"WINTER MORNING SUNRISE" New, Original Oil Painting by Mike Callahan

"Winter Morning Sunrise"

Oil on Canvas

18" x 24"

When in doubt, make it up...sort of! This is one of the many awesome sunrises I get to see when I actually look outside in the morning when I get up to paint. The photo just doesn't do it justice in the least so I decided to try to capture the wonder of it on canvas. As you can see however, an awesome sunrise isn't going to translate all that well with my side fence and barbeque grill in the foreground. I wanted to balance the sky drama with a little something in the foreground albeit a very dark value. I decided to just wing it on my canvas without any reference. I was able to easily place a stream and some brush in the foreground on account there wouldn't be much detail required due to the subdued lighting, however, I wasn't able to pull off a very realistic reflection at first. I went online and did an image search of streams and rivers to observe how low light actually reflects. I didn't find anything too close to what I intended, however, just studying reflections in general gave me enough understanding to pull off the one I made up in my painting.

"LONESOME DOVE" - New, Original Oil Painting by Mike Callahan

"Lonesome Dove"

Oil on Canvas

30" x 24"

I've been working on a new series of small works for the holidays. I call the series Western Skies and they are a series of small paintings ranging in size from 9"x 12" to 5" x 7". They are on the website here with a few more additions to come. 

If you live in the area or will be visiting, I'm having an open studio on Sunday, November 6th from noon till 4p.m. where you can see these paintings firsthand as well as other new paintings not yet posted online. I'll also have a "clearance" wall of paintings that I've had in the studio a while that just haven't found a home yet, so if you have the chance, please come by. If you'd like to visit my studio on that day or make an appointment for another time, email me and I'll send you driving directions.

Collectors, I will be having a special "collector's night open studio" on Saturday evening November 5th and if you haven't received your invitation yet, look for it in your mail or inbox, you should receive it this week.

The painting shown below, though not part of the Miniature Show (too big), was inspired by all those sky paintings I've been doing...I just wanted to do at least one cloud painting at a larger scale - I get such great skies here and painting them has been great fun! Dove and other birds often perch on the power lines but when I was gathering reference for this painting there was just this one lonesome dove sitting there and I just thought it would work for the painting. What do you think?