Artists Of Texas Contemporary Paintings and Art

Sliced Apple 3x5 inches Oil on Canvas Panel by George De Chiara One of the appeals of oil painting for me is the option to use a painting knife, which allows for a very thick application of the paint and strong edges. It also lend itself to some very interesting color blending since the knife can blend the colors as you're painting with it. I just got a new set and wanted to test them out. They looked so shiny and clean sitting next to my pallet and I knew I couldn't leave them like that! While normally I believe you should use the correct tool for the job at hand, I really wanted to practice with my new knifes. I did almost this entire painting with them. I used a few brush strokes in the end to clean up a few of the edges and correct a little drawing here and there, but that's about it. To read more about this painting please visit my blog. http://georgedechiara.com/blog Visit my web site to see more of my work. http://georgedechiara.com If ...

Peach Festival 3x5 inches Oil on Canvas Panel by George De Chiara After trying the Saturn Peaches a few days ago, I wanted to try some regular peaches.These rather simple looking compositions are the hardest for me. I spend more time arranging and re-arranging these than some of the more complicated ones. I guess it's because I have fewer objects to place, so each objects placement becomes even more important. Of course now that the painting is done, I see a few things I wish I had changed. I wonder if that feeling ever goes away. In almost every painting I do, I can make the same statement. Being an artist doesn't have a finish line, there is always further to go and explore and learn. The next painting...it's what keeps me coming back to my easel. To read more about this painting please visit my blog. http://georgedechiara.com/blog Visit my web site to see more of my work. http://georgedechiara.com If you would like to purchase this painti...

Hide N Seek 5x7 inches Oil on Canvas Panel by George De Chiara When you look at the painting, the lemon in the bowl and the one behind it are hiding from the lemon in front.That's what I was thinking when I came up with the title for this one. I set this still life up to test myself in seeing values. The white bowl on the white piece of paper was a real challenge. The shadows are very strong, so it could have been easy to turn this into a black and white painting if I wasn't careful. In just about every painting I do, there is always one little area or brushstroke that seems to give me great satisfaction and I suspect most artists have this feeling about their work. Sometimes, it's the highlight laid down with one swipe of a loaded brush or the crisp edge from a pallet knife stoke. In this painting, it's the peppers on the side of the bowl. I believe I used 5 brushstrokes to paint all of them. I love it when things go like that! To read more about this pa...

Early Fruit 3x5 inches Oil on Canvas Panel by George De Chiara It seems like it's late in the summer to just be getting the first eggplants on the vine. We got our garden in a little late this year. On top of that, we had a serious shade issues until we had some trees removed. I guess that's why we are just getting some fruit, and it's looking pretty good. I think this might be our best year yet for eggplant in the 3 years we've been growing it. Now I just wish I knew what it was we did so right finally. Anyway, I had a lot of fun painting them and want to do a few more when the next batch gets a little bigger. I picked these right when I was done painting them. To read more about this painting please visit my blog. http://georgedechiara.com/blog Visit my web site to see more of my work. http://georgedechiara.com If you would like to purchase this painting visit my auction here .

Saturn Peaches 3x5 inches Oil on Canvas Panel by George De Chiara My wife came home from the store with these crazy fruits called Saturn peaches, which is where the title came from. They look like a regular peach except that they are very flat, almost as if someone sat on and flattened them. I used another book from my wife's collection in this set up. Mostly, I picked it because I liked the colors of it and thought it would work well within this set up. As an aside, the fact that it is a copy of What to Eat When You're Expecting seems somehow fitting with the peaches. To read more about this painting please visit my blog. http://georgedechiara.com/blog Visit my web site to see more of my work. http://georgedechiara.com If you would like to purchase this painting visit my auction here .

King of the Pond 3x5 inches Oil on Canvas Panel by George De Chiara One of the local residents at the pond down the road. This guy swam around like he owned the place. All of the other ducks followed him where ever he went., sort of like he was the king. Hence the title, King of the Pond. He was a lot of fun to paint and a real challenge with all that white! You know I keep calling him a him, but I really don't know, my bird book doesn't tell me how to tell them apart. If anyone know, please let me know. To read more about this painting please visit my blog. http://georgedechiara.com/blog Visit my web site to see more of my work. http://georgedechiara.com If you would like to purchase this painting visit my auction here .

Higher Learning 5x7 inches Oil on Canvas Panel by George De Chiara Just about the time when I was painting this, my wife walked into the studio and asked "Is that my kindergarten diploma"? "Yep". Actually, it's her book too (James Joyce). I kind of like using books in my still life paintings. The idea came to me a few days ago. I actually used one in yesterday's painting as well. It really gives me the opportunity to introduce colors and patterns into the painting very easily. The lettering on them can be a bit tricky to handle. I don't want the letters to stand out too much. I had to be careful to cheat the values and edges to make them a bit lighter and softer. When it came to name this one, the first thing that came into my mind was "Higher Learning", with a heavy dose of tongue in cheekiness. To read more about this painting please visit my blog. http://georgedechiara.com/blog Visit my web site to see more of my work. htt...

Mary's Corn 5x7 inches Original Oil Painting by George De Chiara Nothing too original with the title on this one. A friend of ours, Mary, brought us some of the corn she grew this year. Before we ate it I wanted to paint it. I'm not sure if that influences the way it tastes or not. I have noticed that the food I've used in the past taste better if I liked the painting and much worst if I didn't. I suspect that has more to do with my satisfaction with the painting then the quality of the food. To read more about this painting please visit my blog. http://georgedechiara.com/blog Visit my web site to see more of my work. http://georgedechiara.com If you would like to purchase this painting visit my auction here .

Collecting Grapes 5x7 inch Oil on Canvas Panel By George De Chiara When I was thinking about a title for this one, I came up with this whole little story in my head where the duck is going around picking up all of the grapes he can find, storing them in the little holder behind him. Then he comes across this spot and there are more grapes then can fit in his holder and he has to pick and choose which ones he wants. After looking them over, he's made his choice. If you peer into the candle holder, it's right there next to him. To read more about this painting please visit my blog. http://georgedechiara.com/blog Visit my web site to see more of my work. http://georgedechiara.com If you would like to purchase this painting visit my auction here .

Enjoying The Breeze 5x7 inches Canvas Panel Original Oil Painting By George De Chiara I often wonder what the seagulls think about when they are standing on the beach. Is it, "Fish again, yuk..." or "Is that a hot dog floating in the water?" you just can't ever tell for sure. I think Pixar might have got it right in "Finding Nemo" when all the seagulls could say was "Mine!", I really think they think all of the food they see is theirs. To read more about this painting please visit my blog. http://georgedechiara.com/blog Visit my web site to see more of my work. http://georgedechiara.com If you would like to purchase this painting visit my auction here .

Afternoon Break 5x7 inches on Canvas panel Original Oil Painting by George De Chiara While out collecting reference, I came across a group of brown pelicans sitting on top of some pylons. Most of them where sleeping with their heads resting on their backs. I don't find that a very attractive way to paint them; they look like a ball of feathers. There was this one guy just sitting on his pylon watching the world go by, or maybe he was just waiting for the boats to come back. It's so hard to tell, pelican expressions are subtle at best. Either way, I snapped a few photos of him. I had hoped the sun would come out before he flew off, but it never did. I kind of glad it didn't now because I had a lot fun painting the subtle light in the scene. To read more about this painting please visit my blog. http://georgedechiara.com/blog Visit my web site to see more of my work. http://georgedechiara.com If you would like to purchase this painting visit my auction he...

Fishing Derby 3 inches x 5 inches Oil on canvas panel by George De Chiara Seagulls are constantly looking for food it seems like. No wonder why they are so hungry, all the searching is bound to work up an appetite! I photographed these guys over Memorial Day weekend in Corpus Christi. The beaches were very crowed and the seagulls spent most of there time flying overhead, occasionally diving into the gulf to snag a fish swimming too close the top of the water. They would only land when they needed a break or when they saw some food they could snap up. I remember being a little disappointed since I really wanted to get some good reference of seagulls on the beach for a few paintings I want to do. Looking back over my reference now I think have what I need. To read more about this painting please visit my blog. http://georgedechiara.com/blog Visit my web site to see more of my work. http://georgedechiara.com If you would like to purchase this painting visit my auction...

Cucumber Slices 5x7 inch Oil on Canvas Panel by George De Chiara A few days ago my wife made salad with dinner and when I walked by where she was cutting up the cucumber this idea popped into my head. Today I thought I would try to paint it. Paintings like this are fun since I can really be expressive with my brushstrokes. I always enjoy it when I can load up my brush with some color and lay it down on the canvas without touching it again. There's something about that that makes me happy and with an arrangement like this I'm afforded that opportunity often. To read more about this painting please visit my blog. http://georgedechiara.com/blog Visit my web site to see more of my work. http://georgedechiara.com If you would like to purchase this painting visit my auction here .

Bobbers and Lures 5x7 inch Oil on canvas panel by George De Chiara I've always enjoyed fishing, but can't seem to find the time to go much these days. I can't wait to introduce my little girl (8 months) to fishing one day. Hopefully she'll enjoy it and we can go together. In the mean time, I thought it might be fun to paint some of the gear in my tackle box. It's got such great color and shapes. I had a lot of fun setting this up and trying out different lures in my set up. Some of them brought back great memories of the fish I caught with them ( let me tell you about the one that got away...) and some of them I haven't had the chance to try out yet. To read more about this painting please visit my blog. http://georgedechiara.com/blog Visit my web site to see more of my work. http://georgedechiara.com If you would like to purchase this painting visit my auction here .

Ceramic Memories 5x7 inch Oil on canvas panel by George De Chiara This one is full of things with memories attached to them. The ribbons are from my wife's Jr. high school scrape book. They are for track, the red one in the background is for first place and the very faded purple one in the foreground is for second. The little ceramic love doves in the foreground was a gift from my mother to my wife and I when we got engaged. It's very fragile and has had it bumps over the years. I've had to glue it back together twice now and I'm not sure how many bumps it can take. To read more about this painting please visit my blog. http://georgedechiara.com/blog Visit my web site to see more of my work. http://georgedechiara.com If you would like to purchase this painting visit my auction here .

Leftovers 3x5 inch original Oil Painting by George De Chiara My wife came home from Sam's Club with this giant container of cherries, real it's more cherries then 2 people can eat before they go bad so I used a few for this painting. While setting up this still life I realized if you are not careful you can spend hours looking for just the right cherries to use. In the end I went with a more random approach and just grabbed the top few and tossed them into the bowl. I tried to let them fall naturally and really only had to adjust the ones on the outside of the bowl. To read more about this painting please visit my blog at http://georgedechiara.com/blog Visit my web site to see more of my work at http://georgedechiara.com If you would like to purchase this painting visit my auction here .

Correspondence With Tea 5x7 inch Original Oil Painting by George De Chiara I can't recall where I got this creamer, but I've had it forever. I know I packed it and moved it at least 5 times over the years and never actually used it. I can count on one hand how many times a year I have coffee and I prefer my tea cold with lemon. But, by golly I just couldn't get rid of it. I guess I kept it around all these year so I could paint it one day and today was that day. I (actually my wife and I) came up with the name because the creamer is sitting on top of a stack of thank you cards. Not sure if you can really tell that from my composition since it's cropped in so tight. If you would like to purchase this painting visit my auction here . Follow me on my blog ! Visit my website at GeorgeDeChiara.com

Peaking Out 3x5 inch Original Oil Painting By George De Chiara I had actually set up a few other lemons for this arrangement but once I looked through my view finder settled on this view pretty quickly. It gave a great opportunity to play with my colors in the shadows. It's always tempting to paint the shadows rather dark and life less, especially if I work from photos a lot. Paintings from life like this reminds me how much is going on in there and how much color there is to see. If you would like to purchase this painting visit my auction here . Follow me on my blog ! Visit my website at GeorgeDeChiara.com

Jelly Jar by George De Chiara 8 x 10 Watercolor on Paper This painting was a challenge from my wife when she held up this jar of jelly to the light and asked "Can you paint light?!?" Isn't this what painting is all about ;) But it did get me thinking about it and so I set up this little still life. I'm not sure I captured what she was asking, but it sure was fun to paint. The jelly, which is made by my wife's aunt and uncle, really refracts light in an amazing way. The shadows get these intense hits of red in them as the light bounces through the jar. It was very tempting to "push" this effect and while I might have a little, I tried to stay true to what was in front of me and not over do it. If you would like to purchase this painting visit my auction here . Bidding starts at $60 US. Follow me on my blog ! Visit my website at GeorgeDeChiara.com

Solo Act 4X6 Watercolor on Paper As soon as I put the light on this set up and saw that shadow go across the plate I knew this was going to be a fun painting. I really thought a lot about local color while painting this, especially on the ground. If you would like to purchase this painting visit my auction here . Bidding starts at $24.99 US. Follow me on my blog ! Visit my website at GeorgeDeChiara.com