Stacy Weitz Minch

6x6", water mixable oil on canvas board, 2/28/15 SOLD I've been seeing these potted primroses in the stores lately, and I just can't believe it's almost time to be planting flowers again! We've had the mildest winter, and I feel so lucky to have gotten through it with so little discomfort. Still.. I'm definitely looking forward to spring! This little primrose was a little tricky to paint. I've always found plants difficult to draw or paint--they're just so detailed and intricate... and it's really not clear what they're "supposed" to look like. When I draw a human head, I can clearly see whether it looks right or not--proportions are so obvious in that scenario--but the plant world is a little less uniform, a little less standardized. In ways that's a good thing when you're painting--but for me, it seems I tend to get lost in all the detail and lose my reference point because it's all just more of the same. A

7x5", water mixable oil on canvas board, 2/27/15 SOLD I recently read something another daily painter had said--that she often paints the same subject several days in a row, getting better every time. I'm not sure I got any better this time, but I did get faster (it didn't hurt to be filling a much smaller canvas). Anyway, I've always really admired painters who can make glass look believable in a painting. There are so many different reflected colors and values, it can really turn into a mess if you aren't careful! I'm working on it... In this one I stayed away from the pthalo blue (a beautiful turquoise color, but very powerful and a little scary to paint with). I like both versions, though this one does lack the turquoise quality that's present in the actual glass.

8x10", water mixable oil on panel, 2/26/15 I took a trip to the thrift store this afternoon to find some painting inspiration (and another bread machine... They always have about a zillion of them at DI, and ours recently gave out) oh man, I need to stay away. There were so many cool glass items (I came home with quite a few), and I've been wanting to try out some glass still lifes. So here's my first one. A little bigger painting this time--because I felt like switching it up a bit.

6x6", water mixable oil on ampersand gessobord, 2/24/15 I got some new painting panels yesterday, and just had to try them out before I went to bed last night. I really like how these grapes turned out. Sometimes I feel really intimidated by what I'm about to paint, but if I just try to forget what I'm painting and see it only for the value and color I see in each space, it usually works out alright. I'm pretty happy with how these grapes turned out.  Daily painting has been so great for me so far (best New Year's resolution ever!). I'm allowing myself to try painting anything and everything I want to, without feeling like it's a huge investment of time and money if it doesn't work out (goodness, what a bummer when you toil for weeks over a large canvas only to realize that it should really be in the garbage can). Much of the intimidation I've felt about painting is dissolving. With small, daily paintings, I can try something new every

6x6", water mixable oil on canvas board, 2/24/15

I've been trying to sketch more lately--it's just about impossible to draw these little ones unless they are sleeping (and then still... they don't stay in one place for long!). This has some proportion issues... the lips are definitely too big. But hey, someone bit the eraser off my pencil, ha.

6x6", water mixable oil on canvas board, 2/23/15 Wow, so many different value shifts in a couple of little shakers! These guys were a fun challenge to paint.

6x6", water mixable oil on canvas board, 2/21/15 I just can't get over how beautiful radishes are. 

   7x5", water mixable oil on canvas board, 2/19/2015 When we were in Yellowstone in September, it was just cool enough that the steaming waters of the park were throwing up all kinds of beautiful clouds of mist (but still warm enough to be comfortable). This was a particularly gorgeous spot,with clear turquoise water under sunny skies.

7x5, water mixable oil on canvas board, 2/18/2015 Sold I've been experimenting with toning the canvas (this time with blue) with a color before starting to paint, and I really like it. It helps me to be less tight (since I don't have to worry about whether every smidgen of the canvas is completely covered--it already is!). I like the contrast of the cool blue undertone with the warm reds and yellows of the strawberries and foreground.

6x6", water mixable oil on canvas board, 2/17/2015 I found this copyright-free image online and thought this little penguin was just so cute. I was also experimenting with toning the canvas before beginning to paint. I like the little bits of blue peeking through here and there.

5x7", water mixable oil on canvas board, 2/16/15 I've always found it difficult to work from photographs while painting, so I've been trying to do more of it. I'm pretty happy with how this one came out. I love swans. They're such beautiful creatures.

5x7", water mixable oil on canvas board, 2/15/15

6x6", water mixable oil on canvas board, 2/15/2015 Two little doves sharing a drink of water. They mate for life, I hear. Happy belated Valentine's Day :)

6x6", graphite on paper, 2/12/15

11x14, water mixable oil on cradled hardboard, 2/11/15 When we were in Yellowstone this fall, I came across this gorgeous piece of dead wood sitting in the steaming water of the Yellowstone paint pots. I find it eerie in its utter lifelessness... yet so strikingly beautiful resting in its unearthly surroundings (and viewed by millions of eyes each year).

6x6, water mixable oil on canvas board, 2/10/2015 Celebrating a birthday at our house today! And for once, the gluten, egg and dairy-free baked good turned out actually quite pretty and edible (not always an easy task to accomplish--trust me, I know). So hey, I had to paint it :)

6x6", water mixable oil on canvas board, 2/9/15 I never liked squash at all until my sister-in-law introduced me to her butternut squash soup--now I'm a fan (but only in soup ;)! These little guys have such a fun shape.  It's refreshing to paint something from life after working from a photo for the past few days (I'm working on a larger piece that I haven't finished yet). I find it so much easier to pick out different colors and nuances of light when working from life--photographs don't carry nearly as much information as our eyes can see--I need to get better at using my imagination. And I guess the one way to do that is to keep working from life :) 

6x6", water mixable oil on canvas panel, 2/5/15 Today I had 30 minutes before the babysitter left and I knew it would be the only chance I'd have to paint today, so I decided to try to complete a small painting in that time frame. I've been spending closer to 1.5-2 hours on each of these little canvases lately, so I really had to loosen up. It's good to do every once in a while... even if the perfectionist in me really wants to get back at this and change a value or color here and there. Not touching this again, tempting as it may be ;)

"Clara Under the Shade Tree" 8x10", water mixable oil on panel, 2/3/2015  This is a portrait of my daughter Clara at about four months old. She loved to lay under our big shade tree in the back yard and gaze up at the sun filtering through the leaves. This was my first time painting on panel, and I loved it. On canvas, half the paint gets sucked up in the textured fiber before it starts looking the way I intend it to look. The panel just lets the paint be right where I put it. It's nice :)

"Green Bell Pepper" 7x5", water mixable oil on canvas board, 2/2/2015

"Red Bell Pepper" 7x5", water mixable oil on canvas board, 1/31/15