painting 83. Popham Beach rocks II. 6×6 acrylic on canvas

painting 83. Popham Beach rocks II © studio-middle

I’ve been thinking about returning to this subject again for a while.  I painted this perspective of Popham Beach in 2009, and its an image that has stuck with me strongly.  I love this beach and I love painting rocks along the shore.  This pile of rocks was brought purposely to help stop some of the beach erosion that was happening at the time.

So I’ve painted this again, with some slight variation in color palette and brush stroke style.  The actual composition is very similar, in terms of point of view. This surprised me — I thought my new version would show some drastic changes in my vision, technique, palette . .. something! Only slight differences though.

I’m inviting my artist network to discuss this on my Facebook page — please join the conversation!

 

painting 82. another experiment. white dog outline 4×4 acrylic on canvas

painting 82. white dog outline 4x4 acrylic on canvas © studio-middle

I think the title of this post says it all, right?

 

painting 81. Jack Russell from Coastal Humane Society 6×6 acrylic on canvas paper

painting 81. Jack Russell Terrier from the Coastal Humane Society 6x6 acrylic on canvas paper © studio-middle

Ok, so this was more of an experiment piece, trying to bring my brighter colors and dark outlines to the pet portraits.  There are some things here I really like a lot, especially the animated character that comes through.

The lovely subject here was one of the precious pups from the Coastal Humane Society — please adopt!

 

2010 in review (what y’all liked most!)

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads This blog is doing awesome!.

Crunchy numbers

A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 4,100 times in 2010. That’s about 10 full 747s.

 

In 2010, there were 26 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 76 posts. There were 37 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 10mb. That’s about 3 pictures per month.

The busiest day of the year was May 18th with 38 views. The most popular post that day was painting 19. coffee. dish. green. 6×6 acrylic on paper.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were twitter.com, bigislandchronicle.com, en.wordpress.com, search.aol.com, and en.search.wordpress.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for dog painting, coffee painting, blue dog, dog paintings, and coffee cup painting.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

1

painting 19. coffee. dish. green. 6×6 acrylic on paper March 2009
3 comments

2

painting 22. Popham Beach Rocks. 6×6 acrylic on paper March 2009
3 comments

3

painting five. blue dog. close nose. 4 X6 acrylic on paper January 2009

4

painting 8. beagle puppy. 6 x 6 acrylic on paper (NFS) February 2009

5

painting 32. dog. sun. profile. 4.5×6 acrylic on canvas paper June 2009
2 comments

 

painting 80. colorful corner 4×6 acrylic on canvas (I’m back!)

painting 80 colorful corner 4x6 acrylic on canvas © studio-middle

Yes, I’m back! After a very long time away from painting and this blog, I’ve returned with a new painting.  I was working on a long-term project that dominated all my non-day-job time, and so I was sadly not painting for a while.

But how about this color! I can tell by looking at some of my last paintings that I seem to be going into a very colorful stage.  Or, it could be that my surroundings and the things I was taking pictures of at the beginning of the fall were all just very colorful (like the farmers market images).  This subject comes from a colorful corner indeed: walking around my little downtown here in the Maine midcoast area one weekend morning in September, I came across this very colorful scene.  The painted bench, the overflowing flower pot, and the purple building on a sunny fall moring was really something.

My painting style is a little different in this piece as well — I’ve always liked the use of heavy contrast and surprising color combinations and heavy brush strokes, but I think the heavy black outline here brings this to a different level.  I don’t want to say “cartoonish” — but I like the emphasis on the shapes and the simplicity of them.  I’d like to see where this style takes me.

So, thanks for your patience.  Let me know what you think of the new painting!

 

painting 79. blue dog. window 6×6 acrylic on canvas

painting 79. blue dog. window 6x6 acrylic on canvas © studio-middle

It’s a cool fall-like day today, so I thought I’d do an in-door painting, inspired by my first and dearest muse, of course.  My sweet “blue” dog loves to sit with me in my home office and gaze out the window (which is the perfect height for her, I must say).

 

painting 78. farmers market table 6×6 acrylic on canvas

painting 78. farmers market table 6x6 acrylic on canvas © studio-middle

Those of you who follow my blog and tweets know that I was having some painters block earlier this week — well, one trip to the farmers market and I’m cured! All the beautiful colors and shapes are so inspiring — and a pleasure to paint.  It’s not that these paintings are easy, they’re definitely a challenge.  But a challenge that I needed, I think.

 

painting 77. farmer’s market tomatoes 4×4 acrylic on canvas

painting 77. farmer's market tomatoes 4x4 acrylic on canvas © studio-middle

How about some color! It’s a partly cloudy day here today, but the colorful vegetables at the farmer’s market brightened everything up for me today. This is from a close-up of a table that had rows of these plum and cherry tomatoes in their little green boxes.  I think this morning’s trip will give me some inspiration and subject matter for a few paintings — stay tuned!

 

painting 76. study. after Elizabeth Fraser’s “Winter Harbor” 6×6 acrylic on paper

Painting 76. warm up painting. after Elizabeth Fraser's "Winter Harbor" © studio-middle

I was having a tough painting day. I think I need to get out this week to set some new composition references (running out of subject matter!). I decided to take inspiration from one of my favorite daily painters (and fellow Mainer): Elizabeth Fraser. I had seen this painting of hers a few days ago and really loved it. Most of my paintings and reference photos lately all have some man-made objects in it. I was really craving some natural Maine coast inspiration, and this painting was it. I hope Elizabeth doesn’t mind me using her painting as reference today — I really needed to break out of a “painter’s block” rut, and she helped!

If you like this painting, then you should definitely check out the original, plus the other work by Elizabeth — I really love her impressionist style!

painting 75. warm-up. Monhegan sunset.

In case you’re wondering where painting “75″ went, I’ll include it here as well, it was another warm-up/practice painting from a photo. Wasn’t happy with it, but it did help wake up some palette work for me.

 

My Portland Head Light Painting on a Postage Stamp!

Portland Head Light Stamps by studiomiddle

Thanks to Zazzle.com, of course . But really, isn’t this cool? You can even select the postage rate you need (like post card stamps vs. letters vs. oversized letters, for example) and can choose different sizes of the stamp itself.

This is one of my favorite paintings, and tends to be a favorite among my blog visitors (thank you!).  I also thought this would look great as a stamp.

Click on the stamp above to see it (and order some!), or check out the other gift items and prints available with my art at Zazzle.com/studiomiddle.