pretty quickly, as it just needed a few adjustments and away I went.

To see a complete step-by-step demo of how this painting came to life visit my blog here.

To see more of my paintings and all of the 50 Paintings in 50 Days Challenge Paintings visit my web site here.

Day 38 of the 50 Day painting challenge - Texas Sunflowers - by George De Chiara

Texas Sunflowers

6x6 inches

Oil on Canvas Panel

by

George De Chiara

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We've been in a severe drought here in Texas this year. It's been hot and dry for weeks now. Even though I can't recall the last time we had a good rain (it's had to have been at least 6 weeks ago), somehow, just down the road from us, there's a field of wild sunflowers growing and blooming like it's Spring. I have no idea how these flowers are surviving this heat, but there they are, going strong for several acres. Yesterday, I went down and cut a few of the flowers to paint. As soon as I got them home, I gave them a good drink of water and they perked right up. I just knew they would make good models to paint so I set up a still life with them and got to painting.

Then a funny thing happened. About an hour into my painting, I realized I was heading for a bad place so I wiped my canvas clean and started again. Another two or three hours of painting passes, and the only thing I had to show for it was another wiped down canvas. Hmm... somethings wrong, but what? So I thought, I'll change the arrangement of my still life. Okay, good, now back to painting. Another hour or two, and, again, the only thing I've accomplished is wiping down my canvas. Finally, I just took a break. I did everything I could think of to get rid of the heebie jeebies that were killing my painting attempts. I let a few hours go by to try to forget about the day's missteps and then went back to painting. This time I could feel things were different.

To see more of my paintings and all of the 50 Paintings in 50 Days Challenge Paintings visit my web site here

Day 37 of the 50 Day painting challenge - Jump Up - by George De Chiara

Jump Up

6x6 inches

Oil on Canvas Panel

by

George De Chiara

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 For today's painting, I wanted to work on reflections, so I put a piece of glass on the bottom of my still life box. The reflections help give the foreground more interest without the need for additional objects. Plus, there just fun to paint! Now I just needed to find something to paint, so I went to my favorite source, the veggie drawer in the kitchen fridge. I quickly found these two apples and stacked them on top of each other to carry. As soon as I did, I knew that's how they needed to be painted, so I brought them to the studio and set up my still life. Still, I thought it needed something else, so back to the kitchen I went to grab a cherry. I liked the difference in sizes between the cherry and apples and how the cherry has a very long stem, while the apple has a very short one.

To see a complete step-by-step demo of how this painting came to life visit my blog here.

To see more of my paintings and all of the 50 Paintings in 50 Days Challenge Paintings visit my web site here.