Green Olives by Darren Maurer

3" x 6"

I have had a busy week in my sign shop working as late as 10:30 pm one night which obviously doesn't leave as much time to paint. Tonight I made sure I spent some time in the studio. I found this little scrap of canvas panel which measures 3"x 6" and decided to use it for a painting. It is a fall off piece left over from cutting a larger panel sometime. I had some great comments and emails about the olive I painted last week. Why not paint two olives this time? There just isn't a better shade of green than that of a green olive. Painting SOLD. 

Selfie - by Darren maurer

5" x 7"

Instead of "taking" a selfie with my cell phone today I painted a selfie. I have sketched a few self portraits with graphite pencil but I can't remember painting one before. Earlier this year I was complaining to my wife, ShLoe, that I couldn't see well enough to paint the fine details on my paintings. She suggested trying a set of reader glasses and it made a huge difference. So now I wear reader glasses when I paint. The problem is I see fine normally during the day so when I have the glasses on I can't see my computer monitor that I use for my reference material. So when I paint I am always raising and lowering the glasses. Maybe I will get used to it someday? When ShLoe saw this self portrait her first comment was, "You don't look very happy." I said, "It is supposed to be a brooding artist thing but the truth is I'm not happy because I need readers now."

Apples in a Bag - by Darren Maurer

12" x 12"

I like paintings that look realistic yet when you look close you can see the brush strokes. This piece definitely fits that description perfectly. I wanted this painting to be more about the plastic bag rather than the apples. The apple to the right is painted loosely with very soft edges. The one to the left has a soft edge and a hard edge. The way a painter handles edges in a painting helps control where the focal point will be. Our eyes tend to look at hard edges first which is also how we see things. When you are looking at an object during the day the object will be in focus but things around it outside of your focal point are a little fuzzy. The top edge of the bag is a hard edge in addition to being a high contrast area. My eye goes directly to the top edge of the bag first and then follows down to the apples. This was a fun one to paint. 

Green Olive - by Darren Maurer

5" x 5"

I can't think of anything very interesting to say about this olive. I enjoyed painting it.
Painting SOLD. 

Pencil Eraser - by Darren Maurer

5" x 7"

People always ask, "How do you get your ideas?". The creative part of my life is a series of experiments, discoveries, and hopefully progression of knowledge about painting. Knowledge working in combination with an intense curiosity of my daily surroundings makes me look for subjects that will make a piece of art. A life in art is more of a non-stop work in progress and, as you paint, you are able to decide what to paint. One painting leads to another. Sometimes I'm on a roll and produce dozens of pieces of work in a few weeks and at other times the ideas don't come so easy. I saw this pencil sitting on my drafting table in my studio this week and noticed the metal ferrule that connects the pencil to the eraser and how reflective it looked. I wanted to make a painting that focused on that part of the pencil. My wife, ShLoe, saw the finished painting and asked if she could have it to sit on her desk at school. This one is isn't available.....sorry!

Lunch Sack - by Darren Maurer

9" x 12"

Something about painting a brown paper bag on a piece of stretched canvas is really fun for me. I have used them before as subjects in paintings and all the different tones of color always amaze me. The sack is made entirely of brown kraft paper but the amount of different colors I see in the bag when a strong light is casting shadows across it is almost endless. There are oranges, dark browns, dark greys, blues, ivory tones, and all kinds of subtle earth tones. Painting the bag is almost like putting a puzzle together. Paint each section of the bag the correct color and a bag emerges at the end.