A Sunny Bunch - An Original 6 x 8 Still LIfe Oil Painting by George De Chiara

A Sunny Bunch ©

6x8 inches  Oil

George De Chiara

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With this still life, I was trying something new for the lighting - the sun! For a few hours every morning the sun streams into my studio through the large south-facing windows. I know,  most artists dream of a studio with north facing windows and I do too, but for now, this is what I have. Normally I try to avoid setting up my still life arrangements anywhere near this window since I can't control the light and it moves very quickly, but while I was setting up for a still life painting I happen to place these tomatoes down on a table sitting in that sun shine coming through my window. All it took was one look to make me want to try to capture what I was. I loved the quality of light striking the tomatoes and quickly got to work trying to get it down on canvas. Like a plein aire painting, every few minutes I could see the light had moved and continued my fast paced painting. After about an hour, I actually had to move the entire set up a few feet to get it back into the same lighting I had started with. It reminded me of painting outside, but in the warmth and comfort of my studio. I can't wait to tr it again!

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On Winter's Heels - An Original 8 x 6 Plein Air Landscape Oil Painting by George De Chiara

On Winter's Heels ©

8x6 inches  Oil

George De Chiara

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 Well, it looks like this might be the last of the fall color paintings for this season. The winter weather has arrived here in north Texas and it is cold and icy.  I guess the next few days will be spent in the studio working on still life paintings, perhaps glancing over at these last few fall paintings and remembering the warmer weather. Currently the weather prediction is that we will break out of our below freezing temps around Tuesday. Yikes! Now what did I do with those long johns...?

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Nature's Fireworks - An Original 8 x 6 Plein Air Landscape Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Nature's Fireworks © 

8x6 inches  Oil

George De Chiara

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 Believe it or not, it was almost 80 degrees here today. Almost incomprehensibly, the weather is supposed to drop below freezing tomorrow, so I wanted to do a few more plein air paintings. These trees are in a little wooded lot not far from my home. I must have driven by these a million times before stopping to paint them.  I was attracted to the color and contrast of the leaves. With the long branches of the tree stretching out across the scene it sort of looked like an explosion of color, hence the name of the painting.

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Winter Gourd - An Original 8 x 6 Still Life Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Winter Gourd ©

6x8 inches  Oil

George De Chiara

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 After last Halloween, my daughter and I harvested some of the seeds from the pumpkins and gourds before putting them in the compost pile. We dried the seeds and stored them to plant this year. We got the seeds in the ground a little late and didn't have any pumpkins or gourds in time for Halloween this year, but let the plants continue to grow anyway. We did manage to get a few miniature pumpkins and gourds before the first frost killed the plants. My daughter loved going out every evening and checking their progress, so I'm sure we'll be planting these again next year. Hopefully, I'll remember to get them in the ground a little sooner. In the meantime, I'm enjoying painting the ones we got this year.

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Fall On The River - An Original 8 x 6 Plein Air Landscape Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Fall On The River © 

8x6 inches  Oil

George De Chiara

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 We are very fortunate to still have sunny warm days to go out painting in this late in the year. Make no mistake about it, winter is on its way, but it seems to take its time getting to Texas. In the meantime, its great weather for painting, especially while the fall color is still so strong. A friend of mine suggested the location for this painting. This is one of the many little streams and rivers that feed rain water into Benbrook Lake. While we haven't had a lot of rain lately, there has been enough to have some water in the river.

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Fall At Tandy Hills - An Original 8 x 6 Plein Air Landscape Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Fall At Tandy Hills © 

8x6 inches  Oil

George De Chiara

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 Fall color is finally starting to show up here in North Texas. It's been slowly turning for a few weeks now, but in the last few days, it's really hit a strong peak. I love this time of year and wish it could last longer, but I know it won't, so I'm trying to get out and paint the color as much as I can before it's gone. This painting was done at a unique park just outside of Fort Worth called Tandy Hills. It's very easy to hike out into the park and forget you are anywhere close to a city as the trails lead you down into the valley and the trees block your view of civilization. If it wasn't for the nearby highway noise, I'd swear I was in the country.

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Haven't I Seen You Before? - An Original 5 x 7 Landscape Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Haven't I Seen You Before? © 

5x7 inches  Oil

George De Chiara

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 It's been cold and drab here for the last two days, which is perfect weather to stay in the studio and paint. Today I once again turned to some of my photographic reference for inspiration and found an image of the Koi fish at the zoo.  I'm not sure, but I think these are the same fish I painted last week. While I was taking pictures of them, my daughters were feeding them so a lot of the same fish followed us around.

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Gentle Flow - An Original 5 x 7 Landscape Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Gentle Flow © 

5x7 inches   Oil

George De Chiara

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 A few weeks ago Jill Carver, an artist whose work I truly admire, posted an image on Facebook of a recent painting she did. When asked about it she mentioned something about working for a not so exciting photograph and she was just trying to see what she could make of it. This got me thinking about some of the not-so-exciting reference photos I've taken over the years. There was something that prompted me to take the picture, but once I had a second look at it...well, what ever it was that made me snap the image was gone. So I dug out a few of these "dogs" and started to really look at them. Could I make something out of one these? It seemed like it might make a fun and rewarding exercise. After working on a small value study, I felt there was something I could work my photograph into and so I got to painting. This is what I came up with.

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Salvia - An Original 5 x 7 Landscape Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Salvia ©

5x7 inches   Oil

George De Chiara

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When my wife and I first bought our house, a little over eight years ago, my mother-in-law planted a few Salvia plants by our mailbox. Over the years those couple of plants have populated themselves all over the yard. After a good rain we have bright red blooms popping up everywhere! Our daughters love to pick them "for Mommy" ever time we play outside and since we have more than I know what to do with and it's near impossible to kill them, I'm more than happy to let them pick 'em. The ones in this painting are a bunch my four-year old picked. They looked so intriguing sitting in their vase that I couldn't pass them up and had to try to paint them.

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Last Light - An Original 7 x 5 Landscape Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Last Light ©

7x5 inches   Oil

George De Chiara

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 It never ceases to amaze me how long it takes to getting around to paint a particular image. For instance, the reference image for this painting was taken well over four years ago. I even had a print made of it, which meant at the time, that I had thought about painting it. Well, for one reason or another I never did get around to painting it and the print got filed away in my file cabinet along with my other reference photos. There it sat for years before I noticed it again, only this time I did create a painting from it.

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HIT AND RUN - AN ORIGINAL 5 X 7 LANDSCAPE OIL PAINTING BY GEORGE DE CHIARA

Hit and Run

5x7 inches  Oil

George De Chiara

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 After painting Koi fish from life a few weeks ago, I thought I'd try one from one of a photograph. As luck would have it, I recently visited our zoo and took a bunch of pictures of the Koi swimming through the feeding ponds scattered throughout the park. My daughters would throw them some food and I snapped pictures of them when they came up to eat. Working from the photographs did have the advantage of my subject not moving, but for the colors I had to rely on my past experience of working from life to fill in the missing subtleties that the photographs lacked.

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Taking A Break - An Original 5 x 7 Landscape Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Taking A Break  ©

5x7 inches   Oil

George De Chiara

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 Several years ago my wife and I took vacation to the Wichita Mountains (Oklahoma) for a few days. We spent our time hiking and sight seeing. I even managed to take a bunch of reference pictures along the way, which , believe it or not, I'm still working my way through. The reference for this painting came during a break we took along one of the many trails we hiked. For most of this trail, we were up on the valley walls looking down on the river, but about two-thirds of the way along the trail it descended to the river. When we got the water we were treated with a few nice large, flat rocks to rest on. That's when I noticed this little scene with the fallen tree and took a few pictures of it.

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Boathouse - An Original 5 x 7 Plein Air Landscape Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Boathouse ©

5x7 inches  Oil

George De Chiara

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I painted this during a recent trip to Dallas. I was in town dropping off a few paintings for an upcoming show and stopped by White Rock Lake to do a little painting. The lake was very still and had a strong, glass-like reflection to it. Occasionally, a small breeze would blow by and give just the slightest disturbance to the water breaking up the reflections. I  loved the way this boathouse and dock reflected into the water and carried across the lake.

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Mineral Wells - An Original 12 x 16 Landscape Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Mineral Wells ©

12x16 inches   Oil

George De Chiara

 This is one of three paintings I'll have in the 5th annual Artists of Texas Dallas Show at the Dutch Art Gallery. The show runs from November 2nd - January 11, 2014 with an artists reception on November 2nd from 11 am - 6 pm. The exhibition, entitled, "No Where But Texas" will showcase 80 artists featuring 150 works of art. If you are in the DFW area be sure to stop by and say Hi during the reception.

"Mineral Wells" was inspired from a plein air piece I did at Mineral Well State Park last year. While I love the smaller plein air piece I did, after spending a year looking at hanging in our dinning room, I felt I wanted to work it up to a larger piece. One of my goals while doing this was to still try to retain that freshness and spontaneity of a plein air pieces. While at the same time making some adjustments to the arrangements of my shapes and colors to make a more appealing images. In other words, I didn't want to just make a copy of what I had already done. One of the ways I tried to accomplish this task was to work on large areas at a time and not each object. For instance, I worked on the large gathering of rocks at the same time and only worked on individual rocks at the end. I did the same thing for the background and water. As much as I could, I brought these areas to a sense of completion together.

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Ten Four Good Buddy - An Original 7 x 5 Landscape Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Ten Four Good Buddy ©

7x5 inches  Oil

George De Chiara

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 Every once in a while, I'm just in the mood to paint something completely different. The problem is I don't always know what that different thing is. It usually takes me hours to figure it out. First, I'll run though a mental list of any plein air locations I've wanted to visit or revisit to paint at. Then I'll look through all of my still life props. If, at this point, I still don't find that "different" thing, I may look around the house for a while to find something interesting. If that fails, then it's off to the file cabinet full of photo reference and or the hard drive full of digital images. It's there that I found the image that inspired today's painting. I must have taken the photo over fifteen years ago. I can't recall where we were going, but I remember being struck by this truck in front of us. I loved the way the light was hitting it and the pattern of lights and darks it made. I can't believe it took me this long to getting around to painting this one. I wonder what other old photographs I have that I haven't painted yet?

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Rembrandt in Bloom - An Original 6 x 6 Plein Air Landscape Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Rembrandt in Bloom © 

6x6 inches  Oil

George De Chiara

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 You may recall a few days ago I mentioned painting lily pads at the Fort Worth Botanical Garden; well, I just couldn't stay away from them. I went back and did this study of one of the flowers in full bloom. I was lucky to catch it a time when the sun was shining down on it. I love the color changes in this flower, especially in the inner bloom. After I finished painting this I leaned over towards the name plate to see what this lily plant was called and...well, can you guess it's nickname? I'll give you a hint, it's in the title.

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H3 Ranch - An Original 5 x 7 Landscape Oil Painting by George De Chiara

H3 Ranch ©

7x5 inches  OIl

George De Chiara

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 Recently I went painting with a group of friends at the Fort Worth Stockyards. This area is chuck-full of great painting opportunities and it's sometimes hard to settle on a subject matter, but on this day I was in the mood to do something a little different. Well, different for me anyway, and that meant looking for something I normally wouldn't paint. I wanted to try to paint one of the many large signs advertising the various restaurants, gift stores and western stores lining the streets. I choose this view of the H3 Ranch sign because I liked the way it was partly in shadow. This painting is actually a studio painting based on the plein air study I did that day.

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Lily Pad - An Original 5 x 7 Landscape Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Lily Pad © 

5x7 inches  Oil

George De Chiara

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 Last week I went to the Fort Worth Botanical Gardens to paint some of the lily pads they have there. In two large shallow pools, they have about 20 different varieties. It's very interesting to see the differences in them first hand like this. Some are in full bloom, while others are either just starting to flower or seem to be done for the season. I painted a view similar to this one while there, but when I got it home and had some time to look it over I realized that most of my values on that study were very flat (similar) and some of the color got a little muddy. I wasn't sure whether to try to fix it or just scrape the painting so it sat in my studio for a few days. Finally I decided to just paint the scene over using my plein air study and my memory. This one I'm much happier with.

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Koi Pond - An Original 5 x 7 Plein Air Landscape Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Koi Pond ©

5x7 inches  Oil

George De Chiara

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 Every once in a while when I'm at the Botanical Gardens in Fort Worth, I get the urge to head over to the Koi pond they have to try my luck at painting these fish while they swim around looking for food. If I was able to feed them, I might have better luck getting them to stay close to me, but they have a strict no feeding policy there, so I have to try to catch glimpses of them as they pass by. This makes for a very interesting day of painting. Most of my time is spent staring into the pond observing how the fish move and look. I try to focus on just one at a time, but if that fish doesn't come by for a while I may use another as a substitute model. Then I attempt to capture what I just saw on my canvas. I know someone out there is thinking why not just take a photograph and paint from that? Well, I may just do that for my next attempt at this, but to me, this experience is invaluable at filling in the gaps that the photograph will surely leave out. Besides, it's kind of fun staring at the fish for a few hours!

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Pie Pumpkin - An Original 7 x 5 Still Life Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Pie Pumpkin ©

7x5 inches   Oil

George De Chiara

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 I mentioned yesterday that we recently took our girls to a pumpkin farm  to pick out pumpkins for Halloween. Well, shortly after arriving, our 2-year-old picked out this one as hers after posing with her sister in a patch of pie pumpkins. From that point on she carried it with her all over the farm while we continued to looked and play. It took me a good thirty minutes to convince her to let me hold it for her while she played in the hay maze and slides. I'm not entirely sure, but I think she thought I might not give it back to her once she gave it up.

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Minies - An Original 5 x 7 Still Life Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Minies ©

5x7 inches   Oil

George De Chiara

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 Over the weekend, we took our daughters to their first pumpkin patch at Hall's Farm in Grapevine. You have never seen such delight on little faces, so we will be doing that again. They had a great time looking at all the pumpkins and playing on the antique tractors and trucks and jumping in the hay. After running around, gravely examining probably a hundred pumpkins, our girls picked theirs out. Then, I picked mine... these little mini pumpkins. I enjoy painting these because the form on them is usually more defined then on the larger pumpkins. This was the first year I've seen the white ones in miniature form so I had to get  a couple of them too.

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Another View Of Autumn - An Original 5x7 Still Life Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Another View Of Autumn ©

5x7 inches   Oil

George De Chiara

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 The last time my daughter and I went to the park to play, she found a large white feather and asked if we could keep it. Thinking that it might make an interesting subject in a still life painting I said yes and we took it home with us. A few days later while playing in the yard we found another smaller feather and added it to our collection. Then, just the other day, I found another interesting feather laying on the side-walk and add it to our growing collection of feathers. Since it rained most of the day today, I was stuck in the studio to paint. I had thought about what I could do with the feathers, so I pulled them out and started to play around with different arrangements of them. After a lot of trail and error, I finally came up with something I felt was a nice composition and got to painting. I have to admit that the feathers turned out to be great fun to paint. I just might have to use them again real soon!

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Lemons and Ribbons - An Original 5 x 7 Still Life Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Lemon and Ribbon

5x7 inches  Oil on Linen Panel

George De Chiara

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Occasionally, the inspiration for a still life painting is sometimes relegated to a minor role when the arrangement of objects is finally settled upon. That was the case with this painting. The original inspiration for this still life was a rather neat copper pot I bought at a garage sale months ago. I actually sort of forgot I had it since it was sitting inside a larger ceramic pot, but when I noticed it I knew I wanted to finally paint it. Then, in the course of deciding what should go with it and rearranging the whole thing many, many times, the thing that started everything found its self as a background object, there to lend interest to the starring objects, but most definitely a supporting member of the cast. Well, maybe next time my poor little copper pot will get the attention it deserves. Until then, I hope you enjoy it in its first appearance.

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Out For The Day - An Original 5x7 Landscape Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Out For The Day © 

5x7 inches  Oil

George De Chiara

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 I've been thinking about my last painting, Rolled Gold, and I kept thinking it needed something more. Not that I'm not happy with the painting on its own, but the idea behind it was to work out a composition for a larger studio painting and I felt that perhaps that painting was just half the story. In my mind, I always envisioned this scene as a long, narrow painting and so far everything I had painted for it was too proportional in its height and width. To experiment with the idea of elongating the composition I thought I'd continue the idea onto another canvas and when the two of them are put together, it makes the long, narrow composition I'm after. Bingo! This is closer to what I had in mind for the larger painting I want to do based on this idea. In the mean time, here's the other half...

...And for those of you who want to see the diptych all put together, here it is!

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Rolled Gold - An Original 5x7 Landscape Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Rolled Gold ©

5x7 inches   Oil

George De Chiara

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 This is a smaller painting based on a plein air study I did at the beginning of this summer. I'm trying to work out some ideas for turning that study into a larger studio painting. I sometimes find it useful to do smaller studies like this to work out ideas and further refine what it is I want the larger painting to look like. While this is closer to what I have in my mind for the larger painting, it's not the end composition I want. May have to give this some more thought....

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Mums - An Original 7x5 Floral Still Life Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Mums ©

7x5 inches    Oil

George De Chiara

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I couldn't resist paining these mums one more time while they are still looking kind of fresh. I don't think they will make it too much longer. Store bought flowers just don't seem to last that long. 

For this still life, I set up a very low table just under my easel so I could get a top down view of what I was painting. I placed this old book down first and then laid the flowers on top of it and arranged them until I was happy. I liked the way the dimensional flowers contrasted against the flat graphics of the book cover. I actually bought this book just for still life paintings. It actually doesn't have any of the pages in it, it's just the cover, but I love the worn aged look of it.

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Blue and Yellow - An Original 7x5 Floral Still Life Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Blue and Yellow ©

7x5 inches  Oil

George De Chiara

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I recently found a couple of antique cobalt blue glass bottles at an estate sale in Weatherford. The lovely elderly homeowner and I talked about our love of cobalt with its rich dark blues.  Anyway, I've been itching to try to paint some of them ever since I got them, and, I finally got a chance with this still life. The flowers came from a shopping trip at the grocery store with my 3 and half-year old daughter. We walked by the flowers and she insisted we buy them for mommy. Who am I to argue with such a kind thought? Besides, now I have a few extra models for the studio this week!

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Summer Anemone - An Original 5 x 7 Garden Floral Landscape Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Summer Anemone ©

5x7 inches    Oil

George De Chiara

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 This little one is a warm up for a slightly larger commission piece I'm doing. A few years ago, I painted these flowers from life and had to rely on that knowledge while I worked on these from some photographic reference. Even though I was working from a photo I still approached this much like I would a plein air painting and picked and choose which flowers I wanted to include and which one's I didn't. What was important to me was to make an appealing painting, not to reproduce the photograph. I'm looking forward to working on the larger painting this week. If you'd like to discuss your own commissioned painting, please feel free to contact me here.

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Sliced Apple - An Original 5 x 7 Still Life Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Sliced Apple ©

5x7 inches  Oil

George De Chiara

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When I started to layout this still life, I knew I wanted to concentrate on trying to get an accurate representation of what I was looking at, while at the same time maintaining a painterly feel. I didn't want things to get to busy or fussy. For me, this a tough line to approach but not cross. With oil paints, I can just keep adding details and make things tighter and tighter, so it's a bit of a delicate balance to be able to say what I want to about this sliced apple, but not get lost in the details of it. One way to do this is to use as large of a brush as possible for as long as possible. Stepping back often helps too, just make sure there aren't any pets sleeping behind you. In my case, it's my constant studio companion Cosmo, a stray cat we found about 8 years ago.

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Vine Rose - An Original 5 x 7 Garden Floral Landscape Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Vine Rose ©

5x7 inches   Oil

George De Chiara

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 Last April, I painted at the Dallas Arboretum as part of the Outdoors Painters Society quick draw event for their annual juried show. Now, I'll admit, I'm not the biggest fan of the arboretum. To me, it's too well manicured and neatly planted. I like my gardens to be a little more natural, but this was the place that was chosen, so I had to go with it. After about thirty minutes of walking around the gardens looking for something to paint, I came across an area called the Poetry Garden. It had tall walls surrounding a little courtyard. On one of the walls was a vine rose growing almost to the top. This was the view I attempted to capture in ninety minutes. Honestly, I could have used at least another hour to get a painting I was happy with, but that's the way quick draws go. When the time is up, you put the brushes down and turn in your work. Since then, I've had the painting hanging around the studio and every now and again I think about redoing it. This little painting is a study for that day. What I plan is a more detailed version of what I'd like to say about the vines on the wall. Maybe one day I'll work out the rest of the piece and put it all together. Until then, it's fun to work on the ideas for it! 

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Spinner - An Original 7 x 5 Still Life Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Spinner ©

7x5 inches   Oil

George De Chiara

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This was a pretty fun one to paint. I totally changed up my approach with this painting. I toned the canvas very lightly and let it dry. Then I very carefully drew a rough outline of the shape of the lure, just enough so I knew where everything went and that it was going to fit on the canvas. My goal was to be able to paint the lure without having to repaint the background. This meant I needed to really make sure of every brush stroke I made. I'd love to able say it want like I planned, but there were a few edges that I had to clean up. Rather than adding color to the background, which would have been my normal approach, I used a piece of paper towel dipped in turpentine to wipe off the paint I didn't want. This left the appearance on the background that I was after. I was also able to use this technique with the case shadows to soften the edges of them.

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Summer's End - An Original 8 x 6 Landscape Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Summer's End ©

8x6 inches  Oil

George De Chiara

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 Yes, I know summer is not officially over yet but with school starting back this week it feels like it is. You may remember from yesterday's post that I went out to paint the setting sun a few days ago, well, this is the painting from that trip. There weren't many clouds by the time the sun started to set and the glare off the water was too much to look at. I managed to find a spot in the shade of a few tall trees and noticed this scene across the lake from where I was standing. I loved the look of the last few sun rays striking the tall grasses and edges of the trees. As I painted these things, the bit of sky I had room for turned the most wonderful shades of pink, red and purple. What a treat!

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Flight - An Original 5 x 7 Wildlife Goose Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Flight ©

5x7 inches  Oil

George De Chiara

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 A few days ago, I went out painting at a nearby lake. I originally went to paint the sunset, which was still a good hour off, so while I was waiting, I noticed a gaggle of geese walking along the shore line. I was struck by what I saw and quickly set up my easel to try to capture the scene before me. Well, I don't know if any of you have tried to paint wildlife from life, but they don't stay in one spot for very long. Most of what I was able to get was nothing more than color notes. In the end, I wiped off my little study and painted the setting sun instead, but that hour or so of trying to capture the geese from life gave me some valuable insights when I painted this one from a photograph. In fact, the only thing I use the photograph for was the drawing of the goose. All of the color notes came from my memory of painting them from life.

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Wind Swept - An Original 8 x 10 Landscape Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Wind Swept ©

8x10 inches  Oil

George De Chiara

SOLD

 If you are a regular reader of this blog, no, you're not seeing double posts. This painting is the twin to the painting I posted yesterday. It was painted so the two paintings could make  bookends around a larger painting. I had to paint this one from my photos of Ready...Set...Bloom (yesterday's painting) and my memory of the scene. The collector who commissioned this one wanted it to feel like the other one, but not be an exact copy. I have to admit this turned out to be a really fun challenge. If you would like to commission a painting please feel free to contact me here. 

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Ready...Set...Bloom - An Original 8x10 Plein Air Landscape Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Ready...Set...Bloom ©

8x10 inches   Oil

George De Chiara

SOLD.

I painted this toward the start of summer at the Fort Worth Botanical Gardens. It went straight to The Dutch Gallery in Dallas and I forgot to post it. Today I got the wonderful news that it sold, along with its "twin". Such great news to start the day with!  This was painted on a piece of masonite that I covered with Gamblin's oil painting ground. It's a little different from gesso and it makes the surface very slick.  I actually had to be pretty careful when painting on it, because if I hit the canvas with a dry brush I actually took paint OFF the canvas, which made for fun day of painting. I've done a few others on this type of support and I'm slowly getting use to it. On the next batch of boards I make, I'm going to try to get a little more texture with the ground and see if that gets rid of some of theslickness.

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Hot Dogs - An Original 8x8 Cityscape Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Hot Dogs ©

8x8 inches    Oil

George De Chiara

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 I felt like doing something a little different today. After looking through some of my old photo reference for inspiration, I found an old photograph of a hot dog street vendor in New York City. I love these little corner vendors and take full advantage of them every time I in the city, so why not paint one? I also change my approach a bit just to keep things interesting. Normally, I start in one area and work my way out. This time, however, I tried to keep the whole painting going at the same time by jumping from shape to shape to create interesting edges and texture. This actually help me keep things a little on the loose side of things, something that's often hard to do when working from photos.

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Cone Flowers - An Original 8x8 Plein Air Landscape Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Cone Flowers © 

8x8 inches   Oil

George De Chiara

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 While visiting my parents, I noticed their neighbor's garden is full of flowers. There are so many wonderful blooms everywhere, full of color and interest that it was hard to focus on what I wanted to paint. At first I thought I wanted to paint a larger view of the garden, but decided against that and opted for this smaller, intimate view of a few of the flowers. I may still go back and do that larger view if I can work out a few of the compositional issues I ran into while considering it today. 

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Cattails - An Original 8x8 Plein Air Landscape Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Cattails ©

8x8 inches   Oil

George De Chiara

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A few weeks ago, we took our daughters to a park to play that we had never been to before. While walking around, I noticed there was a lake at the end of the park. I'm always attracted to the water, so naturally I went to take a closer look. It turned out to be a very small pond with a nice fishing pier and water fountain in the middle. It also had a some very nice cattails growing around it. As I set up to paint, a group of boys came by. They stopped and talked to me for a few minutes and then went over to the pier to fish. While I was finishing up, they came by again to check my progress. One of them asked when I started to paint and I told them I was about their age when I started.

He looked at me and said "What are you now, like 20 something?"

"No," I said, "more like 40 something."

His eyes about bulged out of his head! Boy, do I feel old... 

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Mallard - A New Original 8x8 Wildlife Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Mallard ©

8x8 inches   Oil

George De Chiara

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 I found this guy at the lake just down the road from our house. We go to this lake often to feed the ducks and let our girls play at the nearby park. Since the ducks at this lake have a lot of human interaction, they are very friendly, which thrills my 3-year-old daughter who likes to have them eat the bread out of her hands. Luckily for me, they don't mind having their pictures taken either. I love painting from life and on location as much as possible, but for me it's impossible to paint scene like this that way. For these, I must rely on photos and my memory.  

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Peaceful Spot - A New Original 8x8 Landscape Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Peaceful Spot ©

8x8 inches  Oil

George De Chiara

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 I first found this spot a few months ago while painting in the Texas hill country. It's a wonderful little oasis pretty much in the middle of nothing. Just a few feet up the river from these rocks is a nice little waterfall, and just down the river about 50 feet is a popular swimming hole with the local kids. I tried to paint this scene on location, but after about an hour or so of painting I scraped off what I had and took a few photographs for reference, just in case I wanted to try to revisit this in the studio. I recently re-discovered those images and thought I'd give this scene another crack. I'm much happier with this version!  

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Lake Shore Tree - A New Original 8x8 Plein Air Landscape Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Lake Shore Tree ©

8x8 inches   Oil

George De Chiara

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 It's funny how I can go back to a spot that I didn't think would make a good painting and find something to paint. That's what happened here. I've gone to this place several times and almost every time left without every finding anything that caught my eye. Then on a whim this weekend, I went back to this lake and immediately found this scene to paint. I must have looked at this scene every other time I've gone here, but, for whatever reason, this time it spoke to me. I loved the way the branches and tree trunks look like they are exploding out of the green center. The lack of a strong sun helped add to the quite, soft feel of the place. I guess sometimes it's worth going back for a second (or fifth) look!

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Pappy's Pond - A New Original 10x8 Plein Air Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Pappy's Pond © 

10x8 inches  Oil

George De Chiara

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This little lake, named after "Pappy" Elkins, is just down the road from our house. I often go there to paint and never seem to run out of subject matter. The lake plays hosts to a large number of ducks and water fowl, along with turtles, and, of course, fishing. Over the years the water level has dropped, changing the look and feel of the lake. In fact, this view is normally not exposed. The water level use to go up to just about the trees. I prefer this look, but the lake probably wants its water back.

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Fence Line - A New Original 8x10 Plein Air Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Fence Line © 

8x10 inches   Oil

George De Chiara

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 I really enjoy the location of our house because I can be in the country in about 40 minutes. I love driving along the winding country roads looking for scenes like this to paint. After finding a safe place to pull off the road, I set up to paint though I had to work directly under the hot, hot sun since I forgot my umbrella at home. By the end of the painting, I was happy to pack up and get out of the heat! I was also very happy to have a cold bottle of water waiting for my in the car. 

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Porch Garden - An Original 8x8 Landscape Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Porch Garden ©

8x8 inches   Oil

George De Chiara

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 Just about every summer morning when I walk out my front door, I see these geraniums planted on my neighbor's porch. I'm always struck by the contrast of the flowers and the light background of the house. The sun seems to sneak between the trees just to shine on these flowers. For almost as long as I've noticed these flowers I've thought to myself that they would make a good painting, but for some reason never painted them. Well, that finally changed. After spending the morning looking for something to paint at a few of my local spots I gave up and headed home. The sun was getting hot and nothing seemed very interesting to paint until I again noticed these potted plants on my neighbors porch. It was then I finally knew what I was going to paint (finally)!

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Thread and Needles - An Original 8x10 Still Life Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Thread and Needles ©

8x10 inches   Oil

George De Chiara

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 A few years ago, I discovered these wooden spools of thread mixed in with my wife's sewing supplies. As soon as I saw them, I knew I had found something to paint! I've returned to them a few times over the years and never seem to get tired of using them in my still life paintings. I love the character they have, especially compared to their plastic counterparts. 

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Grapes - An Original 8 x 8 Still Life Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Grapes ©

8x8 inches   Oil

George De Chiara

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  I noticed lately I've done a lot of my still life paintings from about the same angle. To try to get out of that habit, I set this one very low off the ground on the shortest table I could find. I then set my easel up just about on top of it giving me a top down view. This made for an interesting challenge and definitely got me out of my comfort zone.  

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