Fred Bell Shows Stiff Neck

This  painting is entitled 

"Stiff Neck"  

It is a self portrait that will be in a show, 

"In Your Face" 

at the Art Bar in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  

It is a show of self portraits put together by my friends 

The Martini Girls.

The painting is 16x16" oil on cradled panel.  

It is for sale, $500. plus shipping.

Do Still Life Paintings Always Stay Still?

I am thrilled to present this recent series of still life paintings.  It started with a beautiful grey dinner plate I bought at Good Will.  I thought about paintings of just the plate, quiet and serene.  Then, as I worked on them and developed the idea things started to move around, patterns with silverware appeared and I was off to the races.  

These paintings are about eating and dinner and the kind of drama that happens at dinner.  The objects are metaphors for the players.

These paintings will be sold at Portrait Society Gallery, 207 E. Buffalo St., Milwaukee Wisconsin, 53202, 414-870-9930 starting June 12, 2013.  Stop by for a glass of wine!  Portrait Society Gallery donates proceeds for this to Artists Working In Education.  They are a great group who help art teachers.

"Blue Plate" 14x14" oil on board, $400. plus shipping

"Bananaquit" 14x17" oil on board, $400. plus shipping

 Art ideas develop through working on them.  Sometimes ideas come when away from the canvas but mostly not, for me.

"The Lost Day" 14x17" oil on board, $400. plus shipping

"Rhythm Of The Ware"  14x17" oil on board, $400. plus shipping

"Spooning" 14x17" oil on board, $400. plus shipping

 "Earth Quake" 14x17" oil on board, $400. plus shipping

"Thoughts That Won't Stop" 14x17" oil on board, $400. plus shipping

"Group Of Three" 14x17" oil on board, $400. plus shipping

"The Love Cup"  14x17" oil on board, $400. plus shipping

"Eight O' Clock Spoon"  14x17" oil on board, $400. plus shipping

"Grapes Of Wrath"  14x17" oil on board, $400. plus shipping

"The Melody Loop"  30x40" oil on canvas, $900. plus shipping

"Dishes"  30x40" oil on canvas, $900. plus shipping

Painting a still life in my studio.

Fred Bell working in his studio painting.

I've let this blog go dormant for a long time.  

Anyway, I am still alive and still working on

 this series of plates with forks, spoons and knives.  

I had to paint a few before 

I figured out the possibilities. 

Now I am cooking.

Here are three new paintings from my series

"Kitchen Conversations"

14x17" oil on panel

monoprint, mono print, Fred Bell

Plate and spoon monoprint.

Man, monoprint. mono print

These are a couple of mono prints I did at a workshop yesterday.  

Ink on paper.

Mother And Child portrait painting

"Mother And Child"

Oil on canvas, 24x20"

This isn't exactly your regular Virgin and Child

painting but it's as close as I can get.

The woman is an interpretation 

of a woman in a Fragonard painting

"Venus And Cupid."

Fragonard was conceptually kind of a

light weight but he was a 

gifted painter.

Still Life, still life paintings, fork, spoon, knife,

"Afternoon Still Life", 14x17" oil on panel.
This painting is part of my dinner plate series.  My goal is twenty of them.
Painting still life's are a lot of fun. I spend a lot of time on them and go through many changes.  I am satisfied with this one.  The way the light falls on the plate is nice and the silver ware looks good too.

Patience is something I seem to be acquiring with age.  When something doesn't work out the way I expected I still get upset, but I settle down more quickly and am able to see things in more clearly. "I didn't get it this time buy I may next time" is something I heard myself thinking recently.

still life painting, paintings, how to,

Fred Bell shows how he begins a still life painting.
http://fredbellpaintings.com

Still Life, Still life paintings, dripping paint.

"Put A Fork In It", 14x17" oil,

This painting is part of my series of twenty dinner plate paintings.  

It is surprising to me how long it took to figure this direction out.  The paintings look so casual.  Hard work doesn't really enter your mind. I'm dripping now and it is great fun, controlled drips.  I feel like I have my concept and will enjoy cruising for a while.

http://fredbellpaintings.com

Painting tips, advice, from Fred Bell

This is the palette I am using these days. Working on my still life

series I wanted to have a feeling of consistency

and so this very limited number of colors helps that.

Frans Hals had a very limited palette too.

That was by necessity though.  It is described as

red, yellow black and white.  He used the black

as his cool color.  It just goes to show that what

ever you use on a consistent basis is what you will

get good at using.

Banana Still Life Painting, Still-lives Paintings

Banana Still Life Painting

14x17" oil

Here is a painting I may work on 

some more but mostly it's done.

The painting is part of a series I am working on.  

The goal is 20 and I have about seven done.

Still Life Painting Still Life with Spoons

"Spoons" 14x17" oil on panel.

This still life painting is part of a series I am working on.

Six are maybe done and my goal is 20.

I read this blog entry recently.  It's about being creative and how trying to be original

is pointless and the results usually look strained.

Creativity comes from within and because we are all different

and work in different ways, what comes out is you.

http://faso.com/fineartviews/52910/find-originality-in-truth

Still Life, Still Life Painting, Still-life

Still life, still life painting, 

This still life painting is part of a series I am working on for a new show.  Oil on board, 14x17" Still life as subject matter is fun for me to play with.  Since I am so comfortable it is easy to move beyond previous approaches to painting. In the end I think that subject matter is less important than style.

Xenia Houser – ÜberLeben”, Artist, Figure Paintings

Xenia Houser – ÜberLeben”, Artist, Figure Paintings

Xenia Housner is a new painter to me.  She paints very large images of people in contemporary environments and, what seems to be, critical moments in their lives. The painting shown above is of a car accident.  The car is old and there is a woman, unconscious on the hood. The view is from inside the car looking forward and there are two women inside the car.  One of the women seems to be dazed or in shock and the younger woman is embracing her.This scene feels like it represents an event in the artists life.  The paint style is very representational.

Xenia Houser paints very large.  She seems to be concerned about having her images ripped off because on each painting is a very large copyright and name embedded in the jpeg.  She sells some prints of her work so that is probably why.

Xenia Houser's studio is in Berlin.  She works from photographs and seems to be very successful.  She was a theatrical set designer for a long time and that is probably why large scale paintings feel natural for her.

Ms. Houser's paintings are inspirational for me and might be for you too.  http://www.xeniahausner.de/index.html

What Do You Get From Looking?

This is a photo of my home studio.

Looking at other artists work is something I do a lot.  One of the things I get from it is that, if I see that someone else has done something, I feel it gives me permission to do something like it or and idea I've wanted to do.  I know that artists are supposed to be independently minded and all but that is the effect on me.

Espen Ericksen Paintings

While browsing on the web I ran into the paintings of artist Espen Ericksen which I like a lot.  His paintings have a feeling of coming from a very intuitive place, a whimsical place, a secret fantasy land that only he knows about.   They are done in black and white but have a fun feeling about them. Espen Ericksen lives in Oslo, Norway and has shown in both France and Germany.

The paintings are mostly figures against a black background.  Sometimes they feel medieval and like there is some narrative going on. Symbolism is frequent too.

Take a look.  (http://espenerichsen.blogspot.com)

Still Life Painting

"Plate Still Life"

14x17" oil

This is the beginning of a 

still life series of paintings.

Emily Bronte Portrait Painting

Emily Bronte

This shows the progression of the paint of Emily Bronte that I showed yesterday.

Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights, Portrait Painting

Emily Bronte

oil

7x5"

Writer of "Wuthering Heights"

Painting of Man

Afternoon Man

10x8" oil on panel

I'm just making up my 

subjects now.

They speak to me.