'Idyll Moment'

"Idyll Moment"
9X12
Oil on Raymar Linen Panel
Available

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Well, I could have titled this a number of different things; "Election Year Bull," "Pasture Idol," "Here's Looking at You," "Invest in Cattle Futures,"and more.....But I landed on "Idyll Moment" because this guy was caught on camera just surveying his domain. (The election year comment seemed too demeaning to the guy since I think he is quite grand and has more integrity than the politicians! You can vote for the title you like the best, if you wish.) I think the guy has that Alpha Male presence... Really fun to paint!! The photo was given to me by a friend who was doing a lot of plein air painting and took this shot while on one of her outings. She handed it to me saying that she doesn't do animals, but she knew I like to do animals so she thought I might like to try this one. I am emailing this to her as soon as I post it, so she can see what she wrought from her gift.

'Fourth of July Zinnias'

"Fourth of July Zinnias"
12X9
Oil on Gessoboard
Available
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Zinnias always seem old fashioned to me. I don't know why. They are common and not terribly formal like Irises or Peonies or Lilies, but they are the brightest light in the garden in the summer. In fact, if Mother Nature created fireworks I'd say these are the flowers that suit the purpose! They create a wonderful riot of colors in the garden! I couldn't get the seeds in the ground this year to the disastrous shape of my front flower garden, so, alas, these are borrowed from my daughter's garden.

It took me more than one day to do this one. So much going on here that I am lucky if I can paint for more than an hour without crazy interruptions. Also, I am having a disagreement with this gessoboard. It doesn't like to hold the paint without quite a bit of trouble. The finish effect is good in that it shows the brush strokes, but it starts out with a lot of slipping and sliding that gives me fits. Patience wins in the end, but it takes longer to do than linen or a rougher surface.

Hope everyone had a great 4th of July celebrating freedom.....even the freedom to make fools of ourselves. A great price has been paid for that freedom and I hope it remains in the forefront of everyone's mind this year as the election nears. I, for one, plan only to vote for those who will promote freedom and not vote for those who would steal it from us through more and enhanced big government programs. That is what was on my mind this 4th of July....as I was painting away on the zinnias.

'Beach Baby Ella'

"Beach Baby Ella"
10X8
Wash and Pencil on Ampersand Gessoboard
NFS

Scroll down to see Beach Baby Bennett, too.

Well...changing my mind. I originally was doing these two pieces as underpaintings. But as I worked I decided I liked the effect of the washes and pencil on the surface and, honestly, I don't think I could do a full blown painting of these that I would like as well as this....so I'm leaving well enough alone and moving on to the next thing.

Ella and Bennett went to the beach in Hawaii with their parents on the way to Korea. I think if you are going to the beach for the first time, it might as well be some gorgeous place like Hawaii....don't you? They were actually sitting side by side on a water board in the sand, but I split the picture into two parts, thinking that they might like to each have one of their own someday. What strikes me in both of them is the look of concentration as they try to get familiar with this strange stuff that they have never seen before.

'Beach Baby Bennett' WIP

"Beach Baby Bennett"
In Progress
10X8
Value Study / Underpainting

I was not going to post anymore 'works in progress,' but I decided to post this one because I like the drawing quality and watercolor effect. I am originally trained as a watercolorist, so learning to work with oils has been very challenging for me. I always want to work from light to dark instead of dark to light. The two mediums are so opposite from each other that I must force myself in oils to try to undo all I know and work backwards.

Anyway, this is my grandson, Bennett, at his first outing at the beach. He is one and half yrs. and had no clue what to do with the toys and the sand, but I can see his concentration here as he tries to figure it out. I have another one of his sister, also first experience at that beach, that will be coming along as well.

'Ravishing Red'

"Ravishing Red Radish"
6.25X11
Oil on Gessoed Masonite
Available

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Back but not too rested actually...the real R and R will have to come later. But I did have a nice time and it was great to get away for a little bit.

I do think radishes are ravishing...the color is such a splash in a salad! They bite just enough to make your tastebuds tingle. In the right frame, possibly antique gold, this will look ravishing. What is that saying about tickling the earth and it laughs (flowers)...?... but in this case it laughs radishes. This one was in my kitchen waiting to be painted for eternity.

Brief R and R

"Pearson's Beach House"
16X20
Acrylic on Board
Commissioned / Sold

This is a repeat of a previous post from over a year ago and not a daily....but....
I am just about collapsed from responsibilities, elderly parent, kids, dogs, house, yard, etc. etc......so I am ducking out for only a few days. Not to this beach house, but I am going up to some cooler elevations. This is not nearly long enough to regenerate my energy, but at least it is something of a respite. I'm taking my camera and sketchpad and visiting with a friend at a house with a million dollar view.....so it will be bliss.
I'll be posting again toward the end of next week when I can get back and paint some more for you.

'Ba Da Bings"

"Life is Just a...."
5x7
Oil on Gessoed Board
Available

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I'm dedicating this anti-oxident bowl of yummies to my Dad. "The Ancient One" at 90+ yrs.has been struggling lately, fighting off a bad crummy cancer and he deserves a bowl of cherries as much as anyone could right now. I think I'll have some myself!!

The situation has been distracting and my posts are maybe not as frequent because of it...
Plunging onward anyway....

'Walkway at Stowe Botanical Gardens'

"Walkway at Stowe Botanical Gardens" (Spring 08)
10X14
Oil on Gessoed Board
Available

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Right about now I either have great sympathy for George Seurat or I would like to strangle him. Whenever I do this type of landscape that involves lots of different plants and petals and leaves, all I can think of is how he had to have gone completely mad doing this in dots.....dots....and more dots....ugh!! He must have been the forerunner of the computer pixels ...more dots. So while I am painting this kind of scene I am trying to not be George Seurat. As hard as I try to simplify the thing, it still requires a lot of different strokes, colors, little bitty hits with the brush to reflect the light on those beautiful plants.
Anyway, here is what I saw at Stowe Botanical Gardens a while back on a really splendid spring day!!

'Buddies'

"Buddies"
5X7
Oil on Gessoed Panel
NFS

Click on picture to enlarge the view.

As I look across the room, from where I sit typing away at my computer, this is the scene at the door to my backyard. These are the two studio buddies I love!! Lucy, the Chocolate Cocker Spaniel, actually belongs to my daughter, but when she goes away on trips we get to keep Lucy with us. Bosley, our adorable PBGV, loves having Lucy visit and they hang out together while I work. They are priceless buddies to us and to each other. Have a happy weekend!

'Hydrangea in a Bean Pot'

'Hydrangea in a Bean Pot'
9X12
Oil on Panel
SOLD

A recent addition to our flower beds is a variety of Hydrangea that blooms all summer. This is a boon for those of us who love Hydrangeas, but used to only see them once in June and then they were gone. I have three of these lovely plants. I am just hoping they'll survive this hot spell we are having of over 90 degrees every day. This blossom wanted to droop right over the edge of the bean pot, but it made such a lovely shadow below that I decided it would do for this version. I stuck a Hosta leaf over in the right side of the pot for some balance...
Thanks for visiting!

"Pink Pansies"

"Pink Pansies"
6X6
Oil on Gessoed Board
Available

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Just now I was thinking this might be a "girl thing." Pink ruffles make me smile and think of my grand-daughter, Ella. My mother used to dress me up in ruffles and by the time I was in junior high I remember telling her to stop it already...I thought I was ready for the black cocktail dress with a slit and spaghetti straps by that time. Now I think of pink ruffles and smile!

This one was done on gessoed board which is fast becoming my favorite substrate on which to paint. My husband is going to be very busy in the wood shop cutting boards for me.... :-)
Thanks for taking a look!

Stowe Botanical Garden Irises

"Iris Times Two"
9X12
Oil on Raymar Linen Panel
Available

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This morning I worked only on the flowers.....so much variation going on here. Shapes and many different blues, violets, purples, deep crimson, all to be offset by the many greens of the foliage surrounding the blossoms....Finished this afternoon. Remember that everyone's computer monitor is color calibrated differently. The rich purples and blues were a difficult combination for photographing this time. I took the picture without any incandescent light, only natural light in my studio to get the best possible representation. The painting looks a bit more purple in real life than the blog is showing me.
There were a lot of sun strikes, transparencies, and shadows happening in this so it was truly difficult to capture all of the nuances. Hopefully I managed to do it without too much confusion.

"White Lily"

"White Lily" Study
7X5
Oil on Masonite Panel
Available

Have had precious little time this week to paint. The "Ancient One," otherwise known as my Dad, had a biopsy, lots of family stuff going on with adult children making arrangements for flights and care of a huge dog, on and on. So this was a quick small daily I managed to get done this afternoon.

An artist friend and I spent some time recently at Stowe Botanical Gardens and I took some photos to use for paintings. This is a variety of Lily I found there..not known to me. It had those beautiful little black curly pistols, a red stamen, and gorgeous red buds coming along. I may do a bigger version of this with more in it...my photo has two of the Lilies. White is tough to paint. Sometimes it picks up all of the colors around it, but in this case it stayed pure and blasted with sunlight. It was hard to paint the nuances and get any texture this time. Some of it I just had to exaggerate in order to get the shape of the flower.
On to the next time!!!

"Garden Store Dog"

"Garden Store Dog"
14X11
Oil on Linen Panel
Available


It was an adorable scene that day. My daughter and I were at Pike Nursery in Charlotte, picking out plants for her yard, when a lady was pushing her cart with this great little Cairn Terrier in the basket. After asking about him, we found out his name is Frasier. He smiled nearly the whole time we talked ...I wonder if he knew we were saying the nicest things about him. I took several pictures of him and then a bit later, as I looked across the aisle in the store I saw this one and snapped another picture. I think this one is my favorite.

You never know where inspiration will find you....I thought I was going to be taking pictures of flowers...instead I came home with pictures of this happy little fellow!!

"Garden Store Dog" In Progress

This one is later this afternoon..
The bottom pic is from this morning.



"Garden Store Dog" In Progress
14X11
Oil on Linen Panel

As I am wading my way through the leaves and details, I am asking myself if I should have cropped this further and just painted our little fellow in the cart. But the idea might have been lost in that case, since I really wanted a sense of place. Atmosphere means something to me, giving a subject a place to be in this case especially, getting the feeling of a good and patient dog sitting in a place unlikely for a dog, yet good as gold just waiting for his owner to finish shopping. So while I would have found it easier to paint less of the scene, to me, the scene contributes so much to the feeling of this one.

From here out, I am going to be working on the bottom third and working the whole painting in a way that, hopefully, won't lose the dog in the landscape. All paintings are about values...but this one is killing me with values...how much dark, how much light, how many shades of green .....oh my gosh. Very challenging.