Flamingo-Summer Painting

Summer is here! I finally had some time between chasing two one year olds around to actually finish a painting. As I hadn't painted in a while, I chose to work on a relatively simple image in oils to get back into the swing of things, as they say. I went through a phase in elementary school where I was obsessed with flamingos and chose them as the topic of various reports and projects, so this is also kind of a nostalgic piece. I've now moved on to a larger, more challenging painting, which I'll hopefully finish in a few weeks.

"Flamingo Blues" oil paint by Katherine Lehr, June 2016

A Portrait and Some Nursery Paintings

It's been a long time since I've uploaded images of my art, but that's what happens when you have twins! So here we go: 

The first image is an oil painting of my twins at five months old practicing sitting up on their own. I like capturing the moment of them sitting together and practicing a new skill while also leaving the viewer to consider what they might be observing so intently. It definitely takes longer to finish a painting these days, but the boys are certainly helping to provide some inspiration for my art.

The next set of images are acrylic paintings of children's animal illustrations that I created for the twins' nursery. These are not serious works (though truly, I wouldn't categorize most of my art as "serious" anyway) but I had fun thinking of the babies while working on these.

"Turtle and Friend-Nursery" 2015 by K. Lehr

"Giraffe Family-Nursery" 2015 by K. Lehr

"Elephant's Red Balloon-Nursery" 2015 by K. Lehr

"Owls-Nursery" 2015 by K. Lehr

"Monkey Twins-Nursery" 2015 by K. Lehr

Snail Painting

"Gastropod with Shell" oil paint,  2014

A few weeks ago we had a little snail friend who kept showing up on our front porch (much to the delight of our dog Zoe). I know that a snail is really just a gastropod with a nice spiral shell (those without shells are commonly referred to as "slugs"--eek!), but nonetheless I think that their little squishy bodies are visually interesting and full of texture. The shell almost looks like a large hat that doesn't really belong, which in my opinion makes the snail a whimsical creature. Of course the actual colors of our snail, along with most of the snails that I've seen, are significantly less vibrant than the ones I decided to use in my painting--but this is part of the whimsy! Moreover, while we're still having beautiful sunny summer days here in Colorado, I just wasn't feeling the neutral colors and pale "pukey" shades of green that would have been a more realistic snail color palette.

Bull Moose Painting

"Moose in Lake" oil paint, 2014

A few weeks ago we saw a female moose and her calf while hiking on the Isabelle Glacier Trail near the Brainard Lake Recreation Area. While I've lived in Colorado for about seven years, this is only the second time I've seen a moose in this state (seems like they were everywhere in Maine). Our "moose encounter" inspired my most recent oil painting. However, since I love the antlers on bull moose, I decided to paint a male rather than the female moose and calf we saw while hiking (see photo below). I had some fun playing around with the colors and slightly abstracting the markings and shadows on the moose's body.  The dark lines of the shadows around the bright colors on the body vaguely remind me of stained glass windows, which wasn't my initial intention, but I like how it turned out. 

More Summer Painting: Owl #2

"Short-eared Owl" acrylic, 2014

Since I enjoyed working on my first owl painting (a barn owl as seen below), I thought: why not do another owl painting? There is something about owl faces and the line of their wings that really draws my eye. I am not a bird-watcher or raptor expert, but I believe that this one is a Short-eared Owl, which are more commonly seen in the UK. 

Here are the two owl paintings together:

 

African Elephant Painting: for Tanzania Trip Fundraiser

My husband and two other teachers will be taking a group of high school students on a trip to Tanzania in June. They plan to climb Kilimanjaro and then volunteer at an orphanage in Tanzania. As the trip is expensive, they are doing some fundraisers to offset the costs for the students. I painted an African elephant to donate to their silent auction fundraiser. I titled this one “Les Larmes d’Eléphant” (elephant tears) because it looks as though the elephant is crying. Although, the part of the painting that I'm drawn to the most is actually the smooth contrast created by the light hitting the ear and the shadows around it rather than the eye of the elephant. So why is the title in French? I prefer how the sounds of the words flow together in French versus the more chopped up sound of the title in English. In some ways, this painting goes with the elephant painting (view here) that I did last summer. However, I think that this has much higher contrast and less of a pastel look.

"Les Larmes d'Eléphant" acrylic, 2014

Photography

I realized that I hadn't posted any photography in a while. I guess with digital photography it doesn't feel like I am creating something with my hands the way it used to when I would develop images in the dark room. However, there is still something to be said for creating a unique image, digitally or otherwise. Here are some landscapes, botanicals and portraits from this summer. Click on any photograph to scroll through photos one at a time.

"Bamboo Eye" 2013

"John Dunn Bridge" 2013

"From the Rio Grande" 2013 

"Petals" 2013

"Rocky Mountain Shadows" 2013

"Storm on the Rio Grande Gorge" 2013

"Animal Sanctuary Tiger" 2013

"Leaf Drops" 2013

"Cactus Stars" 2013

Bighorn Sheep Painting

Fun fact: bighorn sheep have oval-shaped pupils.

When I was looking at various reference images of big horn sheep (I've seen them up close, but it has usually been while driving up to ski, so I don't have any of my own close-up photos), I thought that the eyes had been photoshopped. Apparently, they really do have pupils that look more like a jelly bean than a circle. Actual bighorn sheep are better camouflaged in the Rocky Mountain landscape, but I wanted this guy to pop out, so I enhanced the contrast by making the sheep more colorful than any bighorns you might see up in the mountains.

"Colorado Bighorn" acrylic, 2013

Beginning of Summer Paintings

I just completed a fairly large (30"x 24") tiger painting, which I like, and a very small koi fish painting which I didn't really enjoy. I've decided that I seem to prefer working on larger canvases more than small ones, although what I consider "large" is probably much smaller than what some painters prefer. We went to visit the Wild Animal Sanctuary in Colorado and I took a ton of photos of the tigers, lions, bears, and other rescue animals. The tigers seemed to be the most visually striking, so I decided to start with this painting.

"In the Grass" acrylic, 2013

"Koi Fish Ribbons" acrylic, 2013

Experimental Elephant Painting

"Elephant Sunset" acrylic, 2013

I originally planned on doing a realistically colored elephant with some plants and other nature details in the background, but of course I got pretty bored with that approach. Instead, I played around with adding color to the elephant in such a way that it almost looks like I used chalk pastel instead of acrylic paint. I decided to do a fiery sunset background because I liked the contrast it made with the pale pastel colors on the elephant. I'm not sure that this painting turned out exactly as I would have liked, but it was certainly an interesting painting to work on.

Barn Owl Painting

I have my mom to thank for inspiring this painting. She sent me photos of some animals that she had seen while out in Tucson, Arizona. I was immediately drawn to the photos of the barn owl and decided to make this the subject of my next painting. I kept the colors fairly close to the real owl rather than adding or exaggerating the color as I often do in my paintings of other animals. I liked the contrast of the bright white owl glowing against the blue sky, so I tried to keep that feeling in my painting.

"Tucson Barn Owl" acrylic, 2013

New Dog Portrait: Jackson

I really enjoy painting dog portraits-so here's another one! This is a recent commissioned portrait of a Border Collie mix named Jackson. As Jackson is a black and white dog, I painted him in shades of blue and used warm colors for the background to make the painting more vibrant.

"Jackson" acrylic on canvas, 2012

Here is a pic posted by Jackson's person of the "Jackson" and "Bacchus" paintings hanging together in their home (I did a painting of Bacchus last year):

Sea Turtle #2 Painting

I've completed another sea turtle painting-this time for my brother's birthday. He really likes sea turtles. Maybe this runs in the family? I decided to create a composition that was more of a view from above rather than the side view that I used in my first sea turtle painting. I also chose a warm-colored sea turtle to create more of a juxtaposition with the cool-colored water. In contrast, the other sea turtle painting that I did ended up focusing on a very limited color palette and consequently the completed painting wasn't as visually appealing for me.  Happy Birthday Jon!

"Red Sea Turtle" acrylic on canvas, 2012

Island Rooster Painting

I finally got a chance to finish the rooster painting I've been working on. We saw a ton of roosters walking around the island of Kauai. At first it was really strange to see a rooster walking across the sand at the beach, but it became commonplace after we'd been there a few days. I really enjoyed how colorful some of the roosters were, so I decided to do a painting of a Kauai rooster by the beach. I'd love to live on Kauai for a few months every year and just paint!

"Island Rooster" acrylic on canvas,  2012

Llama Painting!

So, I actually painted this a month or so ago, but I have been too busy to post it until now. I also have a fun landscape that I'm currently working on, which I'll post soon as well. I did an internship working with llamas in high school and I must say, they are really interesting animals. I love their facial expressions and funny feet.

"Llama" acrylic on canvas, 2012

New Dog Painting

New painting from this winter! This was a commissioned painting for our friend Mike. I actually finished the painting in November, but as it was intended for a surprise Christmas present, I waited to post it until now. This is an acrylic portrait painting of Bacchus the dog. I've painted a lot of cool colored dog portraits, so it was fun to paint a warm colored pup!

"Bacchus" 2011, acrylic on canvas

Holiday Cards!

I decided it would be fun to turn two of my favorite animal paintings into holiday cards! I thought this would be nicer than actually forcing our dog Zoe to wear a Santa hat while I took cheesy holiday photos. Yes, I admit I do like a few cheesy holiday things, including listening to classic Bing Crosby holiday songs.

Blue Zoe Santa

Smiling Pig Santa

Santa Pig Cards

 Blue Zoe Santa Cards

         

  Want a few holiday cards? Check them out in my Etsy Shop

New Painting from this Weekend

I've just finished up a rainforest art project with my 4th grade students and I was inspired to create this scarlet macaw painting.

  
                                                                    View in my Etsy Shop

Blue Zoe Series!

We adopted Zoe from the Boulder Humane Society over four years ago. She is my running companion and also one of my favorite painting subjects. She loves having her portrait painted. Well alright, so she's not really aware that she's had her portrait painted nor does she realize that I have turned her into a blue dog, but I don't think she'd mind.

"Blue Zoe #1" 2009,  acrylic on canvas

"Blue Zoe #2" 2010,  acrylic on canvas

 

"Blue Zoe #3" 2011,  acrylic on canvas