Sarahs Tree

Hooray!  Finished and delivered!  Sarah seems happy with the results so I am very happy!!!

Maryhill Art Museum

I spent the weekend in The Dalles, OR attending an auction to benefit  The Columbia Gorge Discovery Center and Wasco County Museum (which is a lovely place to visit).  On my way home on Sunday I stopped at the Maryhill Art Museum and was pleasantly surprised at the wonderful art they had on display. 

On the easel

Getting very close to finishing these three.  Then moving on to some lighter pieces. Tomorrow I get to spend most of the day in the studio, really looking forward to it.  

On the drawing board and easel...

I feel like I finally hit my stride!  There's no knowing what finally kicked into gear but I'm feeling it!

The drawings are coming together. It's been really interesting working on these, especially the first one.  The camera distorts the angles and perspective so I have to correct the distortions using my shaky knowledge of linear perspective and memory. I'm debating weather to keep them as line only or add value.  Once they're finished I'll take them to Kinkos to have them enlarged so I can transfer them to canvas.






Uffizi in Florence, Italy 















View from the castle in Beynac, France
















Castle in Amboise, France

Can you tell by my color choices that I LOVE autumn?  There's something about the changing colors and cool air that inspires me. 

My Ellie, closer to getting the likeness...

More works in progress...

This is my favorite time of year!  The farmers marker is full of beautiful fruits and vegetables and the air is crisp and clear.

Inspiration

I take my camera with me as often as possible.  It doesn't seem to matter where I go, there is always a glimpse of beauty or a spark of a story.  The top photo is from the Henry Ford Museum in Michigan.  In the museum complex there is the most amazing village which celebrates american history.  This image is taken in the general store.  I could have spent hours in there!  Below that is one of our furry friends who lives under the cabin where we go for our retreat.  He was very fat and sleepy.  Ready for fall.  The painting is from a farm I found on Whidbey Island.  It was tucked up against a hill.  

back again and works in progress

Just got back from a week long retreat with my POBL buddies.  It was wonderful!!! The woods next to the cabin are so gorgeous.  Now it's time to dive in and get lots of painting done.  The paintings below are in progress and headed for my show in February.

It's been a long day...

I spent the day as an assistant in a portrait painting workshop, so when I came home I was too tired to cook.  My son who is 19 was hanging out with a bunch of buddies playing video games, they are now in the kitchen attempting to cook beef bourguignon, cool huh!!!

I love my kids!!!

Inspiration for new still lifes found on a date with my hubby, we spent the afternoon on Capital Hill in Seattle having lunch, coffee, ice cream and treasure hunting!!!  Very fun.  In the studio I've been working on the arrangement of furniture to better use the natural lighting and enable me to work on multiple still lifes set ups at a time.  I'm especially happy having discovered using my extra easel for my palette, this ensures my palette and painting are receiving the same amount of light which makes color mixing more precise.  The toy painting is finished but the floral is only about 1/2 way there.

Inspiration from Nature

I was out at sunset in the yard and the Japenese Maple was on fire!!! 

On the easel

These are all works in progress.  My biggest challenge these days is choosing content and composition.  As an example the sea themed still life has a big space on the left that is empty and needs to be broken up.  Seeing the paintings in this format helps  to identify the problems.  Actually the Oz painting has the same problem on the right side...

Hot around here!

It's HOT HOT HOT!  Just got back from camping and will be working furiously in the studio. 

Works in progress

These images are drawings for my upcoming show in Feb.  The figures will be completed and framed as is.  The architectural drawing are preliminaries for paintings.  I'm doing fairly detailed line drawings which I'll have enlarged at Kinkos then transfer to canvases.

Busy Month!

Sorry for the lack of posts this month. My computer died and I have to load up photos on a different computer.  Come back in a week and I'll be up and running again!

Progress

Here's what's on the easel.  Paintings number 2 and 3 are finished but the first one is not there yet.  Today I hope to finish the tree painting for my friend Sarah, who has been incredibly patient waiting for it.


This week coming up I will be teaching my youth art camps at the Arts Umbrella.  In the morning will be "Mini Michaelangelos"  and the afternoon "Bugs and Blooms".  These camps are such fun, they're geared towards kids 5 to 9 years old, which means lots of enthusiasm and charm!