Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving! Fun Turkey Facts
Here are a few fun facts about turkeys that you can share with your family and friends during Thanksgiving dinner. To learn even more about turkeys, visit the turkey animal facts page.
*Turkeys have heart attacks. When the Air Force was conducting test runs and breaking the sound barrier, fields of turkeys would drop dead.
*Turkeys can drown if they look up when it is raining.
*Turkeys spend the night in trees. They fly to their roosts around sunset.
*Turkeys fly to the ground at first light and feed until mid-morning. Feeding resumes in mid-afternoon.
*Gobbling starts before sunrise and can continue through most of the morning.
*A wild turkey has excellent vision and hearing. Their field of vision is about 270 degrees. This is the main reason they continue to elude some hunters.
*A spooked turkey can run at speeds up to 20 miles per hour. They can also burst into flight approaching speeds between 50-55 mph in a matter of seconds.
*Benjamin Franklin wanted the national bird to be a turkey.
*In 2007, the average American ate 17.5 pounds of turkey.
*The heaviest turkey ever raised was 86 pounds, about the size of a large dog.

Home Page Art by Delilah = http://artbydelilah.com

Thanksgiving

Greetings,
This week in the United States we are celebrating Thanksgiving. It is one of my favorite holidays because it is a day that is it is centered on family and food! Most of the food being home cooked. It is also a day to remind ourselves on how lucky we are and to be thankful for it. Everyday is a good day to remind yourself of everything you have to be thankful for. You might, also, think about keeping a gratitude journal so you can record your thankful's every day. Then if you are having a bad day and don't we all, you can go back and review how lucky you really are.

Home Page Art by Delilah = http://artbydelilah.com

Impasto

Without ambition one starts nothing. Without work one finishes nothing. The prize will not be sent to you. You have to win it." (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

What is impasto? Impasto is an art term used to describe thickly textured paint that is almost three-dimensional in appearance.
Using an impasto technique often leaves visible brush strokes in the finished painting. Many times those brush strokes are actually more important than the subject matter itself.
You could almost say impasto is a type of sculpture,but for painters and on a canvas.I love to move the butter paint around with my palett knife

For example, if you see a painting and you are not sure whether the artist has used impasto technique, just look at the painting from the side. Check for globs of paint sticking out from the canvas. That's impasto.
From the front, impasto paint is highlighted by whatever natural light is in the room (since it sticks out so much) and with heavy impasto you’ll be able to see shadows underneath the paint too.

Unlike wet-on-wet blending techniques, impasto really makes a physical statement, which is why you'll find it most often in expressive, abstract works.
That why I sometimes call my work impressionism/expressionism.

You see, impasto has been around for a long time, Van Gogh used impasto for it's expressive qualities. Before Van Gogh, artists would build up layers of paint to add realism to their work, making objects appear more three-dimensional.
But Van Gogh was different. He used impasto to gave weight to his brilliant colors, movement to his skies, and emotion to his landscapes.

Check out this detail of Van Gogh’s Wheat Field with Cypresses.

He could have painted with the exact same colors without the impasto, but what would have happened? There would have been no movement, no feeling in the painting. No Van Gogh.

If you’re an artist, impasto’s not too tricky to do yourself.

Mostly it involves loading up your brush or painter’s knife with more paint than you’d normally need. Then, instead of “dying” or “scrubbing” the canvas with color, just let the paint squish onto the canvas and sit there.

You don’t want to fiddle with any one spot too much, otherwise you’ll lose that three-dimensional quality by overworking the paint.

Ala Prima Painting

Ala Prima Painting

Ala prima typically refers to the process of painting in one sitting. This is something I do with my daily paintings http://paintingoftheday.blogspot.com .The application of colour is quick, and commonly full of expression. The texture is created in an impromptu way through the manipulation of a thicker layer of paint.
Ala prima technique does not involve layers or glazing. As such, the rule of "flexible over inflexible" or "Fat over Lean" does not necessarily apply. However, dull areas and cracking can still occur, so it is imperative that when painting ala prima that too many solvents or mediums are not used. Instead, paintings in an ala prima style are usually painted with colour straight from the tube or with a minimal use of drying oil or solvents.

I have put more texture in this painting.

Eggplant and Company No.2

About This Painting:
Eggplant and Company No.2
oil on stretched canvas

Media: oil
Size: 10 in X 8 in (25.4 cm X 20.3 cm)

How to Purchase:
click here to bid on this painting

Or, send me an email

Home Page Art by Delilah = http://artbydelilah.com

The Paradox of Our Age

The Paradox of Our Ageby The Dalai Lama

We have bigger houses but smaller families;

More conveniences, but less time;

We have more degrees, but less sense;

More knowledge, but less judgment;

More experts, but more problems;

More medicines, but less healthiness;

We've been all the way to the moon and back,but have trouble crossing the street to meet the new neighbor.

We build more computers to hold more information to produce more copies than ever but have less communication.

We have become long on quantity,but short on quality.

These are times of fast foods but slow digestion;

Tall man but short character;

Steep profits but shallow relationships.

It's a time when there is much in the window,but nothing in the room.

Eggplants and Company

About This Painting:

I am working on a series of three paintings, all will be of the same still life but I will be adding more texture to each painting.
Texture in painting is a difficult element to define. Texture does not just refer to the roughness of smoothness of a work of art, but also to the subtle gradations of surface difference, from the quality of the brushstrokes to the addition of foreign element into the work of art.

The Paradox of texture:

The most exciting aspect of texture is that, when used carefully, it adds to the meaning and depth of an artwork. On the other hand, if texture is used inharmoniously, then it can becomes a negative factor.

I was at a meeting of artist recently and the guest speaker said,"that paintings with texture are thought to be better painting by the viewer." So I am doing my own little experiment in texture with this still life set up.

Eggplants and Company
oil on gallery wrapped stretched canvas
8x10

Media: oil
Size: 10 in X 8 in (25.4 cm X 20.3 cm)

How to Purchase:
click here to bid on this painting

Or, send me an email

Home Page Art by Delilah = http://artbydelilah.com

Seize the Day

Success begins in the morning. We either "seize the day" or we don't. We seize the initiative, or we don't. We work from a plan, or we don't. If we fail to take charge of our mornings, we allow fate and circumstances, other people and luck to play a huge role, and that's usually a mistake. "If we fail to plan, we are planning to fail."

I am doing a self portrait every month for the next year. This is the first in the series.

A Self-portrait is a representation of an artist, drawn, painted, photographed, or sculpted by the artist. Although self-portraits have been made by artists since the earliest times, it is not until the Early Renaissance in the mid 1400s that artists can be frequently identified depicting themselves as either the main subject, or as important characters in their work. With better and cheaper mirrors, and the advent of the panel portrait, many painters, sculptors and printmakers tried some form of self-portraiture
There are many reasons for painting self portraits, not least being the continuation of a long tradition of self-portraiture among artists (just think of those by Rembrandt and Van Gogh). Then there's the advantage that it's the one model who's always available, at any time of the day).
I've been hooked on self portraits ever since I first attempted one (which was not a success, though my second self portrait I framed and still have on display). I don't paint self portraits for any narcissistic reason, but for the challenge. After all, if I can't capture my own likeness and a feeling of my character, how can I attempt to get someone else's?
I've done self portraits in charcoal, pastel pencils, watercolor, and acrylics.

The results have varied from as realistic (in terms of color and likeness) to strongly Expressionistic. From pleasing (the self portraits I show others) to strange (the self portraits few people see). I regard getting a feeling of character more important than a photorealistic likeness, for which I personally prefer using a camera.

I rarely set out with something specific in mind, other than to paint a self portrait, and just let the painting evolve on the canvas, following the mood I'm in. Some self portraits are of the feeling, the mood of the day others are of the likeness I see in the mirror all are a challenge,





Home Page Art by Delilah = http://artbydelilah.com