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lorraine shirkus a painter s journal lorraine shirkus a painter s journal monday october 27 2025 on the way to crested butte posted by lorraine shirkus at 8 16 am 0 comments friday december 1 2023 a post at last mandarins this is one of my paintings at the holiday show open house at the hunt gallery 4225 mccullough san antonio tx saturday december 2nd from 1 00 5 00pm the show will be up until january 5th 2024 lots of terrific art will be on display on the walls and small works in baskets sculpture and jewelry too come enjoy some holiday cheer and check out work by some of the best artists in the southwest region you may find a special gift for a friend or family member or maybe something special for yourself hope to see you there posted by lorraine shirkus at 12 24 pm 0 comments labels 12 x 12 oil on canvas mounted on panel 2023 wednesday january 8 2020 last three still lifes of 2019 waiting for toast 11 x 14 oil on canvas panel apple on orange 8 x 8 oil on canvas panel big apple blues 8 x 8 oil on canvas panel posted by lorraine shirkus at 12 16 pm 3 comments monday november 4 2019 and it was all yellow lemon on orange 10 x 8 oil on canvas rift 8 x 10 oil on canvas lemon on lime 10 x 8 oil on canvas yoga 10 x 8 oil on canvas a star is born 10 x 8 oil on canvas on the green 10 x 8 oil on canvas lemons on a ledge 8 x 10 oil on canvas posted by lorraine shirkus at 12 02 pm 4 comments monday august 19 2019 fields of gold posted by lorraine shirkus at 10 58 am 4 comments labels 18 x 18 oil on canvas tuesday august 13 2019 low lying clouds sold low lying clouds 12 x 12 oil on canvas posted by lorraine shirkus at 1 30 pm 1 comments greenacres series greenacres 12 x 12 oil on panel willow at greenacres 12 x 12 oil on panel greenacres 3 16 x 20 oil on canvas posted by lorraine shirkus at 1 20 pm 1 comments remains of the day 1 and 2 remains of the day 24 x 30 oil on canvas remains of the day 2 30 x 40 oil on canvas posted by lorraine shirkus at 12 47 pm 1 comments two palms i started painting and drawing palm trees when i was in eighth grade in boston where i grew up not a palm tree in sight even dreamt of living the sailing life exploring tropical islands on a 50 foot sailboat these are los angeles palms but there are many varieties right here in san antonio posted by lorraine shirkus at 12 26 pm 1 comments labels 10 x 8 oil on canvas monday december 31 2018 sunrise pansies it s pansy season in south texas these valiant little flowers love the winter here high 20s 30s at night and even during the day it doesn t snow here very often but when it does their little faces look happy peeking out from a snowy blanket i have no idea how pansy became synonymous with delicate or fragile posted by lorraine shirkus at 1 00 pm 4 comments labels 8 x 10 oil on canvas saturday december 22 2018 esperanzas there are a few versions of this underneath esperanzas are trumpet shaped flowers and all my efforts to portray them as they really look ended up feeling static at some point it felt that this was really about complementary colors yellow and purple and about brush strokes mixing greyed down yellows and yellow tinted purples seemed like a fine enough intention for this one painting posted by lorraine shirkus at 8 02 pm 3 comments labels 10 x 8 oil on panel monday december 17 2018 bringle bottle blue same bottle when i paint a subject for the first time i find i could head off in multiple directions which of course can t be done on the same canvas sometimes the new iterations are better sometimes just different hadn t realized until after my last post that i d been away from my blog for two years i did continue to paint though posted by lorraine shirkus at 1 11 pm 1 comments labels 10 x 8 oil on panel sunday december 9 2018 bringle bottle gray this model is a porcelain bottle by cynthia bringle a wonderful penland ceramist i think i bought it around 1980 from a denver gallery this painting is in a small works holiday group show up now at the hunt gallery in san antonio posted by lorraine shirkus at 2 52 pm 5 comments labels 10 x 8 oil on panel tuesday november 22 2016 unsuspecting i loved david shevlino s workshop and everyone in it david is a very generous teacher and all around nice guy and every one in the group was so dedicated to improving their work my intention was to get looser and more interpretive but learning to paint figures was a challenge in itself so while my looseness level hasn t progressed much i learned a lot his workshop really bounced me out of an obsessive mindset i d been feeling i didn t have a compelling subject and wasn t happy with the way i should be handling paint trying to learn from an artist i admire all of those thoughts flew out the window and i just concentrated on painting without judging maybe the looseness i aspire to will just appear on its own posted by lorraine shirkus at 9 17 am 3 comments labels 10 x 8 oil on panel tuesday september 13 2016 waiting i think this is my fifth attempt at trying to paint from this reference photo i took a lot of shots of this model my daughter in this setting and want to continue working from them painting the figure in a non traditional way is really challenging so i signed up for a david shevlino workshop hoping some of his looseness and magic will rub off on me posted by lorraine shirkus at 11 59 am 4 comments labels 16 x 16 oil on canvas tuesday september 6 2016 some animal paintings posted by lorraine shirkus at 3 59 pm 5 comments labels all 5 x 7 oil on canvas sunday august 21 2016 the artist this painting is one i managed to fit in early on in the animal painting marathon i used a black and white reference photo of the artist francis bacon when i first saw his work in the late 60s it intrigued me and also repulsed me in a way but i was drawn to it for its intensity and originality i ve always wished i could be that bold and push past what seems safe and acceptable while that wish doesn t seem to materialize i enjoyed trying to infuse my impressions of him onto a portrait still photographing the animals and will post some at some point thanks so much for viewing and for your very nice comments posted by lorraine shirkus at 9 18 am 4 comments labels 12 x 12 oil on canvas mounted on panel thursday august 11 2016 rancho de taos church can t believe i haven t posted since april time flies this one was done in may as an exploration of color invented exaggerated color i used a reference photo taken by a photographer friend peter szarmach his work can be seen at www composingbeauty com i ve been painting a lot 25 5 x 7 animal paintings for my daughter s wedding i feel like i ve been painting them for months because i have posted by lorraine shirkus at 3 40 pm 5 comments labels 12 x 16 oil on canvas wednesday april 20 2016 facing west i ve done a lot of paintings recently but haven t wanted to post any of them or show them to anyone they just didn t look like me or i didn t recognize anything of me in them and then it seemed i should just accept that this is me this is the way i paint so i did and slowly it dawned on me that it was the paint itself or lack of painterliness that was bothering me i was using more and more paint with a little walnut oil but the paint still seemed brittle and flat when it dried not juicy this is painted over a previous image as an attempt to just putter it was fun to drag dark colors into and over lights and not worry about overshooting edges just keeping everything soft finding an edge if the composition seemed to need it most fun i ve had in awhile posted by lorraine shirkus at 7 47 pm 6 comments labels 20 x 20 oil on canvas thursday december 3 2015 sunny corner i found it easier here to think in terms of composition and light and not worry about details wise artist friends have told me i should allow viewers to supply details or complete unfinished areas in their imaginations i try to be conscious of that while painting but don t always practice what i m intending this will be one of my offerings in an upcoming holiday show at the hunt gallery in san antonio it s on saturday december 5th from 1 5pm there will be drinks and munchies and maybe even some very good deals posted by lorraine shirkus at 12 47 pm 5 comments labels 12 5 x 10 oil on canvas saturday november 14 2015 galveston wharf building 6 same building as in previous posts but this time i hoped to create a white painting my intention was to spell out very little but it may still need more work the actual painting looks better than this photo it was hard to shoot and color correct posted by lorraine shirkus at 10 34 am 5 comments labels 10 x 8 oil on canvas tuesday october 27 2015 galveston wharf building 3 and 4 same building in galveston as the previous post this building has different architectural elements and many windows some of which are arched and some a hybrid arch some areas of the facade are pretty clean while others are dark dirty and rusty it s one subject that can be cropped so many ways to look for different compositions colors and to play with scale this old girl probably has a lot of interesting stories to tell posted by lorraine shirkus at 2 55 pm 6 comments labels 8 x 10 oil on canvas sunday october 18 2015 galveston wharf building 1 and 2 these are two 8 x 10 studies of an old neglected building in galveston with 2 more in the works i ve been working on several larger canvases but am not yet satisfied with how they re developing switching gears usually disrupts whatever single minded obsessive rut i seem to fall into there are several layers on these some where everything is spelled out then scraped and softened then repainted sometimes i get too focused on what i m observing and don t pay enough attention to what s happening on the canvas working in layers feels natural to me but it was mostly to try to get things more right now i m watching the layers create optical grays and a skin or patina so that the paint itself seems as important as the subject these may need more work but they ll be set aside for a bit and looked at again later the other rut i m prey to is overworking and ruining posted by lorraine shirkus at 10 31 am 6 comments labels 8 x 10 oil on canvas wednesday july 8 2015 another day in paradise it was fun to concentrate on color and making marks and not think at all about accuracy i take photos of buildings all the time but i m not really interested in reproducing them on canvas i ve wasted a lot of time moaning about not having a subject i m excited about then it struck me that i could assemble different architectural features to give myself a structure to hang paint on i drew a b w composition in my sketchbook and used it as a model color was made up and maybe it s too simplistic but it s an experiment to alter my thought process practice straying from reality and try to get closer to a marriage of representation and abstraction posted by lorraine shirkus at 4 01 pm 9 comments labels 20 x 20 oil on canvas thursday july 2 2015 galveston beach side this was not a very interesting scene taken from a motel parking lot but i love palm trees and love painting them so i snapped it i thought it was finished months ago but it was pretty blah reworking was an opportunity to use my imagination which i forget to use sometimes because i tend to get hung up on accuracy and trying to be faithful to a scene going forward my intention is to focus more on color texture and paint manipulation and to make stuff up posted by lorraine shirkus at 4 30 pm 4 comments labels 18 x 12 oil on canvas saturday may 30 2015 piper sold this painting was included in a gulf coast themed group show done from a photo taken in galveston posted by lorraine shirkus at 1 18 pm 3 comments labels 11 x 10 oil on arches paper for oil saturday may 9 2015 working galveston this painting is from a photo taken on the working side of galveston island it will be included in a hunt gallery group show based on the gulf coast opening may 14th it was a very complicated scene with so much going on i kept getting lost it was great practice on editing and simplifying posted by lorraine shirkus at 6 46 am 5 comments labels 22 x 30 oil on canvas friday april 17 2015 new morning and crossing new morning 16 x 16 oil on panel crossing 22 x 30 oil on canvas posted by lorraine shirkus at 12 01 pm 3 comments saturday april 11 2015 headed home it s not often that i m stopped in traffic on the freeways of san antonio it was dusk with car lights coming on and the city buildings haloed in the distance posted by lorraine shirkus at 7 33 am 4 comments labels 36 x 36 oil on canvas monday april 6 2015 patchwork city sold and laundry day patchwork city 22 x30 oil on canvas laundry day 16 x 16 oil on panel posted by lorraine shirkus at 7 38 am 4 comments older posts home subscribe to posts atom followers about me lorraine shirkus san antonio texas i ve been involved in some form of art and design since i could hold a crayon in spare time from graphic design my artwork was mostly semi abstract and involved either a lithography or etching press my transition to representational painting in oils is relatively recent and my goal for this blog is to get feedback chart progress and speed growth i would love to hear from you for purchase info please email lorraine lorraineshirkus com view my complete profile to see previous work please visit http www lorraineshirkus com enter your email address if you d like images emailed to you delivered by feedburner blog archive 2025 1 october 1 on the way to crested butte 2023 1 december 1 2020 1 january 1 2019 6 november 1 august 5 2018 4 december 4 2016 6 november 1 september 2 august 2 april 1 2015 13 december 1 november 1 october 2 july 2 may 2 april 4 february 1 2014 14 december 1 june 2 may 1 april 2 march 2 february 3 january 3 2013 32 november 3 october 4 september 4 august 3 july 5 april 1 march 6 february 4 january 2 2012 32 december 2 november 4 october 8 september 2 august 2 july 2 june 4 may 2 april 2 march 1 february 1 january 2 2011 68 december 7 november 3 october 2 september 3 august 2 july 6 june 4 may 8 april 6 march 14 february 9 january 4 2010 56 december 6 november 8 october 10 september 15 august 17 artist blogs carol marine s painting a day qiang huang a daily painter margaret dyer laurel daniel oil paintings helen cooper daily painting carol schiff studio carol carmichael paints karin jurick jane minter s sketchbook david shevlino fine art julie davis studio joyce washor carol flatt art linda popple studio notes jean townsend s daily painting south of north studio art by kathy cousart tony allain s daily paintings suzanne stewart a painting journal by virginia floyd some texas artists like to paint johncookpaints aaron lifferth powered by blogger