Two Pears

  My daughter does my grocery shopping and she actually likes to select the fruit that I paint.  


She thinks it is fun to see the art work that I create.  


 These pairs were ready to eat so we photographed them, then ate them for our dinner. Nothing like eating the evidence! (:>}.

              Two Pears

I have links that may help you if you are interested in drawing or create art, please COMMENT on this blog and tell me your story…add your 2 cents worth, (:>) If I can answer questions I will do my best to answer. : >0).

Thank you and I will see you again soon!

I would like to invite you to "Follow" my art blog. Please click on the word Follow, in upper right corner. Thank you. { : > ]

My art work can be viewed and purchased here at my website:

dessie-h-durham-.artistwebsites.com

http://fineartamerica.com/art/all/dessie+durham/all

My French Pier rot Clown

When I first discovered my French Pier rot Clown.

My home town is well known for its antique shops, flea markets and yard sales.  My daughter is a huge collector of vintage combs used by women of an earlier time, so we decided to spend the afternoon searching for vintage combs and bells…

She found and bought a porcelain bell for me with a picture of a Jester, or so I thought!  I was in total ignorance about the history of a Jester. 

I’m also an artist and I thought the face of this female Jester would make a good reference for a painting, she was very pretty and I liked it. It was just a small female face with billowing puffy things around the neck and wearing a black Jester cap with a little knot at the pointed end, with some unusual hair flowing around her head and holding a rose under her chin...

This will be easy I thought no problem!  I wanted my picture of the Jester to have the feeling of a vignette, shading into the background color at the edges.

But I wasn’t happy with the finished results, so I decided to forget the feeling of the vignette and continued to paint, arranging the back ground so it would look like someone lived here.

In the meantime I was frustrated because the Jester didn’t look like what I thought a Jester should look like. And if you thought this was a Jester than read more!  So I went to Google to do a search and I read about Jesters.

The more I read the more I was sure that this was not a Jester on my porcelain bell.  I read more about the way Pier rots dressed and how they liked those little puffy collars around their necks and how they loved roses. They have beautiful expressive soulful eyes that look like tears are about to stream from them…

And so it was from Google that I learned about my little “Pier rot” character with a French heritage that was painted on my porcelain bell.

I have links that may be of help to you if you are interested in drawing or create art, please COMMENT on this blog and tell me your story…add your 2 cents worth, (:>) If I can answer questions I will do my best to answer. : >0).

Thank you and I will see you again soon!

I would like to invite you to "Follow" my art blog. Please click on the word Follow, in upper right corner. Thank you. { : > ]

My art work can be viewed and purchased here at my website:

dessie-h-durham-.artistwebsites.com

Yellow Daffodils

Here in my part of the world I would like to say hello. 


Spring has finally sprung; the days are getting longer and warmer and nature never fails me, the birds are singing, the flowers are blooming and the grass needs to be mowed and there is always something interesting to paint.

March is my favorite month; as I look through my window I see the fresh cool cover of green grass, along with the warm yellow daffodils growing along the side of my deck. 


So, I go out on my deck and explore the possibilities that there could be a painting in the works. 

I have enjoyed painting these yellow Daffodils and I think they add just the right combination of warm and cool colors to this vibrant piece of art.

My art work can be viewed and purchased here at my website:

dessie-h-durham-.artistwebsites.com

Do you have a problem mixing green for painting foliage and leaves?  If so I have a link that may be able to help. Please tell me in your comment.

Thank you and I will see you again soon!

I would like to invite you to "Follow" my art blog. Please click on the word Follow, in upper right corner. Thank you. { : > ]

How I Sold My First Painting

 Pink Roses with Hat                             How I sold my first painting.
 My husband was being transferred to a new job in another state, so this meant that we had to make some changes in our life immediately.  We loved our home but that also meant that we had to sell it. WOW! Really right now!

We were very fortunate that we knew a couple that wanted to buy it and when they came over to inspect it they brought a lady friend with them.  

I knew that they would buy the house; but what surprised me was that they wanted to buy some of my paintings and leave them on the walls.  She wanted four of my paintings and I had a large underwater fish painting that he wanted.

I had a canvas set up on my stand up easel and I was painting a rooster, and the lady friend wanted to buy my rooster painting!  Well, I didn’t think that I was quite finished with it but she said, that she wanted it just the way it was.  

For years I have hung my paintings on my walls, tucking them under the bed, put them in the attic and filled my families walls up with my work, but had never thought much about selling my paintings until then.

After we were settled in our new environment I started exhibiting my paintings in art shows, fairs, a church and other places. I have several Blue Ribbons… and have art collectors of my painting in fifteen states.

I no longer paint traditionally, like I did when I painted on a canvas and easel with brushes and tubes of paint and created original paintings... I now paint digitally on Corel 11 painter program and I sell my art prints works on my website at:

dessie-h-durham-.artistwebsites.com

I don’t have very many original paintings left but I do still have paintings on my walls.  I have given most of my paintings to my daughters and grand daughters.  I ask them to choose which painting that they liked best and their name is written on the back of each one. 

However, I have chosen one of the original paintings that I gave to one of my grand daughter to sell on my website. One of my grand daughters is having a hard time supporting the members of her family, five adults with out jobs, two children and the mother; however the mother, my daughter is disabled but contributes her share.

So I have chosen to sell the original painting, “Pink Roses with Hat” with out telling my granddaughter that I have put one of the original paintings up for sale on my website. When the painting sells I will give her the money to use as she see fit…She will always have a print of the painting.  When my home sold my friends that bought our house also paid me by check for the paintings. So that is how I sold my first paintings and started me on an art career that has not stopped!!!

I sell my art prints works on my website at:

dessie-h-durham-.artistwebsites.com

Thank you and I will see you again soon!

I would like to invite you to "Follow" my art blog. Please click on the word Follow, in upper right corner. Thank you. { : > ]

How I got Started Painting

Grape Fruit on Table with Spoon

Hello!


 I started my passion for art when I was in the sixth grade, I, at that time attended a one room school. My teacher gave the sixth graders a contest where she offered a prize of “twenty five cents” for four drawings. Now, remember 25 cents was a lot of money for each drawing. Well, I don’t remember what my subjects were but I won all four prizes. And that was great! Right! Not so great, huh. No one in my class would speak to me (“;) I had won my awards but I was really shook up and deflated. But finally, ---My classmates realized that every thing was okay and things got back to normal. I don’t think my teacher ever had another art contest! But this instilled in me that I had a talent to create art and I shouldn’t forget it. However, that contest left its mark and I didn’t start painting with a passion until I was in my 40s.

How I got started painting… I was in my 40s, I had suffered with an attack of heart failure, since then I have had many attacks in my life time and some times very serious. I was not doing well and I have always suffered with a depression after an attack, so my husband, John, came home one day carrying with him everything that he could think of to help me start painting…easel, oil paints, canvas, brushes, books, etc. At that time I didn't know that John knew that I had wanted to paint with oils for ages

It was my first attempt at painting, standing in front of a totally white canvas, with oil paints, brushes and how-to-do-it books, it was scary. I wish I had videos back then. I really didn't know any thing about how to mix the right combinations of colors, and how I was going to mix all of the different hues of colors using just red, blue and yellow, white and black. Well I soon learned that there was a better way to mix black with out using black from the tube!!! By following the instructions in the how-to-books it soon started to sink in and I was really getting compliments on my work.

Creating my art helped to fight the depression that I was in and I totally loose all sense of time when I’m painting...How about you, do you loose the sense of time when you paint?

That was the beginning of my next 53 years painting with every medium I could find! WOW! Has things changed since then. Now when I “paint” I have a Corel 11 painting program on my computer that I use to paint digital art... (This next sentence is important)

Most of you use and easel, brush and paint--- I need for to you to know that I create my art using a tablet and a stylus pen on the computer, I still paint just like I would if I was using a canvas, brush and an easel. Nothing else is different! The computer is just a tool that I use to do my art work, and the work is much easier for me do, LOL.

I get bored very easily and I have wide variety of subjects…Mostly I paint still life, landscapes, cityscapes, animals, birds and some abstracts, I use a lot of paint and I do love to do abstracts.

Every artist starts sometime and I hope through my blog we will search out answers to some expert tips, videos and tutorials to help us along the way

I have links that may help you if you are interested in drawing or create art, please COMMENT on this blog and tell me your story…add your 2 cents worth, (:>) If I can answer questions I will do my best to answer. : >0).

My art work can be viewed and purchased here at my website:

dessie-h-durham-.artistwebsites.com

Thank you and I will see you again soon!

I would like to invite you to "Follow" my art blog. Please click on the word Follow, in upper right corner. Thank you. { : > ]

Eclectic Oil and Acrylics Still Life Art Work

Art Blog, March 15, 2012 my very first blog by Dessie H. Durham, artist always in practice!

In Dessie's Eclectic Oil and Acrylic Still Life Art Work, I share a cup of coffee or tea! 

                                                                                

Hello! I would like to offer a toast to both yours and my good health.

As I sit here and blog with you I would like for us to share our first cup of coffee or perhaps a cup of hot tea. {:>) LOL.

My blog is about art related subjects and I have always painted in a traditional manner, using and easel, canvas, paints, etc, just like most of you do. 


And so that you will know I paint digitally now because I have an allergy to something in the mediums. I miss the smell of turpentine, the smell of the paints and every thing that goes along with the painting process...


Now I paint using a computer with a tablet and a stylus pen, I still use brushes, canvas, all the different paints that I can or would want to use and I love the clean up, all I need to do is click a button and every thing is clean. 

I have been thinking about blogging for sometime now, there are so many things that we can talk about, but where do I start? So I will start with today's date of March 15, 2012 it is 7 a.m., and I will tell my story the way it is!  As most of my visitors start their day with their own routine, so will I. I am retired and I am ninety- three years old. I have pretty much the same ailments as most people do, but with God's help I get up each morning raring to go. (:>)

I live with my daughter, she lives up stairs, and I live downstairs, (that's funny, don't you think?) we always depend on each other to make our lives function as it should. She is my jewel! She has a family of four cats. Willow is a feral and has a short tail; she is the mother of Wookiee. Then there is Wizard he is a Maine Coon and Wedge who is the master when he is at his home, but when he comes down stairs to see me Wizard takes control. Since I am their cat grand-mother their toys are empty plastic bottles, the center tube that my kitchen paper is rolled on, things like that, who needs to spend money for expensive toys.  LOL.  From time to time we will share more about the cats.

It is my wish that this blog will bring artisans together and we will be able to communicate with each other as we paint with our dreams, memories, history and myths and we will search out answers to some expert tips, videos and tutorials to help us along the way.

This is my invitation to you:
If you are an artist or a collector of art I am inviting you to follow my Blog so that we can both form a win/win relationship that we can both benefit from. It is my hope that if you are an artist you may find helpful information here!  I have helpful links to many problems that I can share with you.   I too, will always be seeking ways to improve on the art that I do and hope you will enjoy following me on Dessie's Blo


I would really like it if you comment and add your own thoughts to my blog. 

My art work can be viewed and purchased here at my website:

dessie-h-durham-.artistwebsites.com