Charlene Swift's Paintings

I painted the background first. The bird was the next thing I focused on and then I put spots of color on the apple to relate it to the bir...

The still life of the orange reflecting on the mayo bottle was incredible. But I decided to tone everything down a bit because the orange...

The joys of autumn! I loved the way the bottle softened and magnified the pumpkins. Almost ghostly.

Well what it lacks in name, I think it makes up for in form. I really liked the way this painting developed. I didn't fiddle too much w...

I started this painting as I usually do using a value sketch on the board using burnt sienna as my only color. I feel I could have eliminat...

I do not use black on my palette. A lot of artists feel the same. It seems too harsh so I mix Alizarin Crimson, Ultramarine Blue, and Raw Um...

This painting sat for a while. I couldn't put my finger on the problem but eventially it surfaced. The original flower was pale and was...

I found that little green jar at Goodwill. It probably isn't a collectible Vaseline but if it is, what a great deal for 99 cents!

Several of my minature paintings will be on display at Cafe Gambino for the months of September and October. The opening for the show will...

Looking down on the bottles meant the sides of the bottles would not be parallel to the side of the gessoboard. I had to keep that in mind ...

Yes, I have been bottle shopping. I found the brown bottle in an antique shop on the discount shelf! And the other, which contains oil to ...

Well the cookie cutter horse isn't really blue- it's metal. It does catch a lot of blue from that deep blue milk of magnesia bottle...

Since this painting has a bit more compostion going on than most of my small paintings, I decided to sketch it in first with charcoal on my...

Question. How does a hexagon recede in a distance. I am familiar with a 4 sided box perspective but I don't think this one follows the ...

This was a fun one to do. I enjoyed painting the mandarins because there was such a variation of color from the shadow to the highlights as ...

I was intriqued by the light going through the amber bottle.  The influence of color was more intense on the horse than how I have painted i...

I admit when my mom and I played that game, our arms would be opened much wider. But the little salt shaker ( who is missing her pepper part...

The challenge of the week:  paint my favorite veggie. I know there are two veggies in the painting but the summer squash looked so cute whe...

The Self Portrait challenge. Not something I would have chosen, Lord knows but here it is. The face seems a little wide but perhaps it need...

Ok, I played with this thing long enough to try to make it look like the photo. Even though it doesn't look like me, well maybe some pa...