Pet Portraits

Edie, 17 x 21, Watercolor on Paper, copyright 2008 Pat Aube Gray
Click on photo to see enlargement.

Unfortunately, this is a posthumous portrait of Edie, an adorable long-haired dachsund who succumbed to cancer. Edie was the much loved pet of my doctor, and Edie's death was very upsetting to her. I hope that this portrait will serve to keep Edie's memory alive every day that it hangs in the doctor's home. Edie was so loved and so missed that the family has already brought home a new long-haired dacshund to love.

I used hand made watercolor paper by Twin Rocker, a paper I learned about years ago form Stephen Scott Young, a fabulous and very successful watercolorist. It has a harder surface than Arches, for example, and I really enjoy working on it. Hot pressed paper is too hard for most of the work I do, but this cold pressed paper seems to be just the right degree of hardness. Lifting is fairly easy, but you can still glaze with it and not lift the layers below. I recently watched a video about Twin Rocker and found it very interesting. A young couple started the company and has found a niche in a market rife with machine made products. They make many different kinds of paper, in many different sizes, some with deckled edges such as the piece I used for the above painting. For more information, go to www.twinrocker.com

New Beginnings

A New Day, Oil on Canvas, 12 x 24 copyright Pat Aube Gray 2008
Click on Image to enlarge.

I began this painting in my palette knife workshop and finished it afterward. The only part of this painting that was done with a brush is the interesting vent on the roof and my signature! I had been wanting to paint on a 12 x 24 canvas and this barn with the long range mountain view and a sunrise was just the right image for it. The clarity is lost a little in the photo you see here, but if you click to enlarge it you can see more detail. I am particularly pleased with the color harmony in this painting. Hope you like it,too!

Brooke's Texas Rose

Brooke's Texas Rose, 22 x 30 watercolor on paper - copyright Pat Aube Gray

While working on oil portraits and waiting for paint to dry, I have been working on watercolors in my home studio. This subject is one I have wanted to paint for a long time. We lived in Texas for six years many years ago and have some very happy memories there. My daughter, Brooke, consistent with the contemporary practice of women getting tattoos, actually had the yellow rose of Texas etched on her leg. So in her honor, and in memory of our days in Texas, I named this painting Brooke's Texas Rose. This painting will be included in my upcoming exhibition at Chateau Elan Resort & Winery Gallery in Braselton, GA.

Painting with a Palette Knife

Outbuildings, 9 x 12, oil on canvas, copyright Pat Aube Gray 2008

I had a great time these past three days in a palette knife oil workshop I held in the teaching studio at Carriage House Art Center in Blairsville (www.carriagehouseartcenter.com). Had a great group, including several returning students whom I have not seen in a while, so it was a little like old home week. Everyone did a great job on their paintings, some jumping right in with the knife and others, perhaps at first, a little intimidated by the lack of control over a knife versus a brush. But by the second day, the paintings just emerged beautifully under the more confident hands of these good painters. As for me, I painted the small demo seen above, entirely with palette knives, as a demonstration during the workshop. Everyone worked from my photographs and most were summer scenes. As with the painting above, dealing with so much green in hte summer can be a challenge. There are actually many other colors besides green in the grass and foliage than perhaps can be seen here. I did get a decent start on a second larger painting and hope to finish it this week.

Recent Works

I have been spending the last several weeks working on new websites for myself (www.pat-aube-gray.com) and also for our gallery (www.carriagehouseartcenter.com), so I have not had much time to post here. We have hired a former employee, Sarah, to work in the gallery/frame shop and that has relieved me a great deal. So within the next couple of days, I will be painting most of the time and teaching part of the time! With three commissions to complete and a show at Chateau Elan coming up in September, this is a must!

The only paintings I have been able to do recently have been plein air pieces, when I have gone out with my student groups or the Plein Air Painters of the Southern Appalachians (PAPOSA). The two paintings (above and below) at Butternut Creek in Meeks Park in Blairsville are pastels on paper. One was painted in the morning and the other in mid-afternoon. It is amazing how different the same basic subject matter looks at different times of the day and those differences are readily apparent in my two paintings.



The third piece, an oil, was painted at Crane Creek Vineyard on a rainy, cloudy day. Again the effect of weather and a different quality of light is apparent in the painting. Sometimes I will "doctor" a plein air piece up a little back in the studio, as I did with the pastels because my painting time on location was short (one in the morning, one in the afternoon.) But I worked on the same painting all day at Crane Creek under a cloudy sky, so the light did not change very much. Even though I would like to beef this one up a little with more color variation and a few dark accents and light highlights, I decided to leave it as I completed it that day. I think it is truer to the scene and the weather than if I tweak it. All three of these paintings are available at Carriage House Art Center.