My 2nd painting

With my 2nd painting of 2013, it looks like I have my two OPA entries - due on the 25th. 

This will be the 1st figure painting entered by me. In the past mine were landscapes or Koi paintings. The student is a bit more polished, perhaps as close to traditional realism as I can get. Yet my brushwork still possesses my signature movement and abstract quality.  

I also work from a white canvas, because light reflects off it better and paint is transparent. Regardless of my subject, I am a light and colour painter.

#765 The Student 30x30 oil on linen (1-10-13)

#754 Free Spirits 30x30 oil on linen (11-13-12)

My 2nd painting does show very clearly my signature style and movement - more "abstract realism", a term I like and was coined by Leffel and McGraw. It's a term that seems to fit me better than Impressionism. I do have a different colour pallet than a classical or traditional painter might.....which I often refer to the end result as "stuffy"....I like colour period! Pretty much why a more traditional format was dropped in my very early years and why I gravitated to an Impressionist colour palette. Where all this collides, I'm still a representational painter.....I paint what I see. A realist if you will but in a higher key....maybe lately even a tonalist in a higher key. 

The OPA National will be very competitive this year - maybe 125 spots and several thousand entrants scrambling for those....tough odds of even getting in much less noticed.  

All we can do is enter our best, sit on our hands and WAIT!

Later....