Monkey and Bluebird Cleveland Zoo Animal

Monkey and Bluebird  Oil on cradled wood  8" x 8"  NFS

The background is a variation on a William Morris tapestry.  I love the combination of monkey and sophisticated pattern here.  It's not unlike my cats on pattern paintings, but the monkey somehow ups the fun factor. 

Lemur from Cleveland Zoo painting

Lemur  Oil on wood  8" x 8" NFS

I was so busy shooting pictures at the zoo, I neglected to take down the names of animals, I think this is some kind of Lemur?  It's my favorite so far from this series.  If you know what this animal is, please tell me in the comments!

Pink Cosmos painting of pink flowers

Pink Cosmos  Oil on cradled wood  8" x 8"  NFS

What to paint, what to paint?!  It mighth've been a pair of lazy camels but I opted for the pink blooms in front of their enclosure.

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Bears at Cleveland Zoo painting by Hoeptner

Bears  Oil on cradled wood  8" x 8"  NFS

Two new subjects for me:  Bears and water.  Painting water is hard! Bears are fun though...you'll see more new subjects soon-These bears live at the Cleveland Zoo where I managed to shoot over 400 reference photos last week.   Don't know how I ever managed before digital cameras came along...  too much fun.

Ways of Cat 4 painting

Ways of Cat 4  Oil on cradled wood  12" x 12"  NFS

Working in a series can present unique challenges!  Living with the first ones made design choices for this one more clear.    

My Husband and I went to the Cleveland Zoo last week and I might try to paint something besides cats for a minute.   

Ways of Cat 3 painting

Ways of Cat 3  Oil on cradled wood  12" x 12"  NFS

My inner design junky is finally getting a fix.  "Ways of Cat 3" compliments "Ways of Cat 2" nicely...and I'm looking forward to painting the fourth.

Ways of Cat 2 painting

Ways of Cat 2  Oil on cradled wood  12" x 12"  NFS

I'm indulging my "inner design junky" this week...  This is the second in a series of four.  I'm afraid the first in the series falls short of what I had in mind (see previous post) maybe I'll have another go at it when I have a better idea what I'm doing.  (It's good as a stand alone painting, just not as part of this series!)  This painting "Ways of Cat 2" is much closer to my original idea-- bright designer friendly colors with flat simple patterns and 1 three dimensional Coco-kitteh.

Ways of Cat 1 painting

Ways of Cat 1  Oil on cradled wood  12" x 12" NFS

The One that Got Away cat and bird painting

The One that Got Away  Oil on cradled wood  8" x 8"  SOLD

Something a little different.  Maybe more to follow.

The Dragon Cat small original Hoeptner oil painting

The Dragon Cat  Oil on cradled wood, 10" x 10"  NFS  

The light here was so pretty, cool tones on the left and warm on the right.  Coco's gray fur is endlessly interesting to paint.

Galerie Kornye West + American Art Review

The full page ad for American Art Review

Quick brag!  I am honored to be invited to participate the 11th Annual Invitational show at Galerie Kornye West in Forth Worth, TX.  It's a wonderful gallery and this is their biggest show of the year. 

"The Good Boy," "Pink Swirl Bouquet" (also used in ad) "Yellow Eyed Cat" and
"Tuesday Hydrangeas" will be available at the Galerie Kornye West Fall Gallery Night Invitational show.

The owner, Paula Kornye Tillman happened to email me a preview of the full page ad they will place in "American Art Review."  Say what?!  My art in American Art Review??!!  It's a dream come true!  She gave me permission to post it here but you can bet I'll be talkin' about this again when it hits the stands.   Thank you, Paula!! 
If you are in the Fort Worth area, do see this show!  Click link above for the details.   

Daisies on Gray painting

Daisies on Gray  Oil on cradled wood  8" x 8"  SOLD

Deco Layla striped cat on art deco pattern

Deco Layla  Oil on cradled wood  10" x 10"  SOLD

It's another cat painting!  Snarky Layla on an art deco background. She's more difficult to paint than gray Coco cat.  But I think I did justice to her stripes and white chin this time around.  I'm hesitant to say my art block is over for fear of jinxing myself, but your comments on yesterday's post were greatly appreciated, thank you.

Tulip Forest Cat + a mini-melt down painter's block

Tulip Forest Cat  Oil on cradled wood  8" x 10" 

I had some kind of mini-melt down/painter's block last week.  My Nephews were scheduled to stay over night Thursday (first time stay over) and doncha know I was excited.  I tried to paint on Tuesday and it was awful.  It was a bad painting day and I had to wipe it.  Feeling vaguely intimidated but still excited about seeing my nephews, I applied myself to admin tasks.

These guys are the bee's knees.

They arrived and we had great fun.  By Friday I was completely wiped out.  After recovering, painting somehow missed my to-do list. It was suddenly crucially important to have an area in my home designated for framing.  This lead to a three day spectacle of cleaning and re-arranging.  Yes, apparently my meltdowns can include cleaning, bonus?  But my bad painting day on Tuesday was taking it's toll.  Honestly, I forgot how bad a bad painting day could be. (Not counting the days where one paints and doesn't realize "it's bad" until much later, LOL)  ......while re-arranging, I had the most dreadful sense of having lost all artistic ability, not fun!  Finally today, I painted "Tulip Forest Cat" thinking it would be good to return to familiar subjects (Coco kitty! Tulips!) and it was. I'm happy with it.  Next time my little nephews come over, I must make a concerted effort to not be such a spaz.