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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