by Barbara Downs | Dec 3, 2014
I get asked all the time how I go about starting a painting. Do I work from a drawing that I then copy onto the canvas? Directly from a model? Or from photos? Do I sketch first on the canvas? With charcoal? Pencil? Paint? Truth be told, I don’t have a single...
by Barbara Downs | Oct 16, 2014
This piece is currently in a show at the Cabrillo Gallery titled “12×12 (x12): An Open Invitational 2014. As you can guess from the title, all pieces in the show are 12″x12″ (x12″), which makes for a cohesive show. A trick of the eye...
by Barbara Downs | Jul 22, 2014
I’m still in Iceland, trying to dissect the landscape by considering just small portions of it at a time: the colors and shapes of the pebbles on which I’m walking, the yellow dandelions growing amidst the black volcanic rock. The landscape as a whole...
by Barbara Downs | May 11, 2014
Because today is mother’s day, I’ll post photos of some of the pieces recently completed or in progress in my studio right now. I’m still working on images of babies and children, as I did last year with this encaustic series, In Memory of Childhood....
by Barbara Downs | Jan 10, 2014
In my last blog post, I hinted that I might paint some faces, and I have indeed done so. I’m not so interested in painting faces on the large-scale figure paintings because a face grabs all the attention. But I am certainly interested in faces, so here’s...
