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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 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

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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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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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 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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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.