Longhair Dachsund

"Longhair Dachsund"
6X6
Oil on Gessoed Board
Available

Back to the dogs..our dear friends. I have committed to donate a painting for a fund-raising project to benefit the local Cancer Society. The event is an auction and will be happening the middle of March. Since that is soon, I thought I should start warming up to get myself back into the dogs...one of my very favorite subjects to paint. I'm looking forward to the commission and hope the auction works out great for all!

Stay tuned....and bless our dogs who comfort us in all circumstances.

Tribute to Rick Santelli

"Tribute to the Wall Street Bull"
8X8
Oil on Canvas Panel
Available
Contact to Purchase

I had another title for this guy, but as I was painting him yesterday a wonderful outburst was taking place in Chicago by Rick Santelli, a commentator on CNBC. Watch him here The Wall Street Bull may be temporarily out to pasture, but I am a free market capitalist and am praying the he comes running back at some point in our lives, sooner rather than later. It isn't as if I have had tons of money in the stock market...just one small IRA that has been decimated by the Socialists who ruined the banks. (Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, etc.) What that Wall Street Bull represents to me is that American businesses are flourishing and people are living well. That, in my mind, is a great thing. While it doesn't fit the stereotype of "artist," I am an artist with a business. Besides art for art's sake, art is a business. No different than manufacturing any other product. The current bogus administration of our government is doing everything in its power to ruin freedom and the financial health of our country. I am watching a travesty beyond anything that I could have ever imagined. God bless Rick Santelli for his eloquent outrage at that moment yesterday. He spoke for the majority of Americans who are now held hostage to a Marxist / Socialist / Fascist tyranny. As Rick said yesterday, "Are you listening, President Obama???"


My first title was, "Beware of 'Being' Over the Hill." I was thinking it would make a funny greeting card for a guy's birthday. In fact, if you know a guy who is having a birthday soon, this would be a very nice present....he can hang it in his office to remind him of his strength!! I had a lot of fun painting him and love the strength he conveys. Art cannot thrive under tyranny.

A Flight of Fantasy

"Mockingbird"
Available Painting
$550.00 (framed size 12X15)
Contact me to purchase.

USA TODAY
1/5/2005 3:23 PM


Wind turbines taking toll on birds of prey
By John Ritter, USA TODAY
ALTAMONT PASS, Calif. — "The big turbines that stretch for miles along these rolling, grassy hills have churned out clean, renewable electricity for two decades in one of the nation's first big wind-power projects.

But for just as long, massive fiberglass blades on the more than 4,000 windmills have been chopping up tens of thousands of birds that fly into them, including golden eagles, red-tailed hawks, burrowing owls and other raptors.

The size of the annual body count — conservatively put at 4,700 birds — is unique to this sprawling, 50-square-mile site in the Diablo Mountains between San Francisco and the agricultural Central Valley because it spans an international migratory bird route regulated by the federal government. The low mountains are home to the world's highest density of nesting golden eagles."


Here we are four years later and who is listening? The information above is not new. And it is ongoing. Meanwhile a whole lot of birds are biting the dust thanks to this insane push for "wind power." Not to mention the visual blight the turbines create. The so called 'environmentalists' have a huge hypocrisy problem. While they jump up and down and yell about "green" energy solutions, they are creating nothing more than fat bank accounts for themselves and their chosen few suppliers of this 'so called' "green" energy. They try to make you believe that they are on the side of wildlife and how the planet will collapse in short order if you don't buy into their schemes. The sorry thing is that they are stealing your taxes to support their very flawed agenda. By creating a false crisis, a lot of fat cat politicians and schemers are getting rich producing nothing of value from your hard work.

This Informative Article from the National Center for Policy Analysis

An excerpt here: "How many dead birds equal a dead fish equals an oil spill?" Ten thousand cumulative bird deaths from 1,731 MegaWatts of installed U.S. capacity is the equivalent of 4.4 million bird deaths across the entire capacity of the United States electric market (approximately 770 gigawatts). A 20 percent share of U.S. capacity, a figure that the American Wind Energy Association put forward some years ago in congressional hearings (see above), would equate to 880,000 cumulative bird deaths. Calculated on an average operating basis, the number would rise severalfold."

And this:

Other Environmental Drawbacks

"A distinct air emission problem of wind capacity is created when a new project is built where there is surplus electric generating capacity. Since large wind farms require thousands of tons of materials, virtually all of the air emissions associated with the electricity used to make these materials (such as cement or steel) must be counted against the air emissions "saved" once the farm comes on line and displaces fossil fuel-generated output. For example, a recently announced Zond wind farm of 40 to 45 effective megawatts is composed of 150 wind turbines weighing 35 tons each or just over 10 million pounds. The entire electricity requirement for these materials (cement, steel, fiberglass, etc.) must be estimated before assigning an air emission factor. To calculate a net emission savings, that factor must be subtracted from the air emission reduction once the wind project comes online."

The sad thing for me is twofold. First, I love birds. If I could grow wings, I would. Second, I know people who think they are friends of birds, who belong to "Bird Watching" organizations, yet who voted for this President and his "Green Energy" nonsense. I guess they don't realize it when they are at odds with their own goals and mindlessly vote for the "feel good" agenda. I wonder how the brain can disconnect from logical consequences. I am having a very hard time suffering these fools.

Daffodil Reclining

"Daffodil Reclining"
5X7
Oil on Canvas Panel

I am surprised to see my daffodils blooming already....this being February 14th. Since it's Valentine's Day, I thought I would share one of them with you. I painted this one spring before last...but have enjoyed having it around. It sits in a very nice frame on a decorative easel in my studio. This way I get to enjoy a daffodil all year long...and that is one small bright spot in these dismal days.

SC Landscape Finished

"Equilibrium"
16X20
Oil on Linen Panel
Available / A Natural View, Gaston County Art Guild Show at the Schiele Museum of Natural History
Dates: March 5 -April 4, 2009
Location: 1500 E. Garrison Blvd., Gastonia, 28054

That is.....if this painting gets into the show. (if not, you can buy directly from me) This is a judged / juried show and the requirements are stiff. We have a very qualified prestigious judge this year, Dee Beard Dean who is known for her beautiful landscape paintings and for founding the Plein Air Painters of the Southeast. In my estimation, this show is the best show of the year for the Gaston County Art Guild. I say that because I love the theme...all things in nature in North America. No manmade stuff, just raw nature.

If I were to describe my feelings about this painting, I would say it means "coming home" to me. It is a depiction of the type of scene I see from the road as my husband I drive home from somewhere...the farmland ready for planting, the pine forests in the background, the lush greenery surrounding the tilled fields, the Carolina Blue skies with some clouds kicking up, the sun streaking across the earth....all keeping me grounded and feeling balanced. That is why the title is "Equilibrium." Home is where the heart is....and this painting describes it to me.

WIP A Carolina Farmscape

"A Carolina Farmscape"
Detail
Work in Progress
Oil on Linen Panel

It's been a week since I have posted and I hope you didn't think I was slacking away over here. I actually have been working on this 16X20 piece in hopes of coming up with something bigger for an upcoming show. What you see here is about the middle third of the painting. Many challenges here. First I normally work much smaller...so the size alone is daunting for me. Secondly, this thing has a lot of sky, a middle area of lots of details, and then the foreground is a tilled field that looks to be waiting for planting. That means a lot of dirt. And the sky...well, it is a spectacular sky and I don't know if I could ever do it justice.

Anyway, I've been working on this for the last three and a half days (in between Dr.'s appts. for my Dad and trying to keep my daughter sane since she is one of the casualties of the Bank of America job cuts). I hope to finish it up tomorrow or the next day.

I also want to announce that Peter Fiore has begun a new blog to share his landscape studies. He is one of the contemporary artists I admire very much, so I am happy to have him join us in the blogging world! Take a look and sign up!!


Of course the other distraction is the disaster in Congress. Now that the left wing has shown its real agenda in bankrupting the country with the so called "stimulus bill," otherwise known as the biggest socialist travesty I personally have ever seen. I hope some of my artist friends are finally seeing what a mistake they made in electing this bunch of thieves. Ever the optimist, I try to think that even people with no brains can see the hypocrisy and out-right lies in this "New Messiah and his cohorts in crime." As an artist, personal freedom means something to me. Having George Orwell's 1984 come to life before my eyes is not fun. Having the United Nations tell Americans how they are supposed to conduct their lives is not my idea of American values. Having a pig like Al Gore, who is a scam artist and the biggest hypocrite in the world, tell the rest of us how we are ruining the earth is disgusting at best.

So as I try to paint and capture what is left of family owned farmland, I am totally sad that the political elite are taking land and resources out of the hands of private citizens and giving the same away to groups like the Land Conservancy....taking your tax dollars to confiscate farmland and other open space, taking it out of the hands of American citizens forever. When I say confiscate, I mean confiscate. The government has punished farmers and taxed businesses out of business...so when the farmers can't keep paying the price of government, the Lands Conservancy groups step in and offer tax credits to take the land out of the private sector. What that means is that we lose the tax base of the farm, we pay for the maintenance of the land, and the land is no longer available for anyone for any reason forever. And you and I are then taxed higher in order to cover the loss of the farm taxes, and the maintenance of the land. In short, you and I are paying government bureaucrats to take away the farm / agriculture base that sustained the food supply of our country. The abominations go on and on and on....and I just keep trying to paint. And while artists sit around lamenting the loss of our beautiful farms, they do stupid things like voting in people who are planning to place taxes on farmers for methane emissions of cows and other livestock. They vote in people who create food shortages by pushing ethanol on the transportation industry.

Go figure...