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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