I have decided to give ebay a shot.  I have listed two of my still life paintings for sale with an extremely low $3.99 starting price!  If you have been considering a purchase, but haven't pulled the trigger, now is the time to bid!  

Citrus in Light
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Orig-Oil-Painting-Citrus-in-Light-lemon-orange-lime-8-x8-by-Adam-Breakey/251252593553?ssPageName=WDVW&rd=1&ih=015&category=60437&cmd=ViewItem

Garnish with Apple
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Original-Oil-Painting-Garnish-with-Apple-12-x12-by-Adam-Breakey/251252600416?ssPageName=WDVW&rd=1&ih=015&category=60437&cmd=ViewItem

It is official.  I am calling the North Carolina Salt Marsh painting complete.  I signed the painting last night.  It is available for purchase at steal of a price: $400 for this large 24"x30" painting

As luck would have it, it is heading to Clayton tomorrow morning to be hung in place of "Nothing Better Than a Warm Sun on a Cold Day", which that painting is on its way to Visual Art Exchange's Unfettered show.  The Unfettered show has an opening night reception on April 5th (First Friday).  I look forward to seeing you there!

I spent another few hours in the studio last night.  I cannot thank my wife enough, she allows me to paint after work, even though we have five kids!  She is the best!

I think this painting is done now.  I will leave it out for another day or two before I sign it and call it done, but I feel pretty good about it right now.  I haven't settled on a name yet --do you have any suggestions?

As you can see, I worked on cleaning up the waterline patterns throughout the marsh, increased the contrast in the clouds, did some edge treatment along the foreground grassy areas and worked on the overall balance of colors.  

What do you think?  Does this painting work for you?

I am going to hang this one in Clayton starting this weekend (replacing the painting Nothing Better than a Warm Sun on a Cold Day since it has to go to another show).  This will hang there until the 13th of April.  I think I am going to enter this painting into the upcoming VAE show: Scope: The NC Landscape which runs in June.  It is a juried exhibition - so entry isn't guaranteed, but I feel confident in this painting.

Small note: Please ignore the height I hung this painting at.  I know it is low, I only put it on the wall to contemplate if it was in fact done.

I managed to get back in the studio last night after about a week long break doing murals.  I love my studio.  I love working on a new piece.  

Last night I decided to work on a new piece that I hope gets accepted into a juried show that opens in May.  The theme of the show is the NC landscape.  I culled through many photos that I have taken while traveling around North Carolina over the years (from the Blue Ridge Parkway, to Charlotte, to the Raleigh skyline, Neuse River and the beautiful NC coast).  I ended up selecting two photos to use as my reference for this painting.  One photo of the salt marshes and one of some great looking clouds (taken in Raleigh).  I determined that I could combine these two images to make one interesting and hopefully striking image.  

Once I had a concept for the painting, I set out to determine the support or canvas I was going to paint this on.  I have recently been painting some smaller images (9x12 or 11x14), but I really felt like this image needed a larger canvas.  So, I chose the 24x30 gallery wrapped canvas as my support for this painting.  The next idea I had was to use the canvas in 'portrait' vs. 'landscape' mode.  I am hoping that this gives me a lot of room to make a dynamic sky and an interesting foreground.   I also decided to put a texture of gesso on the canvas to make the painting a little more interesting (I hope it works!)

Then it was time to draw the image.  I took my time, really focusing on getting some depth to the image, even at this early stage.  I used some transparent cyan, phthalo blue and alizarin crimson mixed as my drawing color.  Once the drawing was complete, I set out to block in the major colors - the sky and the green masses of the grass.  After that, I blocked in the reflected sky in the water and the cloud shadows and highlights.

That is where I left it at midnight last night.  I will get back in the studio tonight in hopes that I can move this painting closer to the finish line.  The date of submission for the art show is April 12th, so I have a little time to get this just right.

So, what do you think?  Do you like where this is headed?

Thanks for reading - Adam