Jill Millward Artwork

Boise Sky After Thunderstorm

Boise Foothills_lores

30X48″ oil on canvas

You know what they say about the weather in Idaho?

Wait 15 minutes, it will change. I learned quickly that Idahoans like to say that. I’ve been living in Idaho since 2003 and I’m on board with that saying now. When there’s thunder and lightning, it pours rain, hails, and randomly snows, especially in the summer and fall, I know it won’t last long. And when it’s all over the most spectacular sky and light is left in its wake. I really love Boise thunderstorms. Back in the fall there was an incredible thunderstorm in the middle of the afternoon. It was right when school was letting out and it trapped all the school kids inside for an extra 15 minutes and all the jr high cross country meets were cancelled (even though only 15 minutes later Boise was heaven on earth). I waited the storm out double and triple parked with all the other parents picking up kids. After the storm the sky was the most beautiful blue you could imagine with big puffy white clouds that reflected the colors all around them. The sun was lighting the foothills and the clouds were casting shadows. I grabbled my camera and drove up in the foothills above my house and took some pictures and then painted this painting. This one is sold! I just put a listing for a signed and numbered professional giclee art print of this one on Etsy. JillMillwardARTWORK. There’s a link to my Etsy shop off to the right on this site.

Boise Foothills WIP

Today I am showing a work in progress that I started yesterday. I started two new landscapes. I have the general idea down on canvas, now I need to let this one dry so I can build on the color. I really love the freeness of painting the foothills and Idaho sky. I’m looking forward to summer and painting outside. I’ll show you this one when it is finished. I will list it on Etsy. 9X12″ oil on canvas.

Yesterday I added a new Etsy listing for a custom 5X7″ baby or child’s portrait. Check it out! Click on my Etsy link on the right side of this page.

Mollie

Need a unique gift idea? I’d be honored to paint your baby.

oil on canvas 5X7″

Little Miss Mollie. In my opinion this is the sweetest age and such a sweet little face. A companion post to yesterday’s, this is Josh’s baby sister. Kamie’s 5th and final baby (I think), she is adored by all. Kamie has delightful kids, every one of them has so much personality. Mollie is in the tornado phase of going behind Kamie and undoing everything she does. And everyone loves it because she is the baby. She’s almost exactly one year old here. I took her picture when she was here for Thanksgiving. I sat her down on the floor under a skylight at grandma’s house and she smiled shyly at me.

Little Sisters Birthday Party

FullSizeRender-38

16X24 oil on canvas

This cool and handsome dude is my nephew Josh. He is at the same time the most amazing and goofiest kid I know. These Millwards over here think you are the best Josh. A while back I told him that I wanted to paint his portrait and all in one motion he spun around, flung his glasses across the lawn, and struck a pose. I didn’t use that image even though it was very handsome. I took this picture at his little sisters birthday party in November. He was wearing his party hat on the front of his head like a horn and it made me laugh. To me he looks like his dad here, with his mothers beautiful ice blue eyes.

Also, does anyone know what happened to my international followers? Ever since I started tagging and categorizing my posts, only people in the United States are seeing my site. Hello Brazil, I miss you. !Y que viva espana!

Plein Air Tree

Green & Yellow Tree_lores

9X12 oil on canvas

I painted this plein air style tree shortly after I took the plein air class in the fall. The leaves on the trees were a little yellower and were starting to fall. I painted this one in a fast loose style with greens and blues that I love. I like the look of the thick twisty branches, trees are really funky when you really look at them. I like the looseness and freeness of painting trees, but I also love putting lights, darks, and shapes in just the right place to create a specific persons face. I plan to do a lot more of them. I liked being outside and painting from what I could see. Photographs distort reality so much, I have a very hard time capturing in a photograph what I see. Great photographers can do it. But not me.

Ruby

Ruby_lores

Here we have darling Ruby. Adorable, sweet, charming, huggy, spunky, quick, funny, smart Ruby. She’s my cousin Heidi’s little girl, Atti’s little sister. I painted this portrait from a photo my cousin sent me that was taken at a professional modeling shoot. They had lights on her and fans and her hair was blowing in the wind. It was a little hard to paint from such a perfect photo, I don’t know why. I look forward to FINALLY giving these two portraits to Heidi. They have been finished for a while and I have been enjoying their company in my art studio. I love all the little faces I have on the walls of my studio.

These two are intended to be framed together.

And here they are keeping me company where I paint. I’m working on a couple of new paintings (not pictured) that I’m excited to show you on Monday. I need to finish Winter Tree too, I see I put it on my easel.

Baroque Portrait

Atti_lores

9X12 oil on canvas

In college I loved studying the art from the Baroque period with the dramatic contrast between light and dark and in general all the drama in the images. So dark and heavy, and a little scary. This portrait is a nod to that era.

Last summer my cousin saw the portraits I did of my sisters kids and she liked them so I told her that I would paint her children. They are really unique and beautiful kids. My cousin Heidi looks just like me, we both look like our grandfather (I didn’t discover that until I saw a picture of him from when he was in his 20’s), and Heidi’s husband is from South America or Central…sorry Mani, I alway mix up where you are from. So the kids have an awesome look. This painting with Atticus emerging from the dark is different than any I have ever done. Heidi’s a photographer and took a bunch of pictures of Atti and sent them all my way and I picked the one that I thought would make an interesting painting. She’s artsy so I knew I could do anything. I had this one photographed but black paint is hard to photograph without the glare.

Here is one of Caravaggio’s less scary paintings. I LOVE it. He is my favorite of the Italian Baroque artists.

And here’s a scary one

And another

Plein Air

Plein Air Trees_lores

oil on canvas 11X14

In the fall of 2015 just as the leaves were starting to change color I took a Plein Air painting class with a local Plein Air group taught by Geoff Krueger. Geoff is a fantastic landscape artist and paints the most wonderful trees, riverscapes, foothills, oceanscapes, etc. This class was held at the Foothills Learning Center where there are great options for things to paint every direction you look. I chose to paint these simple trees. I loved painting outside from life and plan to do a lot more of it as soon as it warms up a little here. Over the summer I plan to do a small Plein Air painting a day, I’ll probably take my kids along and we will all do it together. They are fantastic artists. I told my daughter we could stand and do it together and she said that she would sit.

My Favorite Portrait

Eowyn_lores

9X12 oil on canvas

This is my favorite quirky little portrait. If you follow me on any of my social media sites you’ll see that it’s my profile picture. This is silly little Lady Eowyn. One day she did her hair up in those twisty pink curlers and wore around a pair of costume glasses with no lenses and I could tell she felt pretty awesome. She looks intense here, but she was just playing.

Check out my Etsy site and custom portraits @ JillMillwardARTWORK.

Ballet 1

Ballet 1 Ballet I_lores

Oil on canvas 36X48″

Last week I got this painting back from Evermore where I had it professionally photographed so I can have a high quality image for my website and also I will have the option of making giclee prints from a high resolution image.

Two years ago I sat and watched my daughters ballet class during parent observation week. While I was watching I noticed how the light was pouring in through the window and lighting up the girls hair and backs and also making cool reflections on the floor. So I pulled out my iPhone and took a bunch of pictures. This one was my favorite image. I felt like it captured a small moment in time for me. And shows each girls individuality. They were standing in line listening to their teacher “Miss Jessica” who is a beautiful professional dancer at Ballet Idaho, getting ready to make a dance pass across the floor. At first I only put in the first 5 girls in line but then decided to add the little girl with the skit. So glad I did. I worked on this painting over a period of months last year, it was a real lesson in values and edges. My favorite part of all of it is the floor.