Today's Lesson

Today I spent all day painting. It was raining cats and dogs, the wind was blowing, etc. All in all, a great day to spend at the easel. So, what was finished at the end of the day? One canvas that had hosted two paintings, and had been WIPED DOWN TWICE! This left me with no painting, but with a lovely toned canvas. Frustrating? Yes!  But, I learned a good lesson. It is not what ends up on the canvas that matters. What matters is:
 1.Showing up in the studio and putting the effort and energy into creating something, even if I am the only one to see it before it gets wiped down.
2. HAVING FUN!

The value of "Value"

New year, new workshops! I just returned from an amazing workshop in St. Simons Island, GA that was all about "Value". For those of you who are not familiar with what value is, I explain it as the degree of lightness or darkness of an object.  WHITE is the lightest value (there is nothing lighter that white), and that BLACK is the darkest value (there is nothing darker than black).
A "Value Scale" has white at one end of the scale, and black at the opposite end. In the middle is a perfect "middle value" grey. Moving from this center toward white, the grey gets progressively lighter. Moving from this center toward the black, the grey gets progressively darker. Here is my "Value Painting" of two pears. There is no color, only darks and lights. It's important to know this because when you paint, if a painting has it's values correct, it looks more 3 dimensional and is more pleasing to view.

Value Study of 2 Pears

8" x 10"

Oops- I meant to post this

Well, I published the wrong photo. Go figure. Here is my first painting for 2013. Enjoy!

Soft Summer Sky 1

New Year, New Things

In this new year, one of my pledges is to paint more freely. Easier said than done, but, after cleaning the house, taking the Christmas tree down and packing everything away, I had procrastinated all I could. It was time to tackle an abstract landscape. It was like starting out on a trip with no map, but you kind of knew where you wanted to end up. Here is my first painting for 2013. I hope you enjoy it!

Soft Summer Day 1

6 x 8 - Oil

Happy New Year !

It feels great to be back in the studio after taking a break! I hope everyone had a great holiday, and that you are all off to a good start to 2013! I have some fun things lined up for this year that I will be sharing with you along the way. For now, here is my final floral for 2012. Hope you like it! In the language of flowers, this one represents "pure affection".

Deep Pink Orchid

11 x 14 - Oil
$300