Fruit and Veggie Art

Several of my fruit and veggie paintings are now on display at Basil Restaurant in Weston.  Available for purchase at a sale price of $100 each no matter the size.  Many acrylic on canvas panels framed in rustic handcrafted vintage maple resembling sturdy crates.  Color Cucina....perfect for kitchen decor.
PS - Basil has great food!

Daily Painting is On Pause due to my new job.

Enjoy this view of my favorite place on earth: the shores of Lake Superior....while I am settling into my new job as Curriculum Director at the Center for the Visual Arts in downtown Wausau WI.  Stay tuned...

Today I Learned: Building greens through glazes.

"Granny Tiny", 5"x5", acrylic on canvas panel, c)2010 valerie@berkelydesign.com

The last of my tiny apple series, this framed painting is for sale at the Paint Box Gallery in Ephraim, Door County WI.

I enjoyed, again, the challenge of painting large to small.  But I especially liked getting to know my greens through many layers of transparent paint.  I found the abstract shapes and reflections in the green apple provided a good lesson in "trust" ... meaning: build the colors through glazes and weird abstract shapes.  In the end: an apple!

Stay tuned...

 

Today I Learned: Painting translations - large to small.

"Golden Tiny", 5"x5", acrylic on canvas panel, c)2010 valerie@berkelydesign.com

This miniature painting is available (delightfully framed) at the Paint Box Gallery, Ephraim, Door County, WI.

Why are these apples tiny?  Because I originally painted them larger at a 12"x12" scale.  (Yum and on display at "Where We Live.")  Then the call came from Door County for miniatures sized at 5"x5" maximum.  It is a challenge to take a favorite painting and repaint it at a smaller (or larger!) scale.  So many details change the second time around; each painting (no matter what the size) is truly unique.

Lessons learned: A good painting deserves another "translation."  Brushes should be somewhat scaled to the size of your canvas.  For miniatures I use size 00 to size 4 filberts and rounds.  For larger paintings, I still tend to favor a smaller brush size; my favorite is a number 6 round or filbert.  Sometimes a very large brush makes me feel like a house-painter!  Stay tuned...