Get Back In Your Book

Get Back In Your Book, a set by Lissy Elle on Flickr.

Amazing photos - with a couple of characters you just might recognize from a book you have read.....Get back in your book!

Have fun,

Denise

Melissa, my daughter is graduating next Friday, May 14th!

Melissa Ann Hall

May 14, 20010

Doctorate of Pharmacy
and Clinical Research


HOORAYYYYYYYYYYY!

We are so happy for you
and are going to really
celebrate!!!

Mrs. Escalier, Janis Gallagher's Mother

This beautiful woman is the mother of Janis Gallagher. Her grandson, Andrew is the next painting down - so be sure to read the post concerning his painting. If you go through the archives you will also find the first of the Gallagher family portraits, sister Allison. I hope I am not finished with this fine family yet! They have all been truly a joy to work with as well as (and especially as) paint! If you note a sound of excitement in my typing - you are right. They have all been "easy" to paint - for some odd reason. I have trials and tribulations usually but the karma must be working for myself and the Gallaghers. We are even contemplating a family portrait since my luck or karma or whatever seems to be working so well so far!

Now to the grand painting of one of my favorite senior citizens - Janis' Mom. Janis wanted a tribute to her Mother at the age of 80 - a special birthday present. Her mother's smile comes from way down inside - she is a joy to be around, and of course her family adores her. The idea of a small portrait came to mind. We decided to look through some family pictures and paint her at a wee younger age - (mine to be almost exact) I usually take my own pictures and paint from those or life. The picture we found just happened to have great one source lighting and showed all of what I needed to see. The bonus is - I already had gotten to know her some through the painting of her two grandchildren, Allison and Andrew - so that helps me a lot.

I think it fell together nicely and it was presented to her at her birthday party - then returned to me for the varnishing months later. She was pleased as well as the family. I loved every minute of this painting - especially those electric eyes and warm, inviting smile. She is wonderful!!

Portrait of Andrew Gallagher

Andrew Gallagher's smile truly does light up a room. He could charm the socks off an NBA basketball player! I really didn't think there would be any way I could capture that feeling he conveys from others when you see him in person. I do think that the finished portrait is a close second. By now he has grown a foot and at least Janis and Ed will always remember that little boy who posed on the stool in their sitting room at the ripe old age of 5 everytime they walk by this portrait. I'm very proud of it and all I can say is the subject was totally inspiring!

Romeo so cute

Romeo so cute
Originally uploaded by denisedh

Romeo is watching me paint my newest portrait or Mrs. Escalier, so until I post the finished product - Romeo is all you get!

Romeo is one of my two black toy poodles and is 6 months old. His half sister, Coco lives with him too, along with Roxy our 9 year old shih-tzu.

Summer is over....memory

Portrait Exhibition Party at Anne Whitehurst's

Recently my paintings were gathered up from nearby customers and elegantly exhibited at the beautiful home of a good portrait friend and client, Anne Whitehurst. Her home is in Greenville, N.C. We had an open house atmosphere with great food and wine for potential clients and past ones as well. It was a wonderful evening and I think I enjoyed it more than anyone. Just seeing all the paintings I had worked on for years together in one place was overwhelming. Thanks goes to Anne for organizing everything and working so hard to make it a special day for me - and it truly was!! Enjoy all the pictures taken by my daughter, Camille.

Pictures from the exhibition

The Twins - 24x30 portraits

Twins Portraits Finished October, 2008

Portrait of Anna

This is a 10x12 painting of Anna Day.

It is very thin oilpaint. I had been studying the Bouguereau painting Venus with Doves, which is at the Ackland gallery in Chapel Hill. It is a very nice unfinished painting of his.

ARTIST
William BouguereauFrench, 1825-1905
MEDIUM
Oil on canvas
DATE
circa 1879
DIMENSIONS
Overall: 32 1/8 x 18 3/8 in. (81.6 x 46.7 cm)
CREDIT
Ackland Fund

Marsh Paintings

Two small paintings of marshland around Oak Island, NC. These are unfinished - oil on linen.

Need to paint this one

Camille at Atlantic Beach, NC

Camille graduates!

My youngest daughter, Camille, 23, graduates as a paralegal May 2008. My oldest, Melissa is with her sharing the spotlight! We are so proud of her. Camille is the subject of my painting as you enter my blog.

Robert finished!

Here is the portrait of Robert finished nearly simulateously with his sister, Katy's portrait. Keeping the backgrounds similar was very important since they will hang together in the same location in their parents' living room. Robert is long and lean and this canvas was almost too short to show that! He really needed a longer canvas than his sister but I managed to just fit him in with the same head size! 24x30.

Thanks for looking!

Katy finished February 08

I finished this portrait of lovely Katy over the holidays and signed it in February. Please excuse the glaring sunlight catching the different brushstrokes of the background. The final varnish, which will be applied months from now should even that out pretty well. I varnish with Gamblin Gam-Var by the way. This painting is a companion to her younger brother's painting which I'll post in the next entry. They are both 24x30 and will hang together in the parent's living room. I am very proud of these two paintings.

Suzanne finished November 2007

I finished this portrait of Suzanne during the month of November after working on it since July 2006. I am very proud of it and feel that is does justice to Suzanne. She loves her violin, plays it beautifully and this portrait caught her in the middle of becoming a young lady of 16. She was barely 15 when I started this and now drives a car on her own!

What eyes she has - and that smile! Thanks to her parents for giving me the priviledge to paint her.

This is a detail of the painting, which will be shown in the photo stream at the left hand side of the blog

24x30 oil on linen

HAPPY NEW YEAR

Haven't been here in awhile! Just realized my blog has been virtually out of commission due to a gif I accidentally posted with - which multiplied and caused my scroll to become hugely long before anyone could get to the pictures or anything else. I do apologize to anyone who cared enough to come to this blog and then had to leave due to that gif taking so long!

Its gone now!

I am working on 3 portraits, 3 landscapes and 2 figurative paintings right now and studying a lot in between. I found a great blog owned by Enzi Shahmiri, a fellow portrait artist. She has links to one of my favorite Russian artists, Ilya Repin's work so go take a look.

I'll post some updated pictures of my painting progress hopefully tomorrow since I am back!

Thanks for visiting.