Morning oil painting by Bente Hansen

Morning 9x12 Mixed media oil painting $100

This painting started with collage and acrylic followed by clear gesso and then oil.  It is done on a standard size canvas so it is easy to frame.  Signed bottom left

Blessings for a great weekend

Bente

Coastline

Coastline 9 1/2x14 on Terraskin Stone Paper  $100

This painting is done on stone paper using mainly a brayer and palette knife.  I am using the paper to see how large an image this will work on.  A lot of artists use stone paper with Cold Wax.  I thought I would try the paper with oil first.

I would suggest cutting the paper to a 9X12 and frame it in a standard size frame.

Star is wondering why I can't play with him all the time?

Blessings for a great day.

Bente

Sketch from Tofino

Star, our fur baby (see photo below) is sick.  Kennel cough.  So rather than go out to my studio to paint I am nearby to assist if he gets into a coughing spurt.

The sketch is a cluster of trees I kept coming back to.

Below, I put it through the Value Viewer app to show the grid for the painting layout.  Next step is to decide on the colors.  I think the blues and green with not so much orange and yellow.  We will see once I get started the painting seems to talk to me and it could end up totally different.  That's the beauty of it.  A mystery and puzzle to solve.

Star finally sleeping after coughing all night.  Turns out honey is a good suppressant. Wish I'd known that last night.  I also bought some beef bouillon to put in his water so that he'll drink and not get dehydrated.  Worked like a charm.  So good to see him sleeping.  Yes, that's our couch or should I say his couch!

Blessings for a great weekend.

Bente

Jewel Tones Oil painting by Bente Hansen

Jewel Tones 12x12 Oil on Gessobord  $150

The self inflicted challenge for me this weekend was to take the image of the acrylic painting below and do it in a manner that has more oomph.

I like the acrylic painting.  I had a lot of fun doing it with all the lines and drops of color.  I couldn't quite figure out if there was something missing so I put the acrylic up high where I would normally put my reference photo and decided to tackle a new painting with all the beautiful transparent colors that we have been using in Dreama's course. My favorite at the moment is Rembrandt's Transparent Red Medium. Love this color.  Echoing Dreama with "make the darks darker "than you think you need.  You can add the opaques later.

I like the result.  I also took a photo of the new painting and ran it through the Value Viewer App that I have on my iPad and iPhone.  The black and white image in the levels mode was perfect.  Gotta use all the tools at hand.

Blessings for a great week.

Bente

The painting will be available on dailypainters.com tomorrow

Oil Painting by Bente Hansen

Commission 40X40 Oil on Gallery Wrapped Canvas  Sold

This was such a joy to paint.  I haven't tackled a large canvas for a while and to be able to move and splash on the color and then place layers of thick color and texture over it.  So much fun.

Blessings for a great day.

Charity Oil on Canvas by Bente Hansen

Charity 8x8 Oil on Gallery Wrapped Canvas

This painting is going into a charity auction.  Just got notice it was due next week so had to get with it and stop fooling around.  Isn't it amazing what a deadline can do.  I think I don't have time or can't do it and then suddenly I just set my mind to it and there it is.

I love the combination of the red and teal.  Hope it goes well for the charity and the cause.

Blessings for a great day.

Bente

Daisy oil painting by Bente Hansen

Daisy 12x12 Oil on Gessobord

This is the fifth painting that I've done following Dreama's online course.  I have changed it up eliminating a ribbon, putting a Daisy in instead.  Love her colors and technique.

Blessings for a great day.

Bente

Fall Dance Oil by Bente Hansen

Fall Dance 12x12 Oil on Canvas

I am currently working on a 40x40 commission and started this one as a warm up to the larger one.  I love the curve of the trunk and the colors.  Of course it turned out that the two paintings are very different.  The actual yellow is more buttery yellow than what appears to be lemon yellow here.

Happy Halloween.

Bente

Big Sky Oil Painting by Bente Hansen

Big Sky 9X12 Oil on Premium Quality Gessobord $100

This is the sketch I started from.

We have always loved the ocean which is how we have ended up here in Powell River.  The sketch above is from Tofino but the water and sky are so similar here.  I am playing with the rich oil colors that I have to see if I can catch some of the many moods that we look at.

Blessings for a great day.

Bente

Prairie Day by Bente Hansen

Prairie Day 9x12 Oil on Panel  $100

This painting is an impressionistic oil done on an artist's panel.  Reminiscent of living on the prairies.

Red Pear Oil Painting

Red Pear 8x8 on Premium Quality Gessobord Sold

Class Lesson with Dreama Tolle Perry

The Red Pear has a fancy kind of Scottish name to it that goes before Red Pear and since I ate the pear I don't have the sticker that was on it!  It was a good pear.

The second painting is the second lesson in Dreama's online course.  This is not something I would eat or paint for that matter but the lesson was very good.  I painted the pear afterwards.

The pear painting was just done today so if you are interested in it you would need to wait for it to dry enough for me to ship it out.

Blessings for a great day.

Bente

Love

Love  6x6 oil on Premium quality Gessobord

Being a little stubborn, I was wanting to do a word painting without using my brush.  In thinking about it I wondered what would happen if I used the old credit card trick on this wonderful Gessoboard.  Since I had a few small boards I gave it a whirl.  I rather like it.

Blessings for a great day.

Bente

Silver Creek

Silver Creek 8x8 Oil on Winsor & Newton Oil Painting Paper  $55

In preparation for painting on Ampersand Gessobord I thought I would paint another painting on the W&N oil painting paper which is the closest I can come to the Gessobord.  Gessobord is not available in Canada, to my knowledge so I need to import from the United States which makes an expensive product even more so.  If anyone knows of a good Canadian supplier I would truly appreciate that info.

Blessings for a great day.

Bente

Fall Gold

Fall Gold, oil on W&N oil painting paper  7 3/4 X 11 unframed

I am showing you this image framed and unframed.  It is painted on paper so I was able to cut it to fit a cherry red wood frame that I had.  It looks great in this frame and the two would need to go together as it is no longer a standard size.

Blessings for a great Fall.

Bente

Joy

Joy 12x12 Oil on Canvas $150

I do love colors.  I am happy to be back playing with color and thick juicy oil in combination with my palette knife.  Here I am working towards doing a larger 40x40 gallery canvas so I am playing with paint and colors.  It feels good and it feels right.

Blessings for a great day.

Bente

Sunflowers

Sunflowers 8x8x1 1/2 Oil on Gallery Wrapped Canvas  $110

Painted on the sides so that it can be hung without a frame.

It's fun playing with my oils again.  Must be the time of the year or season or light or mood that makes one medium more of a draw than another.  I have been asked how I decide and all I can say is it depends on my mood.  I wanted to paint a bright and cheery painting that could bring a smile to someone's day.

Hope you like it.

Blessings for a great day.

Bente

Ukee

Akee  8x10x1 1/2  on canvas  $110.

This one started with random acrylic underpainting with a coat of gesso on top.  It reminded me of our trip to Uculet on the west coast of Vancouver Island, now affectionately called Ukee.

It is painted on the sides so that it may be hung without a frame.

Please know that there is thick oil paint so it would need to dry before being able to be shipped.

Blessings for a great day.

Bente

Mystery, oil and mixed media on canvas

Mystery 9X12 oil and Mixed media on canvas  $110


This painting started with random strokes of resist when I was painting some collage paper.   I didn't want to waste the paint that was going over the edge of the paper so I grabbed some gessoed canvases to use as the table top.  Then I randomly added some aggressive strokes of color that worked very much like a Notan. The next step was to add collage paper in areas.  When it was dry I topped the surface with clear gesso. Then I painted the intuitive landscape with oil.

I have decided to join Dreama Tolle Perry in her online oil painting course.  The colors that I've used here are her color selection.  I am hoping this will bring me back to my oil paints with a lot of vigor and intuition.

Blessings for a great day.

Bente

A Bit of Whimsy

A Bit of Whimsy

Watercolor on cold pressed watercolor paper.  A small watercolor that could be a card.

Someone asked me at my studio tour how I decide which medium I am going to paint with that day.  For me it has everything to do with mood.  If I feel like flinging paint around it's usually acrylic.  This card was a quick sketch of towns in Denmark. For experimentation it is likely encaustic or cold wax and if it is the scenery that is calling me that day out come the oils.  They all get used but for different things and different moods.

Blessings for a great day.

Bente

Early Morning

Early Morning  10X10 Mixed media on Gallery Wrapped Canvas  $110

It is painted on the side so that no frame is needed.


I have used painted textured rice paper, acrylic paint, fineline bottles with fluid acrylics, alcohol and an oil pen.

Blessings for a great day.

Bente

Pear son

Pear son  12X12 Acrylic on Canvas  $145

Continuing with the pear theme.

Happy long weekend everyone.

Bente

Pear of Us

Pear of Us  9X12 Acrylic on Canvas $110.00

Pear 8x8 Acrylic $100

Summer holidays are over, visitors on their way home and now its time to look forward to Fall.  One of the great treats are the garden harvest.  I thought that would be a good subject to get to my painting.

I usually paint in oil but thought I'd give my acrylics a whirl.

Blessings for a great day.

Bente

It's Time, Acrylic on Gallery wrapped canvas

It's Time,  8X8 Acrylic on Gallery Wrapped Canvas, Painted on the sides  $88

I am heading to Denmark shortly so I will not be posting for the next month.

I look forward to many inspiring sites.

Happy Holidays.

Bente

Outer World

Outer World,mixed media on Stonehenge printing paper

9 1/2X11 1/4

I show it above lying on a matt black board. It could be displayed that way as it will be varnished.

Below I have a piece of paper that I painted white and cut out an 8x10 opening to give you an idea what it would look like matted and framed.  I like it both ways.

I am playing with a lot of acrylic shapes and techniques.  It's been a long time since I gave acrylic a good run so I thought I'd dig in and see what I could come up with.

I now have STACKS of cut out shapes and painted paper ready to use when I need.  Of course I never seem to have the exact color I need so into my color binders they go for future use.

Blessings for a Great Day.

Bente

Playtime, Watercolor on Rives BFK

Playtime, 9x11 watercolor on Rives BFK paper $100

I've been taking a break from the hot wax with the summer weather and wanting to work on something more immediate.  What I am doing is squirting watercolor or acrylic onto either an enamel surface or glass and then basically wiping the paper across the surface and seeing what kind of a start I can get.  I was hoping to be able to find a consist way of predicting where the color is going to go.  This part has proven unsuccessful.

From there I go back in with Inktense Watercolor Pencils and Watercolor paint and see how I can build from there.  The Rives paper is softer than the watercolor paper and is a lovely surface to work on.

The painting below shows the second to last stage of the painting before being finished.  I thought it needed more OOMPH. 

Here you see my Star.  My studio helper.  He has taken to following me to the studio and sleeping on the chair or the floor.  It likely has more to do with the fact that it is cooler there than in the house but it puts a smile in my heart when I look over and see him there.

He is a true blessing.

This is one of the scenes from the kayak.  Our place is around the corner.  The water is dead still and the rocks and reflections are a constant inspiration.

Blessings for a great day.

Bente

Burst Mixed media on watercolor paper

Burst, 8x10 acted mixed media on watercolor paper.  $100

This image was started intuitively using high flow acrylics,watercolor and paper soaked in acrylic paint.  I show it below in a mat and also framed in a standard 8x10 frame with glass.

I am currently preparing for two things.  One a trip to Denmark which will have me meet relatives that I do not know and the other is a studio tour that happens 2 weeks after I get home.  So, there is a lot going on.

I have done a series of these intuitive watercolor,mixed media painting along with some encaustic paintings to get ready for the show.  I will post a number of them in the next few days.

Happy Canada Day and 4th of July.

Bente

Beach Fodder

These are images of some of the many items that I pick up off the beach or my neighbors construction site.  They are all rich with sketching ideas or items that may end up attached to a wood cradle in a painting

The rusty bits I pick up to rust paper for collage elements.  I spray them with vinegar and water and the paper that they sits on becomes rusty.  The curved item is very old.  Its a steel spike encrusted with rocks.

This one looked like a Viking or Salish boat to me. If I oil it or torch scrape and then oil it I think it would make quite a nice element.

Even my wood working neighbor liked this one.  I have actually oiled it.  If you zoom in on it you will see the interior circle is covered in swirls.  We figured the hole was from where a branch had broken off.  it is quite large.  The size of two small fists.

These two photos are obviously bark but look at the texture of the middle one.  Any idea what kind of tree that is.  The top one being cedar.  I picked that up thinking I could pull strands from it to weave around the rocks to hold them onto the panel.  The middle one has me stumped.

This one I think of as my fashionable woman, with an attitude, lounging in the sun.

The bottom three.  The branch that looks like a great tree.  The crab part that looks like a warrior. And last but not least my dried star fish.  Tiny little thing.  Very precious.

My inspirations.

Blessings for a great day.
Bente

No dp

Rainy Day

Rainy Day Encaustic on 10x10 Wood Cradle Panel $150.

This painting is a true mixed media.  I have used watercolor paper, hot wax, glue,india ink,shellac and metallic foil.

Its very hot and dry here right now.  We could use a good rainy day!

Blessings for a great day.

Bente