"The View" by Lesley Spanos. Oil on 6 x 6" Gessobord panel. Copyright ©2009, all rights reserved. My answer to Karin Jurick’s Different Strokes City Rooftops challenge. Thank you, Karin, for another versatile reference photo. The shot was taken from her hotel room in San Francisco,...

"Chocolate, Vanilla, Chocolate" by Lesley Spanos. Oil on diagonal 6 x 6" Gessobord panel. Copyright ©2009, all rights reserved. Our Different Strokes From Different Folks challenge subject this week is cupcakes. Now, I love cupcakes, even if I don’t eat them. In fact, I firmly believe...

"First Carousel" by Lesley Spanos. Oil on 6 x 6" Gessobord panel. Copyright ©2009, all rights reserved. I’ve gone from being indifferent to carousels to slightly obsessed in just one week. I took tons of photographs of a couple of different merry-go-rounds at the Indiana State Fair,...

"Winter Glow" by Lesley Spanos. Oil on paper, 5 x 8.5". Copyright ©2009, all rights reserved. A little practice piece from the weekend. It’s been a couple of months since I’ve had my oils out, so I needed to use them before I forgot how. Snow has always been hard for me, so...

"New Mexico Adobe" by Lesley Spanos. Oil on Raymar panel, 12 x 9". Copyright ©2009, all rights reserved. I can’t seem to get enough of these art challenges. They so neatly answer the question of “what should I paint next,” while forcing me to explore subjects I wouldn’t...

"Madison Avenue" by Lesley Spanos. Oil on Gessobord panel, 6 x 6". Copyright ©2009, all rights reserved. Here’s another painting for Karin Jurick’s Different Strokes From Different Folks painting challenge. View Larger MapGoogle Street View of the location. You can move around...

"Kalifornia Roll" by Lesley Spanos. 12 x 9" oil painting on panel. Copyright ©2009 Lesley Spanos, all rights reserved. A California roll is to sushi what Tex-Mex food is to Mexican cuisine – a Western adaptation of a traditional food using local ingredients more suited to the American...

"The Girls" by Lesley Spanos. Oil painting on 14 x 8" wood panel. © Copyright 2009 Lesley Spanos, all rights reserved. I can’t say that “Sex and the City” has ever been one of my favorite television shows. I’ve laughed at times – sometimes really hard –...

"Chocolate Mousse Heart Cake" by Lesley Spanos. Oil painting on 5 x 5" Gessobord. Copyright ©2009 Lesley Spanos, all rights reserved. So for Valentine’s Day, I watched my husband eat cake. We searched several bakeries to find just the right cake. Something oooey-goooey and yummy...

"Harley-Davidson Heritage Softail" motorcycle painting by Lesley Spanos. Oil on archival 9 x 12" Raymar canvas panel. ©Copyright 2009, all rights reserved. Fortunately I had my camera with me the day I saw this Harley in a parking lot.  I’m not a motorcycle person, but this thing...

"Canyon" by Lesley Spanos. Oil on paper, 6 x 15". Copyright 2009, all rights reserved. Today I felt the need to break away from small paintings and tiny brushes and cut loose. Funny how I always want to paint loosely, but my paintings get tight anyway. I know that happens to a lot of us,...

"Chocolate Caramel Lava Cake" by Lesley Spanos. Oil painting on 5 x 5" canvas on panel. Copyright © Lesley Spanos 2009, all rights reserved. The hubby has fully embraced the idea of me painting desserts and him eating them. Thanks to his enthusiastic purchases, I already have hundreds...

"Tiramisu" by Lesley Spanos. Oil painting on 5 x 5" canvas panel. Copyright ©2009, all rights reserved. My husband tells me he’s “on board 100%” with the idea of me painting more desserts. He gets to eat them, I get to photograph and paint them. Years ago, it would...

"Pastry #1" by Lesley Spanos. 5 x 5" oil and acrylic painting on canvas panel. ©2009, all rights reserved. After the problems I had with the last painting, I needed a small victory, so I pulled out some photos I took over the weekend. This is a chocolate almond pastry my husband had for...

"Night" Oil painting on 8 x 16" panel. Copyright Lesley Spanos 2009, all rights reserved. Painting is a journey. Sometimes a really bad one where everything goes wrong, and you end up hauling your dead grandmother around on the top of your car like Chevy Chase in a National Lampoon Family...

"Oh, My Darlin'" Oil painting of a peeled Clementine on 5 x 5" panel by Lesley Spanos. ©Copyright 2009, all rights reserved. It’s that time again – Virtual Sketch Date time! I had an awesome time with last month’s challenge, so here we are again. This month’s...