Gift Paintings for Christmas

I just realized I never posted the paintings I did for my family and for friends for Christmas. I was not 100% wild about some of them, but I really liked some of them.The first one was for our oldest son Mike and his wife Sonya. It is called, simply, "Calvary". It is 18x24 inches.

The next I did as a donation for a women's shelter for single pregnant moms, called "Mary's Shelter". They had a silent auction fundraiser. This painting is also 18x24. It's called "Holy Family".

There were things about this one that I liked better and things that I didn't like as much as the original version, shown below:

and to complicate matters further, I did a third version for a friend. This one also had things I liked, and things I didn't, so the stage is set to try again, hopefully to get a painting that I feel does justice to the subject!  My friend went back and forth several times but ended up saying she liked the above one more so this one below is the one that's in my store now.

 I painted elephants for my elephant-loving granddaughter. I was pretty happy with them, but the photo is blurry. I took it in a hurry before packing them up to send off to California in order to get them there in time for Christmas.

I painted turtles for my other granddaughter but was not nearly as happy with them.

 

and finally, the one I did for our youngest son was kind of bizarre and not something I would normally have chosen to do, except he asked for something "chaotic". This was what I came up with. 

December Gallery Paintings

December First Friday was interesting. If it had been possible, I should have been in two places at once. I spent it at Angels' Little Kisses- my friend Linda's new shop in downtown Fredericksburg. Meanwhile, the Gallery at 915 had their opening. I have currently 10 paintings at the Gallery, while I have 16 at Angel's Little Kisses. I am trying to help Linda build her traffic to her new store, so I spent the evening there. We are sort of learning as we go along about promoting the art that we have hung there.

Here are the new works at the Gallery at 915: Four are small- 8x10 and 4x6, and six are 18x24. All are acrylic on canvas, except the first one, which is on canvas board.

Here are the pictures.

This one is 18x24 and is called, simply, "Holy Family". My son asked me to paint a picture of the Cross on Calvary, so after I did that I kept thinking of trying to paint figures (which terrify me) in another religiously inspired painting. This was the result. The figures are deliberately painted without faces - as I have no idea what Mary, Joseph and the Babe looked like. The focus is not on their faces, but the event that the figures symbolize.

In that same vein, at church one day I saw an icon painting that our Pastor did of Miriam (Moses' sister). I had just painted a background for my next painting. All of a sudden I could see it as a background for a painting of Miriam and Moses. So I painted it as I visualized it. This one is 18x24 inches.

This one is called "Roses, Roses". I painted this one because when I did the background, it seemed like I could see a garden of some sorts in the distance. So I went with that. It just developed into a whole lot of roses.

Two of the paintings are paintings left in the show from last month: "Moonlight Glow" and "A Riot Of Flowers". The file in a sixth painting got corrupted and I need to retake it when I go to the gallery next week. It's 18x24 in size.

There are four smaller abstract paintings: The first three are in a series of abstracts. They are 8x10 inches.

The fourth small painting is 8x6 inches. 

I have also been painting gifts for my family, which I will post later this month.