I am very excited to announce that I am now represented in the Atlanta area by Lagerquist Gallery, located in the "heart of Buckhead's prestigious West Village shopping district."

I delivered two paintings (shown below) to the gallery yesterday, and will take a couple more in the next few weeks.

Lagerquist Gallery represents a great group of artists and I am happy to join them. If you're in the Atlanta area, be sure to check them out!


Until next time, MT

Last year I wanted to paint some white azaleas, but I didn't have any growing in our yard and I wasn't brave enough to go around the neighborhood asking for some. 

This year Spring had a little surprise for me. Out of nowhere I found a small white azalea plant in our back yard, it had about a dozen blooms...oh I was happy.  

I cut almost all of them, picked a few purple ones from our neighbor, Ellen's yard and got to work. It took a while to finish - this is  the largest still life painting I've completed, but it was so much fun to paint. Here it is:

Another one for some detail:

Thank you for visiting.
MT

Things have been slow in the studio since Ian's birth - not only do I have less time to spend at the easel, but I've also been putting more work into each painting by adding more layers of paint. 

I've been able to complete two paintings in the last three months, one that should be done soon, and one more that's still early in the process. Below are the two I recently finished:

I will be posting a couple of "in-progress" photos of the painting I'm currently working on in the next couple of days.

Thank you for visiting!
MT 

It's been a while since I last posted anything here. I kind of got off track after the passing of my mother last December. Then came the birth of our son (yes, Lauren and I have a baby now! His name is Ian). Ian has been keeping us pretty busy, but we are getting the hang of this parenting thing. We are very happy. Ian is such a gentle, smiley baby and thankfully, a good sleeper...!

With Lauren going back to work this week, I've officially become a stay-at-home dad. So far I have been able to do some painting while Ian sleeps during the day and after Lauren comes home from work in the evening, but I'm still trying to figure out the best approach to continue painting. In the meantime, I will be posting some pictures of my latest work.

Today Lauren and I took Ian to his first art show: The Decatur Fine Arts Exhibition, where I received an honorable mention for the painting of my sister Maria entitled "Calas". We had a good night!

I haven't posted anything in so long... Here are some little ones fresh from the easel, I'll be posting more soon.

Please contact me if you would like to purchase any of these.
Happy Holidays! 

Friday, September 7th was a fine and great night. My wife and I got on the road to Franklin, TN for my first solo show. When we first got there, I was a little nervous, but as people started to arrive, it was really exciting to talk to them and hear what they thought about the work.  Some of them said they were so excited to meet me, which was a new experience! I also met some of the gallery's artists and enjoyed talking with them about their work. Kelly and Jim (Gallery 202 owner and manager, respectively) did a great job setting everything for the night. If you are ever in Franklin, TN, stop by their gallery on 2nd Avenue.

Here are some of the paintings from the show:

The painting above and the one below where inspired by two of my favorites cartoons from when I was little: Popeye and El patito feo (the ugly duckling).

Painting balloons was so much fun, keeping them in place, not as much.

And some lilies from our garden:

Click *here* to contact Gallery 202 if you would like to purchase any of these paintings!

Thank you for visiting! 

I have been busy preparing for my upcoming show at Gallery 202 next month. I was a little nervous at the beginning, wondering if I would have enough time to get all the paintings done. But, thankfully, I see now that everything is finishing up nicely in time.


I wanted to share some of the new work I will have at the show here on the website.  I'll start with a painting of a colt I did based on photographs I took on my trip to Nicaragua last Christmas.

And now some still life painting: tomatoes and gladiolas from our garden. 

Thanks for visiting, please come back!

In April, I visited Franklin, TN for the first time for my friend Megan's wedding. Since Lauren was in the wedding, I had some time to explore Franklin with my in-laws while the bridal party got ready on Megan's big day. On our walk through town we came to Gallery 202.

After browsing the great artwork, we had the opportunity to talk to artist and Gallery 202 owner, Kelly Harwood. He was very happy to talk to us and tell us a little history about the gallery and the house as well. My father-in-law mentioned that I was also an artist and after showing Kelly a couple of pictures of my work, we talked about the possibility of showing some of my work at his gallery. 

I am very excited at the opportunity have a show at Gallery 202. I have been busy getting ready for the show, which will occur this fall. I will post some of the new paintings  that I've been working on soon.

The opening for the exhibition will be during Franklin's Art Crawl on September 7th, 6-9PM. Please come by if you are around!

At the beginning I wanted this painting to be mostly blue with the white hydrangea as the center of interest, with the addition of a little gold here and there for variety. I had the flowers and vases set up but I thought something was missing. I looked at it for a while and then decided to try adding the red cloth behind the hydrangea. As I stepped back to take a look, a song started to play in my head: Lady in Red.

[I think is safe to say that most Nicaraguans know this song, it's played very often on the radio during the "Clasicos de los 80" segments. It's very popular. There is a Spanish version of it too, it's called Linda Mujer (Pretty Woman) and the lyrics are a little different. I think you'll agree that the video is breathtaking.]

Originally, this still life was bathed in a soft light coming from a window on the left, which is the light source in many of my paintings. I wanted a little more drama so I closed the blinds and illuminated the composition with a flash light. I loved the increased drama - and decided it was time to put the paint onto the canvas.

The concept for this painting is very similar to the previous one, only in this one I used a yellow color scheme and a different light source. The red cloth pushed its way into this one as well. 

I really like these paintings, I hope you like them too.  Thanks for visiting!

Hello everyone, I hope you are all enjoying these beautiful days. Everything is so green, the birds are chirping all day and the morning sun  feels so gentle on your skin. It's gardening time!

I really enjoy working outside. I think gardening is very similar to painting.

With gardening you start by building a fence around the area and getting the soil ready. In painting, it begins with the preparation of canvases. Sometimes I will buy canvases from an art supply store, but I prefer making them myself so I have control of the tightness and smoothness of the surface.

The next step in the garden is to plant the seeds: decide what to plant and put them in the ground. In the studio, you start by choosing your subject and arranging each object until you get a composition you like.
 
After that is just a matter of time, things begin to appear in both the garden and on the canvas: little plants with two leaves, colors, more leaves, colors turn to forms, and the plant grows until it produces its fruits and the canvas/garden becomes a new world of lines, shapes and colors.

Once all this done it's time to enjoy, time to share, the vegetables with the neighbors and the art with you all.

Here are my new creations:

...and fresh from the garden, some radishes.
Thanks for visiting!