This commissioned painting was a gift to the parents of the groom at the wedding of my best friend’s daughter that I attended last October in Maine. It was an extraordinarily beautiful evening and I took a photograph of the full moon rising just as the sun had set. That photo was the inspiration for the painting.
This was a commission for one of my friends from high school days. I haven’t seen her for at least 30 years, but as with many of my old friends, we reconnected on Facebook. It makes me very happy to think of my painting in the home of an old friend.
This was inspired by a painting done by a favorite Florida artist named Karim Gebahi, who was inspired by a Thomas Moran painting. There is something about this scene that is so comforting to me; perhaps it’s my fond memories of Florida, where I have spent a lot of wonderful times.
This is one of two commissioned paintings I’m doing for an old friend of the family. She recently redecorated her kitchen with the help of my talented interior designer sister, Shawn O’Brien, and wanted something to go with the tone of her newly renovated space. I’m about to start the next one!
This was my first painting of 2019 and it just happened to be my first commission of the year as well. A photograph by John Snell, newsperson and photographer of Louisiana, is once again the inspiration for my painting.
This painting, inspired by a John Snell photograph, was featured at Hotel Tango on Virginia Ave., near Fountain Square in Indianapolis on First Friday, September 7, 2018. It is now in my bedroom where I see it first thing every morning and I just can’t sell it!
I worked on this for a long time, finally finished, signed, framed and hung it, but I still don’t like it!
This is from a photograph by an old friend and accomplished photographer, Colleen Kerrigan. These are live oaks along the shore of the Gulf of Mexico in Pass Christian, Mississippi. Live oaks are evergreen and don’t lose their leaves so they look like this always! They can live for hundreds of years and the old ones are huge and majestic. This now lives in home of some family members.
I’ve mentioned before how much I love Frank Relle’s photographs. This one took my breath away. I was so excited to paint this, and thank you again, Mr. Relle, photographer extraordinaire, for your generosity of spirit!
I did the background for this: the water, the sky and the beach itself. Kat added the floating whales and the people on the beach looking up at them. I love this painting, but didn’t realize until last night that it could be about death. I wasn’t consciously thinking about my father’s death when I painted this, but there it is. It’s eternally fascinating to me how art brings to the surface things that are floating around in your mind.
Sometimes I just have to do a painting for myself to exercise my creative “muscles.” This is one I did by using a photograph I took looking up at the trees in our front yard and across the street. There’s a particularly lovely light that we get at a certain time of day when it’s slightly overcast, and I wanted to capture that. I used Prisma to get ideas for some different effects and I wanted to experiment with a new paint color, so I mixed phthalo green with a lot of white and a little Payne’s Grey and started making vague shapes where leaves would be, using brushes and palette knives. Once I did that, the painting guided me to where branches would be. Here’s the work in progress. The background looks more pink than it actually is because the painting (acrylic on canvas board) was sitting on a red chair when I took the picture. I may have to do another similar one with a pink background. Please feel free to comment and/or ask questions. I love talking about art.
This is an update from today!
It took me a while to finish this big beauty. It was featured at an exhibit at Acceleration Art Gallery in Fountain Square, Indianapolis, and currently hangs in my den. I look at it every morning when I’m doing tree pose; it helps me keep my balance.
I’m finally satisfied with this painting, which I approached in an entirely different way. It’s exciting! Every time I look at it, I see something I didn’t see the last time. This is thrilling to me, and now that my perspective is colored by the current political climate, what I see in it has moved me to call it simply Resist. How many different things do you see?
This is a work based on Louisiana photographer John Snell’s photograph entitled Pontchartrain Reflections. I just sold it to a fellow artist!
Pamela O'Brien Art 