European Sculpture Court

24x18 oil on cradled panel

Ask DK Gallery about this painting

How about a little break from the big city to visit the cool and quiet interior of the Met? This view played into two of my favorites - the museum and an overhead view. This is a beautiful space at the Met. All that glass with natural light pouring in and a view to the greenery of Central park. I got there at the right time on this day!

With the Wyndhams

14x14 oil on linen

Been in a museum mood lately. It seems a good subject to paint a little larger. I keep hearing I should paint bigger but I worry that my subjects are rather intimate sorts of settings that won't lend themselves to large works. Who wants a giant chef in a busy kitchen on their wall? But I am scaling up to give several of my galleries more options. I do think I have a contemporary feel at least, and want to push that more so I can maybe hang these larger pieces on cradled panels and not frame them.

In this piece, I painted over a bad start that I had scraped and I used some palette knife just to add a little texture and move color around the background especially. I used my fingers some too.

I sometimes wonder if its cheating to use famous pieces of art in my own art. If people like the artist featured, for example, John Singer Sargent, then they have to like my painting. But, what I most like is to paint people admiring the masters, and doing what I love to do myself.

Anything But Pedestrian

10x20 oil on canvas panel
sold


A walk down Congress Avenue in Austin. Its generally not a mundane tour of the city. :-)

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Consider a fine art print for a holiday gift this year - 

16x12" giclee on fine art paper - signed limited edition of 20

$80 incl. shipping
16 still available

étudiant des arts - Giclee GIVEAWAY

And the winner is Jane C. - CONGRATULATIONS!

What fun this was! Thanks so much for writing in and telling me what you liked. The breakdown was interesting - the winning theme was "art patrons". Next were laundry scenes, birds-eye views and city/restaurant. What great feedback!

The painting below is the one now featured as my first ever limited edition print. It is a 16x12 giclee print on fine art paper, signed and limited to only 20 prints.

$80 limited edition (20 prints)
16x12 giclee on fine art paper

Since so many like the museum paintings I wanted to revisit this little "copiste" in the National Gallery. I can't seem to get enough of her at work copying one of Berthe Morisot's lovely works (The Mother and Sister of the Artist 1869/70). Unfortunately, this image has some glare on it and I will replace it as soon as I can get a good photo in daylight. I finished up too late tonight. Its been a hectic week. I was frantically working on paintings for a group show opening tomorrow night at the Russell Collection. "Femme" features all their women artists. I took in 9 paintings - some larger scale than usual for me. I had good news this evening. Two already sold! What a feeling, especially after lots of angst over one in particular!

Now, if you'd like to purchase a limited edition print, email me and I can send you a invoice via paypal. $80 includes shipping.
If you would like to own the original - send me an email!

Portrait Society

10x12 oil on panel
Available at Tidewater Gallery

I've been working on some commissions lately which I can share with you soon. For now, we'll keep looking at the new works available at Tidewater until the end of my show July 14th.

Student of the Arts

10x12 oil on panel

SOLD

This is it! I'm packing my bags and heading to coastal NC early Friday morning. The opening reception will be fun I think and it will be really nice to see all 25 paintings hung together. It was a big undertaking, doing a solo show! Its going to be nice to celebrate now after all my hard work. If you are in the area - please stop by and say hi!

You can purchase a show catalog for $15 and see all the paintings as well as a couple of pages where I show work in progress and talk about my techniques. This painting is one of those demonstrations. And its one of my favorites for this upcoming show. 

"Vignettes"

An exhibition of small works by Robin Cheers

Tidewater Gallery

107 N. Front Street

Swansboro, NC

910-325-0660

Opening reception Friday, June 15, 5-8 pm

L'Arlesienne Lady

12x16 oil on panel

Ask Edward Montgomery Fine Art about this painting.

Just shipped this piece off to Carmel. I haven't been doing much but preparing for my upcoming show. This week I am framing the last, boxing and going to ship. Then I can breathe a sigh of relief that my part is done and I can slow down for summer. Its heating up in Texas. A little weekend on the coast of NC will be a lovely break - opening June 15th. If you're in the area of Swansboro, I'd love to meet you in person!

The people above are reading about the Van Gogh painting of Marie Ginoux which is at the Met in NYC. I didn't make it into the museum on my recent trip. Our days were so full of painting that we were exhausted by the late afternoon and not good for much more than a delicious dinner and a glass of wine. One of these days, I need to make a trip with my family and be a real tourist in the city. Really, there is so much to do and see, its difficult to do it even in a long weekend.

The Grand Salon

24x36 oil on linen

Available in Dallas at the upcoming Russell Collection Presents... show.

Definitely large for me! Scaling up is hard, but overall I am pretty pleased with this painting. I did enjoy the process after all and by working in sections, the brushwork remained loose and interesting. The scene shows one of the large galleries in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC. Its one of the loveliest places to view fine art. And the collections, like this roomful of Manet, are amazing.

Wishing you and yours a wonderfully blessed Thanksgiving.

Two for Toulouse

14x11 oil on panel

Ask Studio 47 about this painting.

I'm not sure if others will like this as well as I do. But I needed to loosen up the other day after working on (and failing to complete) my triptych.

I get a little bored painting the gallery scenes when so many are white on white. So I converted this photo to grayscale and made up my own color scheme. I really tried to push the color and brush work. It felt really good.
I painted this corner of the Met more realistically too a week or so ago. I will post that one tomorrow. But I think I will do more paintings from black and white photos - I enjoyed my own interpretation, creating a more colorful, yet cohesive scene while I focused on values. Something I can always use practice with.

Pick Up Artist

6x6 oil on panel
$100 + $6.50 s/h - sold

Back to the easel today and I wanted to get back to these smaller works too. School has begun and I have my days to devote to painting again. I have to say though that the longish break was good for me. I think that when one focuses too much on artwork, you lose focus of what is important in art work. I.e. - the joy. So once again I am vowing to not take myself too seriously.

The above image is from the Met and features a Toulouse Lautrec painting - The Englishman (William Tom Warrener) at the Moulin Rouge, 1892.

Renaissance Men

12x12 oil on panel

This was done last week. I have been painting some, in snatches. I don't know the lady in the portrait on the wall...reminds me of Lady Macbeth. Anyway, the subject is from the National Gallery of Art in D.C.

In the free time I have today and this weekend, I am going to try to organize this awful mess I call a studio. Didn't I just do this?

Docent Tour

20x20 oil on linen

I am not sure this painting is "right" so I thought I'd share it and get some feedback. Please give me your honest critique!

I am having such doubts of late. But thank you all for your wonderful comments and support. There is nothing like a support group to let me know my doubts are natural and expected. And given that my day was spent in research, talking to insurance advisers and taking my husband for more blood work, I have not had much time to think in the right brain.
The main thing I love about this painting is Mary Cassatt's painting "Little Girl in a Blue Armchair" and I will no doubt put it in a few more paintings in the future. Her relaxed pose makes me feel more relaxed.

A Corner of the National Gallery

14x11 oil on panel

You might remember that I did a scene like this on cardboard a week or so ago. This time I painted on regular gessoboard but I wanted to keep that "warm" undertone that the cardboard created so I toned it with raw sienna. I also changed the players here a little - I liked this woman's long red coat and how it complemented the tones in Toulouse's painting, "A Corner of the Moulin de la Galette."

A Corner of the National Gallery

17x12 oil on cardboard

This is very much in the style of Toulouse-Lautrec. If you hadn't yet guessed, he is one of my favorites. I had this cardboard - something called museum board actually - laying around my studio and I wanted to try to paint on it directly like Henri did so long ago. Its a very thin cardboard, and somewhat brittle. It will crack easily. But it was a fun experiment with - I left a lot of the board showing through the paint, using it almost entirely to represent the floor of the gallery.
The painting the art lovers are looking at is "A Corner of the Moulin de la Galette" by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.

PS - I want to send a huge thank you to all my friends out there who had such high praise for yesterday's piece. You really made my day! Its so nice to have feedback and to be part of this new-age artist's community.

French Masters Gallery

30x40 oil on linen

This painting took me about 3 days of work. Its big and there are a lot of people in it. I think I spent about an hour per person. Pretty amazing since they don't have faces! I rarely work this large for the simple reason that I can't do it all at once. I don't like starting and stopping on paintings. I feel they lose some of their magic that way. My inspiration fades and I am ready to move on to something new.
This is actually two weeks old now. My daughter was home sick all last week and now I'm suffering either her virus or cedar fever and feeling pretty puny. I certainly have missed painting and I hope to get more done this week.

One Man Show

8x12 oil on panel

Ask Castle Gallery about this painting

A group of women chatting, women on the walls and one gentleman perusing the artwork. Is he waiting for his wife to finish her chat? Is he alone and truly cares about the art? Is he bored? Is he inspired? That is what I want my viewers to decide for themselves.

The more I think about what I wrote on Saturday, about the paintings having that fresh look, (unfinished) the more I realize that is what the public didn't like about the work at that time. They thought it was incomplete and haphazard. The Salon at that time always valued art that had been labored over and was very intense. Monet's sunrise "impression" was like a study and was decried for the most part.
Now many artists embrace that simplicity of stroke and spontaneity as they seek to loosen up and paint their impressions.

Collector's Corner

18x24 oil on canvas
purchase info to come

I worked on this over several days. I prefer to paint alla prima, but sometimes its just not possible. And once I had the figures painted, the rest was like, well, painting several small paintings. Some of them unknown and were from the gallery photos, some are from magazines, featuring some contemporary artists whom I admire. I hope if they recognize their work, they will appreciate it in the spirit it is intended.

Being an artist, I sometimes get access to those back rooms where art is stored and its a pretty neat place to visit! If you go to Austin Galleries though, there is no mystery. Its ALL out. But it could take you weeks to go through all the work. Its an amazing gallery.

A Kodak Moment

6x6 oil on panel
$100 + $12 s/h

Close Up

6x6 oil on panel
$100 + $12 s/h - sold

A young couple scrutinizing Seurat's painting "A Sunday on la Grande Jatte." I have the same need when I get to see masters' paintings in real life. I want to get right up and inspect the brushwork and its all I can do not to touch. I once set off an alarm in a museum in FL because I was too close to a Monet.

I had the happy honor of being chosen a finalist again in the Raymar Fine Art Contest for the month of April. I submitted the painting below, which is now available at Castle Gallery in Fort Wayne.



Happy Memorial Day!

Gallery Opening

6x6 oil on panel
$100 + $12 s/h - sold

Loved this couple checking out the work in a local gallery. I really do like this subject. I think one of the things I like best about it sometimes is the spotlight effects and the multiple shadows that are cast from the overhead lighting. And the poses of the people, absorbed in art.

Note: I've had to go up on my shipping - its increased along with all the other postage/gas pricing. Sorry.