Maggie Parr Art & Design

New Work & Upcoming Events

Two weeks ago I took a 4-day painting workshop with Jove Wang. Besides being an amazing painter, he’s an excellent teacher. I learned so much in that short amount of time. I finally know how to capture the spirit of a painting in less than an hour. Not to mention I actually understand values now; and temperature. I have so much more to learn, but that will come with practice.

On our last day, the Palos Verdes peninsula was covered in fog. At first I didn’t think there was anything to paint in that grey muck — but then I looked down at the rocky shoreline and saw all these subtleties in color and mood. With freezing fingers, and water dripping off my glasses, I whipped out a painting in an hour (1st image). Then a few days later, back in my studio, I re-did the painting from a photograph (2nd image), and came up with something slightly different. I never thought I’d care about rocks in water, but after this experience, I feel like I could paint rocky shorelines for the rest of my life and be happy!

rocksinfog

rocksinfog2


I recently completed a new Portrait of Love for Artist Knox, one of the sweetest guys you could ever meet. He adores his dog Bumpy Johnson. Don’t you love it when people give last names to their pets? If you ever need your dog groomed, he’s the best: http://www.artistgrooms.com/. He also has his own show on Animal Planet, “Beverly Hills Groomer”: http://animal.discovery.com/tv/beverly-hills-groomer/. It was so fun to paint his portrait — his spirit was so bright it just leapt into the painting and stayed.

I’ve discovered that I really enjoy painting animals and people together. It’s the love between them that interests me — how do I capture that? Each one is so different.

Artist Knox and Bumpy Johnson


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