Early spring paintings still life

Beautiful flowers to inspire...

Watercolors...

Acrylics ...

 

 

And acrylic collage...

 

 

 

Richard Stephen's watercolor workshop --3 days to play!

                               

My sister gave me a fabulous birthday present! Three days at a watercolor workshop with artist Richard Stephens .  We played and learned!
Above is the last exercise....we painted the same subject (of our choice) twice.  Once for a full hour, and then again for just 30 minutes.  The painting on the left was the first painting, and the one on the right was the second. I like them both and both will soon be for sale.

Richard works with lots of pigment and often very wet paper.  He is not timid or tenative.  He says that the fewer strokes and the fewer times you touch the paper , the better!  AND he uses his biggest brushes as long as possible!  His demonstrations are great!

So...here are my exercises from the 3 days......

Buy this one now with Pay Pal......just $75.00!

Back later with prices for those I decide to sell!

enjoying the sunny afternoon before the snow comes...

Life is good when I can paint....!!!! Ceramic birds are easy to pose! Also, easy to change in the painting if I want them to be a different color or even species! Why be limited by reality????

Today's Bird Paintings

Blue bottles and a yellow bird.

Lilies from the garden with a goldfinch, almost finished below

I turned it into a collage with batik fabric to bring out the blue and blue violet, as well as to add more whimsy!


These two paintings are for sale in ETSY!

Bird Watching

2 small 8x10 watercolors of stilllife with birds. I wonder, what are these birds watching????

Reflections, Seeking Focus

This watercolor is based on a still life, but attempting to escape reality. It isn't too literal, scale and space are distorted. [I need a camera to show the whole painting,this is a scan of the center] To me, there is a bit of a "mirror" feeling. The red pear on the right side is "reflected" as a pear bi-sected on the left of the painting (mostly missing here).
The bird (from a figurine, great for posing and painting from different angles) seems to be preening in front of it's reflected image.
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I WAS able to get a photograph of the full painting on the sunporch....available light.

Freesias and red pear

A watercolor from this weekend. Freesias, pale peach carnations, asters, lime green pompom chrysanthemums and a red pear.

Take joy....

Painting plums on the porch!

A sunny warm afternoon...I love autumn and "need" to paint before October is gone!!!! Working on a composition using red violet and yellow. Delightful!

Scanned image of the finished painting. This painting has been donated to a silent auction to raise money for Art Center of the Ozarks.

After the storm...

I gathered some flowers which were left after last night's storm....

they are in a McCoy vase.

Now my eye can be more critical...since I am seeing this on the computer screen. The eye level I painted at focuses right on the stems, and the large hosta leaf points off the canvas....so this is just another of the hundreds we must do to learn our art! I'm happy that I didn't put the vase "dead center"....the yellow Stella Dora lily is almost the center....and may be the focal point. I used the violet to make the yellow "sing". So I make some changes...soften the large hosta, add another curling down on the other side and finally remake the maple leaf(lower right) into a hosta!

If you would like to purchase this painting for 35.00, using Paypal. Please click on the button !

Recent watercolors

These are 2 recent watercolors! (I do love to paint!!!)

This one with Chinese lanterns and bittersweet is a special painting for Julie Marie of "Celtic Lady" blogfame! She had written about these wonderful fall color plants and I was able to secure this creative commission from her!
This is a quick study of a vase of lilac from last spring...however, I only just today put the finishing touches (and splashes!) on it!
This one is for sale on ETSY! (SOLD!)

A gift for a most precious friend.....

"Let us be grateful to people who make us happy.
They are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom."
------Marcel Proust

This is a watercolor painting of a friend's white cat, Zelda.

She is a very aloof cat with a bit of an "attitude" . Last year on Easter day, we caught her on the cool green grass and my husband took her photo....I put that photo together with the photo of their potted Easter lilies and composed "Zelda the Miracle Cat"...a joke because in one part of her nine life adventures, she had lost most of her tail...in the painting I made it a bit longer...which you can't even see here because the scanner cut it off again!

Yesterday, having an unexpected day off, I went with Lizzzzzy to visit our long time friend, Sally....the cat's owner. [ We have all known each other since we lived in Little Rock. Sally now lives in a town about 30 minutes away, and has a wonderful old 2 story farm house (now with-in the town limits). Her husband is a professional gardern/landscape artist and a deacon in the Episcopal church. Sally has the worlds greenest thumb and is a science and math teacher. Going to their home is very much a retreat for me....the gardens and the fellowship.]

I took her the framed painting of her cat...and there was the perfect place just waiting for it...even a bare nail to hang it on!

Painting for a Cause.....

Healing and preserving memories......
This church, St. Marks in Gulfport, Mississippi, was totally destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. I made this painting after that, from a website photo. I was able to make the pink azaleas really "pop" with the new quinacidone watercolor pigments!
It was purchased by the youth group of our local church (purchase price was dontated to our local homeless shelter) and then delivered to the congregation who are rebuilding...a bit further inland this time. I know that the "old" church held many wonderful memories for them!






More paintings from my art show last year...at St.Paul's. The fellowship hall is a wonderful space where I take yoga and the walls are gallery walls...always a changing art show.

All the monies from the sale of my (joyful)watercolors was given to our local homeless shelter....more than $500.00!

I sold 13 works and will post the photos, as I find them.

This Stargazer lily was one which sold.

This is a watercolor of a koi pond with a waterfall. It was donated to our Art Center of the Ozarks annual silent auction last year.