My 12 favorite paintings of 2013

I'm not a prolific painter by any means, but, in checking my records I see I produced 56 paintings this year. 14 of which were small shell paintings on wood blocks, 2 watercolors and the rest were oils.  Part of the reason for the large amount ( for me its large anyway ) was that in January I entered a 30 paintings in 30 day challenge.  Believe me they were not all great paintings but some were worth keeping and tweaking on to improve. Some even ended up on my favorite list.

Here, in no particular order, are 12 of my favorites paintings with some comments on what I liked about the piece:

On the left was a typical scene from our boat travels into British Columbia.  I can picture myself there now by looking at that painting. I love how I've captured the fog and the hills.  This is B.C. to me.

The painting on the right is a local scene.  I am happy with the atmosphere I created in the sky with the clouds in a bright blue summer sky.

I was pleased with both of these two florals I painted.  I was challenged with them both because I wasn't use to painting flowers, ruffles with highs and lows creating depth of each petal. I think I'll try more florals.  I didn't realize how much I liked pink until I painted these … I guess thats part of the reason I liked the beets I painted also.  I thought the color combination was really nice here.

I liked the dappled sun I created in the painting on the left above.  I think I tweaked with both of these paintings and made them worth keeping but in my rush to post the 12 favorites I didn't take the time to find the finished photograph of them.  

The painting on the right made the favorite list because it not only brought back memories of the event but that I was able to paint the gesture of the 'Story Teller'.

I was really pleased with the atmosphere in the painting on the left above.  

I thought I captured the  essence of the location.  

I thought I did a good job with the rocky beach of another scene from B.C.  I like the trees also.

Maybe the cow made my list of favorites because I thought it really did look like so many of the cows I've seen.  I liked the way I didn't make the grass detailed, also I like seeing the sun on her.

The center painting is typical of my small shell block paintings … I like them all so it was hard to pick out one favorite.  This one is 6" x 6" on canvas.   Last, but not least for sure, is a painting of a little ceramic bird I picked up in a second hand store many years ago.  It really isn't that cute but for some reason I hang on to it.  I placed it on a cardboard box and when I finished painting it I felt after many tries through-out the years, I had finally captured the look of this bird.

I'd love to hear which is your favorite of these 12 paintings and why.