A Night to Remember

It's New Year's Eve, and it's so exciting here that I painted a new starry night landscape! Actually, I really just wanted to paint that lovely tall fir tree that we saw on a walk last week, and why not create a silhouette against the night sky? I hope Van Gogh isn't cringing at my adaptations of his "starry night" style.

For New Year's we are heading to the Oregon Coast for a couple days, so tonight we will NOT be staying up to see 2015 beginning. Happy New Year to all!

A Night To Remember © Dorothy Jenson 2014

6x6 inch acrylic on canvas

Click to Bid

The Sharp Challenge

Oh, how I love the challenges. Funny thing, I was thinking about painting scissors a week or two ago, and then today the new challenge for Daily Paintworks was to "paint sharp cutting instruments". Amazing timing, and I knew right away which scissors I wanted to paint. Well, I have to say, painting scissors is HARD, but I'm pleased (finally) with the results.

These two are almost always apart. One hangs out next to the sewing machine, and the other follows the crochet crowd around the house and even on road trips occasionally. When I posed them together for their formal portrait, it looked as though they had a lot of catching up to do. :)

Reunited © Dorothy Jenson 2014

6x6 inch acrylic on wrapped canvas

Click to Bid

(Yes, I'm trying out the Daily Paintwork auctions!)

Mornings

Mornings inspire me every time! Here are two paintings that represent the dawn. One is my favorite daisy field with a pink blushing sunrise, and the other is a rather explosive sun peeking through the trees in a nearby park. I loved how the sun flare through the branches brought out so many different colors! (and even more from my imagination.) Hope you enjoy!

 

Daisy Morning © Dorothy Jenson 2014

acrylic on 3/4" wrapped canvas

 

 

 

Call Me In The Morning © Dorothy Jenson 2014

acrylic on 3/4" wrapped canvas

 

Marshmallow Sky

I fall for color every time. The sky challenge was calling to me again, so I planned to do a nice, quiet sky this time, but it didn't happen that way at all. Looking through some great sky references, a photo of dark clouds billowing up and bursting with light called out to me, so that's the one that needed to be painted today. I used a big brush, loaded with lots of juicy color, and had a great time. After it dried and I looked at it again, I smiled because it reminded me of a lot of yummy marshmallows. Hope you enjoy!

Marshmallow Sky © Dorothy Jenson 2014

6x6 inch acrylic on wood panel, $50

Buy with PayPal

Gentle Offering

This summer Ken and I took three of our local grandchildren on a four day adventure into the country. The kids are 8, 6 and 6 (twin girls), and I felt they were old enough to practice a little photography with an older digital camera. So it was that one of the girls actually took the reference photo for today's painting of her sister hand feeding some grass to a neighbor's horse that they had just met! :)

Gentle Offering  © Dorothy Jenson 2014

6x6 inch acrylic on wrapped canvas, varnished, $50

Buy with PayPal

A New Day

Leave it to Daily Paintworks to get me to try something new! The challenge this week is to paint sky and only sky, and something I've been meaning to try for quite a while is a palette knife painting. I got out my tubes of gouache and started playing with color, making up a morning sky as I went along. (I really have seen mornings just like this!) Naturally, it was tons of fun, so there will probably be more experimentation in the days ahead. That's one thing I love about art. It can be something new any time I want, and in keeping with that thought, I chose to call this painting, "A New Day".

A New Day, © Dorothy Jenson 2014

6x6 inch gouache on wood panel

Cup of Cheer

Kind of a cool, dreary day and I didn't know what to paint. Nothing seemed to catch my interest today, until I put these yellow blossoms into a tea cup and outside onto the back porch for some natural light. The cheerful yellow petals fairly glowed in the grey light, and I finally found a subject for the day.

Cup of Cheer © Dorothy Jenson 2014

6x6 inch acrylic on wrapped canvas, $50

Buy with PayPal

Daybreaker Moment

For years and years I refused to grow roses in my garden because I thought they were simply sticker bushes with a bright bloom once in a while. I didn't want my 5 kids to get tangled up in the thorns when they played in the yard! Finally I learned that there are roses that bloom almost three seasons long (here in Oregon), and my kids were old enough to avoid the dangers, so I began to collect rose bushes. One of my very first plants was Daybreaker, and I discovered it in someone's yard in my neighborhood. The owner said, "take as many cuttings as you need", and I learned the art of rooting my own roses. Daybreaker is now a beautiful bush that blooms on and on in my own garden, and the stickers only bother me when I need to prune it. Ouch!

Daybreaker Moment, © Dorothy Jenson 2014

6x6 acrylic on wrapped canvas, varnished, $50

Buy with PayPal

Streak of Morning

Today was one of those mornings that couldn't decide whether to be rainy or not. I get to go for a morning walk on most days of the week with a friend, and we had to ponder for a moment if we needed an umbrella. The decision was to leave them behind and take our chances. It was a good choice. The air was cool and damp, and the sky filled with clouds, but as we walked through the local cemetery we got to see the sun make a brilliant breakthrough to announce the day! I was remembering that scene when I started painting today. This is my rather "folksy" interpretation.

 

Streak of Morning, © Dorothy Jenson 2014

6x6 inch acrylic on wood panel, $50 



Buy with PayPal

Perrin

The Daily Paintworks challenge this week is to paint our furry friend. Awwww, I have been meaning to paint our dog Perrin for a long time (He died 6 years ago), and this was just the push to get me to do it. He was our outdoor adventure dog who went backpacking, canoeing, and hiking with us for ten years. He was also a great Frisbee dog, running to catch the disk before it ever hit the ground. He was a great dog. :)

Today I painted on a new surface: sanded and primed 1/4" wooden panel instead of canvas. The paint was so easy to manipulate and I really enjoyed it. Just like a panel, art works on wood could either be framed or displayed on a little easel. That's what I'm planning to do with Perrin's portrait, so I can display it on a shelf in the living room. Of course it's not for sale. :)

Perrin © Dorothy Jenson 2014

6x6" acrylic on wood

Wave Watchers

The photo reference for today's coastal painting was taken a year ago when we were camping near Sunset Bay in Oregon. My husband and I were scrambling around rocks and pools during a low tide. It was quite slippery and made me nervous, so I stopped to take photos and let my guy go on further. The large waves crashing against these rocks were fun to watch, and the sea birds seemed to be enjoying the view, too.

Wave Watchers, © Dorothy Jenson 2014

6x6 inch acrylic on wrapped canvas

Buy with PayPal

Dahlia Dreams

I have visited the Swan Island Dahlia farm many times, and there are endless possibilities for paintings there! So far I've only taken pictures to use later, but sometime it would be fun to take supplies and paint while visiting. For now, here's another fun dahlia painting.

Dahlia Dreams © Dorothy Jenson 2014

6x6 inch acrylic on wrapped canvas

Buy with PayPal

Evening Entertainment

Alright, this will be the last of my star paintings for a while! My Van Gogh interpretation, and today's starry central Oregon night sky painting, got my creative brain working...what if....I combined the two? Using the same reference as earlier today, I channeled a little "Vincent" to come up with this final version of a starry night sky. I am calling it "Evening Entertainment" because I can just imagine these pine trees watching the light show every night with reverence and awe. It's like what I feel when we are wilderness camping, too.

Evening Entertainment, © Dorothy Jenson 2014

6x6 inch acrylic on wrapped canvas

To Purchase, Click Here

Central Oregon Night Sky

I've still got stars on my mind! The weekly painting challenge to paint the night sky is not over for me yet, it would seem. Yesterday I did a Van Gogh interpretation, and today's painting is simply based on a beautiful photo taken in the mountains by photographer Jesse Butterfield. I asked, and he gave happy permission for me to use it as a reference for a painting. The original photo was actually taken at Sparks Lake, but it's just a bunch of trees and the sky, so you can't really tell. :)

Central Oregon Night Sky © Dorothy Jenson 2014

6x6 inch acrylic on wrapped canvas

Not For Sale

Another Starry Night

The Daily Paintworks challenge this week is to paint the "starry sky". At first I planned to do a normal sky, but then my friend suggested I try doing a version of Van Gogh's famous painting. What a fun idea! I notice that many, many artists have painted from the same original reference, so I felt it would be a learning experience for me to do the same thing today. Seriously, it was! It was incredibly fun, as well as amazingly challenging, and that's what the task is all about. I loved doing my own, highly simplified, variation of "Another Starry Night".

Another Starry Night

6x6" wrapped canvas

Click Here to purchase

December Commute

Once again, I was out for a morning walk with my friend and we were treated to a gorgeous sunrise. The scene was captured by my pocket camera, which I used as reference for today's little painting. I just love that sky against the dark fir trees, and the lights of the oncoming commuters!

December Commute, © Dorothy Jenson 2014

6 x 6 inch acrylic on wrapped canvas $50

To Purchase Click Here

Who Remembers?

Another road trip painting today, and this one is different from any others I have done. While traveling through Nevada in October, we passed through some out of the way place (isn't most of Nevada just like that?) and I spotted this very worn, extremely interesting old building by the side of the road. It was fascinating, and I wondered about it's history. While painting it today, I was again pondering on the story it could tell, and thought, "Who remembers?".

Who Remembers? © Dorothy Jenson 2014

6 x 6 inch acrylic on wrapped canvas
To Purchase Click Here

Road Block

I love road trips! My husband does nearly all the driving and I get to look out the windows and admire the landscape, the sky, the wildlife (if we're lucky) and even shoot some photos as we go along. When I get a certain look in my eye, my guy is sometimes in tune enough to pull over! We really do have a good time. Today's painting is from a road trip in October as we were driving through the southern part of Oregon. Lots of cattle down there, and since this one stopped us on the highway, it was easy to take a reference shot from inside the car. Hello, Road Block!

Road Block, © Dorothy Jenson 2014

6 x 6 inch acrylic on wrapped canvas
SOLD

The Paint What You're Thankful For Challenge

The Daily Paintworks challenge of the week is to "paint what you're thankful for". Oh my goodness, that opens up the whole world, doesn't it? Have you ever sat down to write a thankful list? Once you get started, it goes on and on....there is so much! But my thoughts kept coming back to one at the top of the list....my sweet husband. How thankful I am that he is in my life! Because I didn't want to paint a portrait, I chose instead to paint something that represents him, and that's his "adventure hat"! He wears this when we are out having fun and adventure. I plopped the hat onto our bed quilt, took a photo, and used it for reference for today's painting. Which is NOT for sale. :)

Adventure Hat, © Dorothy Jenson 2014

6 x 6 acrylic on canvas

Kale and Cranberries and Sunset Moon

 

Last week I wanted to add one more to my little food series, and here's what I found in the refrigerator: Some beautiful fluffy, curly kale and lovely cranberries. Christmas colors, right? Anyway, I thought it made an interesting arrangement.

 

 

Kale and Cranberries, © Dorothy Jenson 2014

6x6 " acrylic on wrapped canvas

 

 

 

Back in October we had a glorious moon rise over Mt Hood, with the setting sun casting an amazing glow over it all. I have painted it twice already, but I guess I wasn't finished yet. Here's the final moment, when the moon was at the very tippy top of the mountain.

 

Sunset Moon © Dorothy Jenson

6x6 " acrylic on wrapped canvas