Brande Arno Art

5 x 5 inches, Oil on Gessoboard I've painted this many times and every time I drive by the actual shack, I have to stop and look/take more pictures to work from.  It's hard to admit that one smaller shack could inspire me so much.

6 x 6 inches, Oil on Gessoboard Sold I really loosened up with mixing and applying the greens in this piece.  

6 x 6 inches, Oil on Gessoboard Sold - Thank You! Still have the cuteness bug running the studio.  I may never get serious again.  I love cute animals and  I think piglets are second only to puppies in the cuteness scale.  Really enjoyed painting this piglet.

8 x 8 inches, Oil on Gessoboard- Sold There is something good and wholesome to work a field and harvest hay and wheat.  Humans get sustenance from the bread made with wheat.  Farmers feed the hay to horses and other barn animals.  I remember working the field on a wagon behind the baling machine. Pulling up the fresh bales and dragging them behind me, so the adult could lift and stack them in rows.  Good hard work that gave me an appetite.  I was a skinny kid, so having an appetite for supper was a rare occurrence. I painted this field with the bales nestled in, still part of the field.  I drove by the field recently and the bales are gone.  Stubble of hay remain with the job to protect and feed the soil during our winter season.  And in March, while it is still cold enough to keep me inside, the farmer of this field will be turning the stubble back into the ground. The soil will be laid bare and warmed to make ready for the spring so...

"Softie The Snowman" 4 x 4 inches, Oil on Gessoboard Sold - Thank you I felt like painting a snowman today, because looking out my studio window is like looking at a snow globe.  Not a blizzard mind you, but large, fluffy snowflakes falling gracefully from above.  Good thing because this poor snowman has started to melt and needs reinforcements. 

"Tufted Titmouse" 6 x 6 inches, Oil on Gessoboard Buy on Paypal Painted from a photo.  I replaced the birdfeeder perch with a tree branch.  Artist licence kind of thing.   process pictures Yesterday, It snowed quite hard.  I worry about animals and birds when old man winter blows his nose.  So yesterday found me staring out the window at the birdfeeders.  That in of itself is not unsusal, but what was?   The length of time I was at the window, wringing my hands in worry for my birds. The voice in your head that bosses you around started up:  "If your going to be spending all this time, looking out the window at the birds, then pull out the sketchbook and draw them."  Well, I rounded up my very magic pencil and my sketchbook and got started.  I forgot the kneaded eraser.  Ok, I'm not going to get up and get it.  Started to draw and found that I needed my binoculars.  Well, they were reachable on the end table. ...

"Post Road Cow" 5 x 5 inches, Oil on Gessoboard $ 60.  Buy on Etsy The photo source is one that I snapped while participating in a plein air painting competition in Geneva,  NY.  Since I discovered them in 2012, the herd and I spend at least three hours together if not all day as I try to create a plein air painting featuring them.  How do I do that?  Well memory and my experience learning that most animals will repeat their poses given enough time.   Having their babies grazing with them makes the attraction all the more harder to resist.  This year, however, they were way too far back in the field for me to paint plein air.  I painted a few barn scenes and then returned only to find them back there every time, so I resorted to taking pictures for future studio work.  

"Clamped In" 4 x 4 inches, Oil on Gessoboard  I painted this sweet heart the day after I wasted three hours trying to salvage a hopeless painting.  It was a long walk on a short Pier. I want to tell myself that I'm learning by trying to fix a failed painting.  But what I have to learn is when to fold um.  In my case, because I like fresh brushwork and after a certain point of maybe this, maybe that with the brush...it's lost.

"Wide Eye and Stance" 5 x 5 inches- Oil Painting of a Grey Titmouse -Sold What attracted me to paint this bird was the wide stance of those cute little claw feet.  Had to do some editing of the tree branches, although I really wanted to include every single one.  But it's all about the bird, not the branches.

"Bird Talk" 4 x 4 inches, Oil on Gessoboard $ 55.  Click to buy Inspired to paint this little fella by those that visit my bird feeders.  Chickadees are such nice birds.  From what I observe, they pick a seed from the feeder and then fly to a nearby branch to eat it...thus giving another bird a turn.  As pretty as goldfinches are, they're squatters.  Sometimes it takes an eviction notice to get them to share with other birds.

"Baby Hummingbird No. 1" - 4 x 4 inches, Oil on Gessoboard Buy with Paypal Today's little painting features an almost ready to fly baby Hummingbird.  I wanted to paint a Hummingbird today and looked on Google for inspiration.  A 3rd grade teacher found a baby Hummingbird while doing garden work. She must be a very special teacher because after asking her husband to make a little cardboard home complete with a twig for perching, she brought him to school.   For two weeks, the class cared for and posted some videos and photos.  More to the story tomorrow along with another painting of this same little bird.

"Retro Daisies" 4 x 4 inches, Oil on Gesso board Buy on Etsy Sometimes you just need to paint daisies. I was a teenager in the later part of the 1960s.  It was a fun time to be young.  Not like the times we live in now.  My generation was the grovin', flower child, all you need is love generation.  We had the 5th Dimension singing "Aquarius", The Association singing "Cherish".  We had short skirts and long hair and I was sent to the Principal's office for laughing loudly in the bathroom.    I painted these and two other Retro Daisy paintings because I often miss the 60's.  Yesterday, I really missed the 60's and I'm sorry, so sorry that Airplanes can be shot down from the heavens.    

Introducing "Heavy Petal No 2" 4 x 4 inches, Oil on Board Sold Learning so much about painting florals just from painting this series of garden daisies.  When you decide to have throw caution to the wind...and ease up on what you already know, so much learning can happen.

"Heavy Petal, Daisies" 4 x 4 inches, Oil on Board The trouble with painting flowers is keeping it loose and fresh.  Daisies especially, because they can get looking like piano keys pretty quickly.  When I was in my 20's...not going to say what decade that was...but in the local art group I was a member of, was a wonderful floral painter.  I was so mesmerized with her finished work.  What I remember was a variety of brushwork describing the bloom and a wonderful greyed down background in a variety of color to set off the flowers.  But it was the technique of her brushwork.  Something she could have told me how to do, even standing right there with me and I still couldn't do.  Because that was unique to her hand.  Can't teach that.