Owl Be There

Title:  Owl Be There

Medium: Acrylic on panel

Size: 6x6 inches

Genre: Animals

I wanted to portray some magic in this little owl study-- hence the purple, as well as focus on the patterns in its feathers. To echo that, I put some patterning in the sky. This little fellow has been entered into the "Patterns" challenge at Daily Paintworks.

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Blue Buddies

Title: Blue Buddies

Medium: Acrylic

Genre: Fantasy

Size: 8x8 inches

I love monsters and Halloween is approaching. I also love pen and ink, but this isn't pen and ink. It's acrylic on canvas. BTW the tiny Bird is really the more powerful of the two, because he's the Monster's subconscious.

Happy Dragon

Title: Happy Dragon

Medium: Acrylic

Genre: Fantasy

Size: 6x8 inches

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Miniature acrylic painting on wood panel. Whimsical, cute, happy dragon sitting on a stone, with a cat, a bird, and a butterfly. Also a column and an anthropomorphic tree. Signature in upper left, on column.

Ghost with Kingfisher and Orbs

Title: "Ghost with Kingfisher and Orbs"
Size: 6x4 inches
Medium: acrylic on wood
Genre: Fantasy

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This one is limited palette, with thalo blue, vermillion, cadmium red, black, white, and a tiny tiny touch of yellow ochre.  Photo credit for kingfisher: Russ Bridges. The figure is from one of my lifedrawings. And the orbs, well, they just show up on their own. Artist signature is on her belt.

Owl Be Your Friend

"Owl Be Your Friend"
11x14
Acrylic on panel

This was a different palette from what I'm accustomed to using with viridian, alizarin crimson, and napthol crimson taking prominence. It's produced a very cool looking ambience, and that's something else that's new to me. Usually I'm into the warm palettes

Encounter with a Magic Bird

"Encounter with a Magic Bird"
Acrylic on linen panel, 8x8 inches
Genre: Fantasy

©Theresa Taylor Bayer, 2015

I almost painted over this one, but the painting spoke to me and I revised it instead. In the previous version the Bird was decidedly unfriendly. I decided to make him friendlier, and he came out looking sort of neutral, and I really like that. I also redid the color to give it a more oldfashioned feel.

In the earlier version the Bird symbolized the Inner Critic, but he has morphed into the power of Creativity, which is neutral, and can be used for both constructive and destructive purposes. If the Bird is befriended, beautiful things can happen.

Owl Be There

Just a quick little study...

"Owl Be There" 6x6 acrylic on panel. Purple seems to go well with an owl. It's the mystique.
SOLD.

©Theresa Taylor Bayer, 2015

Beginner's Mind NFS

Beginner's Mind and Conventional Wisdom

Acrylic

NFS

Goose in a Green Grotto

"Goose in a Green Grotto" Size: 7x5 inches. Medium: Acrylic on canvas. Genre: Animals.
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The uprooted flower means that it can be replanted, as opposed to a cut flower which doesn't have a chance to re-establish itself. The wing has been anthropomorphized into a sort of hand, complete with opposable thumb.

Re. the color, I'm working on mid tones, to get more variation in them.

Food for Thought

"Food for Thought" 8x8 inches, acrylics on illustration board. Genre, fantasy.

The painting started out smaller, but it was too small to frame, so I glued it onto another illustration board, thereby adding a border. It can be framed as is, without glass. Note the heart shaped by the bird's head, the girl's elbow, and the greenery to the side of her.

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BTW I'm starting a campaign to get artists credited, especially when people share paintings on Facebook. Feel free to use this... it's signed. Or make your own and sign it. Writers get credited when they are quoted. Let's have the same respect for artists!

Backyard Fantasy Grisaille underpainting

"Back Yard Fantasy" 8x8 acrylics on wood.

This is another of Daily Paintworks challenges: the view out your window. There is a big, beautiful pecan tree in our back yard and plenty of squirrels & cats, so that part of the picture is accurate. The rest, well, who's to say what else someone might see in their yard besides ordinary reality?

This is an underpainting done in violet oxide and will be glazed over in various colors. Hooker's green for sure, maybe also magenta and transparent yellow oxide. We'll see.

Found the Key, Girl, Bird, Fun Art, Heart

Found the Key

8x10, acrylic on stretched canvas

Even though she found the key, she hasn't located the heart. Or the watch.

Still working on my "fun art" style to see if I can refine it and make it more detailed, with a little more slant towards realism. This one went through several stages, and I just couldn't bring myself to post them. I was worried I'd mess it up in the process. I want my paintings to look fresh, yet detailed; that's a tall order but parts of this painting answer to that.

NFS

What Texas Means To Me & The Offering

"Reverie at Green Gulch", oil on panel, 5x7, will be featured in the international art show "What Texas Means To Me" at Austin Art Space Gallery, Austin Texas USA. Show runs from July 2, 2010 to August 28, 2010. Artists' reception is on July 10 from 7pm to 9pm. Unfortunately I'm going to miss the artists' reception, as I have a previous commitment. But I want you to know that the shadows on the hills behind the model are deliberately shaped like wings. Green Gulch is a real place, it's in the Chisos Mountains of Big Bend National Park, Texas, USA. Big Bend always gives me wings.


"The Offering" acrylic on illustration board. Size: 3.5 x 2.5 inches, ACEO miniature. This piece is about opportunities. Sometimes they fly right up to us and hand us something beautiful, but mostly they just hang around in the background, waiting to be grasped.

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Persephone's Rose (oil painting version)

"Persephone's Rose" 5x7

I decided to try this one in oil, using the grisaille with glazes. Again, I got a little too alla prima with it, but I'm getting better at glazing every time I do it. Click to see the acrylic version, which I no longer have, being as how I entered it in the 5x7 show at ArtHouse.

The other one had a more generic looking flower and this time I wanted a specific kind of blossom, so I chose a rose. Her expression looks a lot more intense in this one, too.

As to re-doing one's own ideas, as long as it stays fresh, sure, why not? I'm having fun with this bird lady theme.

The myth of Persephone is that Hades, king of the underworld, wanted a wife, and so he put a flower in a meadow that Persephone frequented. When she went to pick the flower he kidnapped her and took her to the underworld, where she became his Queen after eating a pomegranate. If she hadn't eaten the fruit she would have been able to go home, but then we wouldn't have winter (so if global warming is any indication, we will have to ask Queen P to kindly return to the Hades to cool things off).

Persephone's Flower

SOLD

"Persephone's Flower", acrylic on illustration board, 5x7. I'm putting this one into a show called 5x7 in Austin TX.  I'd like to do a bigger version on canvas. The theme of the bird headed lady is one I have done repeatedly.

Added another layer of glaze to the iris still life. The background looks fine with a coat of burnt sienna over the yellow, and I'm stopping on it and will continue with the still life itself. It's good these things dry so slowly, it helps prevent overdoing it.

I have rededicated myself to DRAWING because it's such a big important part of painting. The better I draw, the better I paint. It saves time & money too because I waste less paint when I am in practice for drawing. So I'm in a lifedrawing class for the next few weeks, and have resolved to keep showing up at local lifedrawing practice studios.