Christina Pickard and Robin Orbach Starke $100

Here's our week in review....

If you have any questions or would like to purchase any (or all of) today's paintings, email us at....
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Lucha Libre #5 6" x 8" Christina Pickard & Robin Orbach Starke $100

If you have any questions or would like to purchase today's painting, "Lucha Libre # 5," email us at....
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Lucha Libre #4 6" x 8" Christina Pickard & Robin Orbach Starke $100

If you have any questions or would like to purchase today's painting, "Lucha Libre # 4," email us at....
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Lucha Libre #3 6" x 8" Christina Pickard & Robin Orbach Starke $100

This piece has acrylic, collage, oil pastel, oil stick, and graphite. Because we wanted the colors to have a very specific, quirky feel and a variety of textures, we blended a lot of the colors on the canvas directly and layered the oil pastel and oil stick over the acrylic.

If you have any questions or would like to purchase today's painting, "Lucha Libre # 3," email us at....
iwantadonut@cox.net

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Lucha Libre #2 6" x 8" Christina Pickard and Robin Orbach Starke $100

Collage is a consistent feature of our work, but in this painting, the focus is on acrylic paint and texture. We wanted to create fluid, washy areas as well as sections of the painting that looked like they could have been painted with cake frosting. We also wanted a definite contrast between glossy, shiny areas and more subdued, matte areas of the painting. The Lucha Libre figures themselves have a variety of textures and contrasting features, and so this painting felt very much in the spirit of the luchador.

If you have any questions or would like to purchase today's painting, "Lucha Libre # 2," email us at...
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Christina Pickard and Robin Orbach Starke $100

Here's our week in review.... Four lemon paintings and one Lucha Libre painting. Given the variations that we got with the lemons, we're very excited to see how these Luch Libre paintings will develop and how far they'll go.

If you have any questions or would like to purchase any (or all of) today's paintings, email us at....
iwantadonut@cox.net


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Lucha Libre #1 5" x 7" Christina Pickard and Robin Orbach Starke $100

For about ten years, Christina had a package of Lucha Libre (Mexican Wrestlers) sitting on her bookshelf. They were all in a row in a clear plastic sack and despite the fact that they were only about three inches high, looked sort of mythical and fierce and crazy and colorful all at the same time. They had their very own shelf with a mango-colored background and enough room for all of them to stand up--they looked spectacular.

This past summer she finally broke open the sack, shared some luchadors with a friend, and brought the rest to the studio. We propped them up on tables, in with all of our brushes, and set them up next to the oil sticks. They were leaning against the water buckets and lying underneath the light on the drafting table. They were everywhere. We fell in love with the colors of their tights, the graphic starkness of their masks, their sequined capes, and their elaborate hairdos. We liked them so much that we decided to do a series inspired by Lucha Libre.

If you have any questions or would like to purchase today's painting, "Lucha Libre # 1," email us at...

iwantadonut@cox.net

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Lemon # 6 5" x 7" Christina Pickard and Robin Orbach Starke $100


This is our last lemon, at least for a while. Like most of them in the series, it has Arches paper collaged onto it, acrylic paint, lots of oil stick, oil pastel, and silver paint pen.

If you have any questions or would like to purchase today's painting, "Lemon # 6," email us at...
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Lemon # 5 5" x 7" Chritstina Pickard and Robin Orbach Starke $100


Today’s painting is another one collaged with Arches paper. We used a light wash on the paper, much thicker acrylic for the blue lemon, oil stick, graphite, and that midnight blue/black that has been sneaking into to our work recently.

If you have any questions or would like to purchase today's painting, "Lemon #5," email us at....
iwantadonut@cox.net


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Lemon #4 5" x 7" Christina Pickard and Robin Orbach Starke $100


Here’s another one with bits and pieces from our collage pile. It’s been a while since we’ve used such a bright, cadmium red as a background, but we liked the way that it looked with the blue down below and the contour drawing of the fruit.

If you have any questions or would like to purchase today's painting, "Lemon #4," email us at...
iwantadonut@cox.net

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Lemon #3 5" x 7" Christina Pickard and Robin Orbach Starke $100


There is always a sense of joy, excitement, and maybe even inevitability with the way that we approach our work. When we were thinking about lemons, we knew that they wouldn’t all end up being yellow. Eventually, other colors would sneak in, and we would be reminded how and why we are abstract painters. We love the fact that the work has a life of its own and almost dictates the way that it wants to evolve, and we also love this peculiar, midnight blue/black lemon anchored on an open field reminiscent of a monotype.

If you have any questions or would like to purchase today's painting, "Lemon #3," email us at...
iwantadonut@cox.net

We take PayPal, money orders, cashier's checks, and personal checks.

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From the "Fair" series....
Christina Pickard and Robin Orbach Starke $100

We had a great time painting the fair, talking and laughing about the fair, going through our photos of the fair... As much as we love the lemon paintings, lemons aren't as much fun to write and talk about. So today (and maybe for one day over the weekend every week) we're going to post a few paintings that are still available.

This week it's the fair, along with a list of delicious foods consumed by us at the fair--with the help of Robin's son, Wyatt, and our friend, Brian. Here it goes...

Fresh, homemade lemonade--3
Jalepeno cheese dogs, like corny dogs without the scary wiener inside, truly exquisite--3
Beef Devine, marinated beef with lettuce, tomato, and spicy sauce on a pita--2
Indian Taco, indian fry bread with taco fixins on top--1
Cinnamon Rolls, they're large and gooey and can't be beat--2
Curly friez, amazing with malt vinegar--2
Cherry strudel, Christina and Brian inhaled theirs while Robin talked to a friend and a chagrined Wyatt watched the pastry carnage with much sadness....Yes, he got one later. Robin took a whole box home to share with her husband--2 and a box.

If you have any questions or would like to purchase any of today's paintings, email us at...

iwantadonut@cox.net

We take PayPal, money orders, cashier's checks, and personal checks.

Lemon #2 5" x 7" Christina Pickard and Robin Orbach Starke $100


We’ve been using collage a lot lately. Old drawings. Old prints. Tissue paper. Construction paper. Anything that catches our eye. This lemon painting has a combination of acrylic paint, tissue paper, gel medium, and part of an old drawing on Arches paper. When we were making “Lemon #2,” we really liked the contrast of colors that we got with the collage, the difference in texture, and the nice juxtaposition of opacity and transparency.


If you have any questions or would like to purchase today's painting, "Lemon #2," email us at...
iwantadonut@cox.net

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Lemon #1 5" x 7" Christina Pickard and Robin Orbach Starke SOLD

One day in the studio not too long ago, Robin started drawing this random lemon on part of an old, ripped-up monotype. We never used it or paid much attention to it—the color was great and the shape certainly fits into our vocabulary of forms, but it’s not like we’re obsessed with lemons so we forgot about it. It sat in a pile of old Arches paper, failed drawings and prints, and other assorted bits that we sometimes use for collage.

Well, the lemon’s back. And we’ve decided to do a series on lemons. It wasn’t intentional or deliberate like our series with the fair. We sort of fell into it and are having fun thinking about the different ways a lemon can be depicted.

If you have any questions or would like to purchase today's painting, "Lemon #1," email us at...

iwantadonut@cox.net

We take PayPal, money orders, cashier's checks, and personal checks.

Nighttime Fair #5 5" x 7" Christina Pickard & Robin Orbach Starke $100


Lately we’ve been using a lot of gel and gloss medium in our work. Coupled with highly pigmented acrylic paint, it’s rich, lush, and a lot of fun to paint with. It’s sort of like painting with warm, homemade, cake frosting--you can get a great texture with it and make it as thick or thin as you want.

In this work you can really see the texture in the orange/yellow forms and the blue forms moving across the composition. We liked the contrast of those solid, tactile forms and the watery, semi-transparent forms that anchor the whole piece.
If you have any questions or would like to purchase today's painting, "Nighttime Fair #5," email us at...
iwantadonut@cox.net

We take PayPal, money orders, cashier's checks, and personal checks.

Nighttime Fair #4 5" x 7" Christina Pickard & Robin Orbach Starke $100

This painting is all about action, space, and a deceptive sense of scale. Even though it’s only seven inches high, the composition feels large and has a sense of depth to it that we liked a lot.

If you have any questions or would like to purchase today's painting, "Nighttime Fair #3," email us at...
iwantadonut@cox.net

We take PayPal, money orders, cashier's checks, and personal checks.

Nighttime Fair #3 5" x 7" Christina Pickard & Robin Orbach Starke $100

This is another quiet painting. Like “Nighttime Fair #2,” this painting is about light, mood, and a sense of place. When we were working on it, we didn’t intend to create a “quiet painting,” but we fell in love with the deep blues and the indigo/black and the way that they looked against the stark white background.

If you have any questions or would like to purchase today's painting, "Nighttime Fair #3," email us at...
iwantadonut@cox.net

We take PayPal, money orders, cashier's checks, and personal checks.

Televac 86000 5" x 7" Christina Pickard & Robin Orbach Starke $100

In the 70’s and 80’s, the fair had an edge to it. The midway had a real freak show, men with more tattoos than teeth ran the rides, and the bathrooms were scarier than the roller coaster. No one complained about parking in the dirt, and no one even thought about the temperature of the oil that fried up the corny dogs. Twenty-five years later, the fair has lost its edge.

Wonderfully maintained bathrooms aside, we’re always on the lookout for vestiges of the fair of our youth. If you look carefully, occasionally you can find it lurking in the sleazy expression of a carny on the midway or the dunk-tank insult clown. Our favorite place to look is the exhibition buildings. You still see the guys selling knives, the tables full of John Birchers or UAW trying to sign you up, and in a couple of places, you can even find the original personality computer, the Televac 86000. With its blinking lights and metal frame, it looks like something off the original Star Trek set. It’s rickety and scratched, and, in an era of iPods and flat screen TVs, utterly ridiculous. In short, it is magnificent. Neither of us has ever had the nerve to waste our money on an actual test, but it is a cornerstone of the fair, and we look for it every year.

When we were trying to name this painting, we thought of the Televac 86000, and so we named the painting in its honor. Maybe we’ll actually get a test next year.
If you have any questions or would like to purchase today's painting, "Televac 86000," email us at...

iwantadonut@cox.net

We take PayPal, money orders, cashier's checks, and personal checks.

Nighttime Fair #2 5" x 7" Christina Pickard & Robin Orbach Starke SOLD

It seems strange, but there are parts of the fair where you can find a quiet moment. Really. It’s true. Usually it’s around ten or eleven at night, and the teenagers have overrun the midway, and families with small children have trundled to the minivan with stuffed animals, balloons and impending stomachaches. That’s the time to nab a table under the trees, in the dark, and watch the action off in the distance.

We had to have a cinnamon roll before we left, so after we picked a gooey one from the middle, we sat down and watched the fair go by. It was peaceful and quiet—not much talking because of the cinnamon roll—and we had a great time just checking out the lights and the colors before we headed home.

If you have any questions or would like to purchase today's painting, "Nighttime Fair #2," email us at...

iwantadonut@cox.net

We take PayPal, money orders, cashier's checks, and personal checks.

Twilight Fair #5 5"x 7" Christina Pickard & Robin Orbach Starke $100

This painting feels very spontaneous and has a lot of energy and movement to it. Because we liked the lively quality of the colors, lines, and forms, we resisted a sometimes-too-frequent artistic impulse to overwork something--when we passed this one back and forth (from Robin to Christina to Robin), we decided to finish it in three passes. Like “Twilight Fair #3 from a couple of days ago, we were able to keep that initial spontaneity and rhythm while still keeping the work balanced and complete.

If you have any questions or would like to purchase today's painting, "Twilight Fair #5," email us at...

iwantadonut@cox.net

Twilight Fair #4 6"x 8" Christina Pickard & Robin Orbach Starke $100

Right now, our work is as much about color as it is about line and form. We’ve been talking a lot about that lately in the studio, and we’re really focusing on our colors so that they resonate with us both compositionally and emotionally while remaining distinct, clear, and vibrant. This can be tricky with oil paint and oil sticks but is somewhat easier with acrylics and water media.

The paintings from the last few days are a mixed bag media-wise, but they all contain acrylic, and most of them have one combination or another of… graphite, pastel, oil pastel, oil stick, watercolor, ink, collage, chalk, charcoal, modeling paste, and gloss medium.

If you have any questions or would like to purchase today's fresh painting, "Twilight Fair #4," email us at...

iwantadonut@cox.net

Twilight Fair #3 5"x 7" Christina Pickard & Robin Orbach Starke $100

As a finished work, this painting has always felt fast and spontaneous—it has a sense of urgency and action, and that’s one of the things that we like about it. When we were creating it, though, that wasn’t always the case. It lingered on a studio table for a while, didn’t have the bold reds and blues, and was even vertical at one point.

Because we each begin a painting separately and then pass it back and forth until we feel like it’s finished, neither of us has total control over the final product. It might sound corny, but the paintings sort of have a life of their own—they usually tell you where they want to go, and where they don’t. We’ve passed them back and forth as many as five or six times and as few as two. When we’re stuck, the paintings sit on a table or pinned on the wall for a little while, and we work on something else. Luckily, in the three passes (Christina-Robin-Christina) that it took to complete this painting, we were able to keep the initial spontaneity that we liked while adding enough color and form to make the work feel balanced and finished.

If you have any questions or would like to purchase this painting, "Twilight Fair #3," or any other of our daily paintings, email us at...

iwantadonut@cox.net

We take PayPal, money orders, cashier's checks, and personal checks.