Masters Study – Pablo Picasso – Portrait d’ Utrillo

“Luck is the by-product of busting your fanny.”
– Don Sutton

Happy Veteran’s Day! If you served, or are serving  -  which includes being a supportive family member – Thank You!!



Masters Study – Pablo Picasso – Portrait d’ Utrillo

2.5″ x 3.5″ Watercolor and Gouache ATC

This was amazing!  Here is a link to the original.  It looked so simple and easy and it wasn’t.  I worked and worked at it and had a ball!  I enjoyed the background, too.  I love Picasso!   I did his self portrait, too.  I’ll show you that tomorrow. 

About Don Sutton

American Major League baseball player Don Sutton, never a flashy player, was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame after an amazingly consistent winning career as a pitcher. He was born in Alabama in 1945, and broke into the big leagues at age 21. By the time he retired in 1988, he had won 324 games, recorded more than 3,500 strikeouts, racked up a record 21 consecutive 100-plus strikeout seasons, and never missed his turn in the pitching rotation. He is now a TV announcer for the Washington Nationals.

Masters Study – Paul Cezanne – Pines and Rocks

“We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same.”
– Carlos Castaneda



Masters Study – Paul Cezanne – Pines and Rocks
2.5″ x 3.5″ Watercolor & Gouache ATC

A link to the original is here.  This was fun!    It’s funny when I type that.  Have you ever seen me say “This wasn’t a bit fun.”?  ha ha ha  The part I like is all the bursts of color in this painting.

About Carlos Castaneda

Carlos Castaneda, the Peruvian-born new age writer, is known for his book series about his apprenticeship with Don Juan Matus, the Toltec shaman, including A Separate Reality and Journey to Ixtlan. The books are about the nature of perception and include many hallucinatory experiences. It is unknown how much of his writing was factual. He wrote the first three books as an anthropology student at UCLA, and they quickly gained cult success. He was born in 1925 and died in 1998.

Masters Study – Crop from The Red Dog by Paul Gauguin

“The indispensable first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: Decide what you want.”
–Ben Stein



Masters Study – Crop from The Red Dog by Paul Gauguin
2.5″ x 3.5″ Watercolor & Gouache ATC

I guess you can tell that I didn’t have time to paint anything last weekend.  Here is another study I did in 2008.  I learned so much doing this.  I can still remember that I worked on that white dress forever! 

A link to the original Gauguin painting is here.

Ben Stein (Benjamin J. Stein) was born November 25, 1944 in Washington, D.C., (He is the son of the economist and writer Herbert Stein) grew up in Silver Spring, Maryland, and attended Montgomery Blair High School. He graduated from Columbia University in 1966 with honors in economics. He graduated from Yale Law School in 1970 as valedictorian of his class by election of his classmates. He also studied in the graduate school of economics at Yale. He has worked as an economist at The Department of Commerce, a  poverty lawyer in New Haven and Washington, D.C., a trial lawyer in the field of trade regulation at the Federal Trade Commission in Washington, D.C., a university adjunct at American University in Washington, D.C., at the University of California at Santa Cruz, and at Pepperdine University in Malibu, CA. At American U. He taught about the political and social content of mass culture. He taught the same subject at UCSC, as well as about political and civil rights under the Constitution. At Pepperdine, he has taught about libel law and about securities law and ethical issues since 1986.  More, at his official website – Ben’s House.

Masters Study – Van Gogh Portrait of Joseph Roulin

“If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain;  If I can ease one life the aching, Or cool one pain, Or help one fainting robin Into it’s nest again, I shall not live in vain.”
–Emily Dickinson



Masters Study – Van Gogh Portrait of Joseph Roulin
2.5″ x 3.5″ Gouache on Art Spectrum Colourfix

This is my third Van Gogh study.  The other two are here and here.  The original Van Gogh painting is here.

Looking back at these, reminds me that I should do more.   The other Masters that I studied on ATCs are John James Audubon, Edgar Degas, Edward Hopper, Emile Bernard, Fernando Puiqaudeau, George Seurat, Pablo Picasso, Paul Cezanne, and Paul Gauguin.  Can you imagine? 


Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson was born in Amherst, Massachusetts, in 1830. She attended Mount Holyoke Female Seminary in South Hadley, but severe homesickness led her to return home after one year. Throughout her life, she seldom left her house and visitors were scarce. The people with whom she did come in contact, however, had an enormous impact on her thoughts and poetry. She was particularly stirred by the Reverend Charles Wadsworth, whom she met on a trip to Philadelphia. He left for the West Coast shortly after a visit to her home in 1860, and some critics believe his departure gave rise to the heartsick flow of verse from Dickinson in the years that followed. While it is certain that he was an important figure in her life, it is not certain that this was in the capacity of romantic love—she called him “my closest earthly friend.” Other possibilities for the unrequited love in Dickinson’s poems include Otis P. Lord, a Massachusetts Supreme Court Judge, and Samuel Bowles, editor of the Springfield Republican.  More on Emily Dickinson here.

Masters Study – Van Gogh’s Yellow House

“First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do.”
–Epictetus



Masters Study – Van Gogh’s Yellow House
2.5″ x 3.5″ Watercolor & Gouache ATC

This is a crop from the original painting.   I really enjoyed these little studies.  Here is a link to the original painting.    I’m off to Muskogee now, to go fly! 

Weeeeeee!

Epictetus (Greek: Ἐπίκτητος; AD 55–AD 135) was a Greek Stoic philosopher. He was born a slave at Hierapolis, Phrygia (present day Pamukkale, Turkey), and lived in Rome until banishment when he went to Nicopolis in northwestern Greece where he lived the rest of his life. His teachings were noted down and published by his pupil Arrian in his Discourses. Philosophy, he taught, is a way of life and not just a theoretical discipline. To Epictetus, all external events are determined by fate, and are thus beyond our control, but we can accept whatever happens calmly and dispassionately. Individuals, however, are responsible for their own actions, which they can examine and control through rigorous self-discipline. Suffering arises from trying to control what is uncontrollable, or from neglecting what is within our power. As part of the universal city that is the universe, human beings have a duty to care for all fellow humans. The person who followed these precepts would achieve happiness.

Masters Study – Vincent Van Gogh

“Can anything be sadder than work unfinished? Yes, work never begun.”
– Christina Rossetti



Masters Study – Vincent Van Gogh

2.5″ x 3.5″  ATC – Gouache on Art Spectrum Colourfix

When I first started painting, again after a 30 year absence,  I joined an ATC exchange on WetCanvas where we studied the Masters.  I learned so much in this swap, because I have no formal art training.  I understood why they were the Masters while I was studying their paintings.   I did these in early 2008.  Since I haven’t been able to paint much in the last few days, I thought I would share some of these ATCs.  The original Van Gogh painting is here.

I had a great lesson with my new flight instructor yesterday.  I have renewed hopes for actually getting my private pilot’s license.  YAY!

About Christina Rossetti

Christina Rossetti, the Victorian era English poet, is known for the melancholy themes in such poems as “Goblin Market” and “When I Am Dead.” She was born in 1830 in London to Italian-born parents. Her father was poet Gabriele Rossetti and her brother was the painter/poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti. She rejected two marriage proposals because, although she loved both men, neither shared her religious devotion. According to her brother, she wrote effortlessly and rapidly. She died in 1894.

Posture Study - December 14, 2009

“I do not place blame outwardly, but accept responsibility for the results in my life. Every time I overcome an obstacle or meet a challenge, I reaffirm that I have access to all solutions and develop a deeper trust in my inner resources.”

from “The Don’t Sweat Affirmations”
Richard Carlson, Ph.D.

Posture Study

4″x5″ Watercolor

I painted this little study from the reference photo provided by my friend, Dewi. I was intrigued by how comfortable and at ease the people looked in this photo. I wanted to see if I could capture it, with as little detail as possible.