Snowdrops

I don't usually do flowers, but for some reason I got the urge and this is the result. I admit that painting snowdrops at the end of Fall seems a little unusual but I was browsing through some photos and this one really caught my eye.

Snowgrasses

I did this some time ago and decided to have it printed up into Christmas cards. I think the cards came out OK but I had them done in a matte finish and if I do it again I think I would choose a glossy finish. I think I'm also going to put this one into our local Christmas show at the library - it seems like an appropriate subject for the time of year.

Anchored

This is what I have been working on for the past few days. I got the photo from the reference image library on Wet Canvas but I loved the somewhat threatening sky while the cliff and the boat were still in sunlight. 12 x 16 on La Carte paper.

New Hampshire Fall

recently we went on a Fall Foliage Studio tour, which involved visiting several artists in their studios and viewing their works. We really enjoyed this although we actually only got to about six of the studios due to lack of time. All this took place in and around Keene in New Hampshire which is about and hour and a half from us, and this picture is from a photo that I took that day.

SOLD

Old Cellars Beach

I took this photo several years ago when walking on the cliffs with my sister and brother in law. Old Cellars Beach is in Noss Mayo, Devon at the entrance to the Yealm Estuary. This whole area is one of great natural beauty and I had already done a painting of it for my sister but felt I wanted to do it again in a larger format. This one is 16" x 20".

Road to the Mountain

This is from a photo of Heber, in Utah taken by someone else, but I loved it and asked permission to use it to paint from. I always love any photo that has a path that draws the eye and as soon as I saw this I knew I wanted to paint it.

Fall by the River

I took this photo about a year ago when my sister and brother in law were visiting from England. We took a trip to Maine to view foliage and stopped at this spot on the way.

Evening Light

I can't remember where I got this photo, but I loved the sky and was itching to have a go at it. I did it on some masonite (hardboard) that we had purchased and cut into smaller sizes, which I then coated with a ground pumice mixture to create a rough surface which is ideal for pastel painting. However, I wasn't happy with this board as I think I should have given it a couple more coats - it was quite difficult to work with especially the area of the grass. It seemed too slick and wouldn't really grab the pastel.

Tulips for Two

This picture was really fun to work on. Usually I don't get to use such bright colors, especially red, which doesn't appear in landscapes too often. There were more people in the photo that I took this from, but two were all I could cope with and I think it may have been too busy with more. I didn't take the photo myself, but it's of some tulip fields in Oregon.

Grand Marais, Minnesota

Some very dear friends of ours live in Grand Marais, on the northern shore of Lake Superior in Minnesota during the summer months and have asked us many times to visit them there, but so far we haven't made it. So when, I came across this photo in the Wet Canvas reference image library I couldn't resist doing this picture. I found it quite challenging particularly when it came to doing the rocks especially as they are so close to the viewer.

I'm not sure where this is but it was a photograph I came across and thought it would be fun to paint. It's 11 x 14 and done on a paper called La Carte which I have never used before. It's a coated surface that cannot under any circumstances get wet. Even sneezing on it will apparently leave holes in the surface. Because of this I have always been afraid of it, but I had a sample piece and decided to give it a go........ I love it...... and would now like to get more, but probably won't because it's expensive and I have a lot of other papers of different types to use up first.

Actually, last weekend we spent quite a bit of time in the garage with a power saw, cutting up a sheet of masonite (hardboard) into sizes to make painting surfaces, and now I have to do the preparation on them which involves coating them with a pumice mixture. I have ordered the pumice on line and hopefully this process won't be too messy or difficult.

This is from a photo of Eilean Conan Castle in Scotland taken by someone else. I have done this picture twice because I was experimenting with a surface that I hadn't tried before and although I enjoyed doing the picture I hated the surface so I did it again on some pastel board that I am familiar with and enjoy using.

I'm now firmly situated in my new studio in the basement and so far it's working out well, except that a couple of times I've found it really hot down there.....but, the temperature has been in the 90's outside so I'm reserving judgement on that particular problem.

I have been working on this picture off and on for the last week, and after a few frustrating moments finally this morning it all came together. I didn't take the photo myself, but it is a picture of a waterfall in North Georgia.

This week has been busy here because I have made the decision to move my studio from the spare bedroom and relocate it in the basement of our home. I felt it was time to turn the room back into a bona fide bedroom so that a) we have somewhere to put guests should the occasion arise, or b) if we suddenly decide to move, there won't be a urgent need to do it then. This was sound thinking because it is taking ages to achieve and countless trips from the top of the house to the basement - quite exhausting!

The other event of note this week is that I have just sent in a CD to the Pastel Society of New Hampshire containing my images of three paintings which I am submitting for selection into a juried show of pastels in September. I won't know until the middle of August whether I got in and I think the competition will be quite stiff with entries from all over the States, so it's a long shot for a rank amateur like me.

This picture is from a reference photo offered by Paula Ford on West Canvas.com in one of the monthly challenges. The subject being spotlighted this month was Summer trees and this is a field in Tennessee.

This is from a photo I took of a beautiful medieval village in France when John and I were there a few years ago. It was a great place and we had dinner there in a really old building which looked out over the valley. There are hills everywhere in Provence and it seems as if each one has a medieval village perched on the top.

On a different subject I learned yesterday that I had received an Honorable Mention for a picture that I entered into the July 4th Art Show. I entered two pieces and the one that I expected would win something, didn't - but the other one, which I wasn't all that thrilled with did!!!! You just can never tell what the judges are going to look for in these shows.

When we were in Tennessee I took numerous photographs as we drove around the State and this is one scene that caught my eye. I don't remember exactly where it is, but I think somewhere on the Cumberland Plateau. I have actually painted this picture twice, once on a board I prepared myself, but I hated working on that surface so I decided to do it again on a recycled piece of Pastelmat which had previously held a failed painting that I had washed off.

It's been quite a time since I posted anything here, due to visitors and other distractions, which included a visit to Fairfield Glade in Eastern Tennessee to check it out as a retirement destination. We loved it there and are working towards getting there within the next two years. One of the many appealing aspects for me was the fact that they have a thriving Art Guild which is run by the residents. They have monthly exhibits of work done by members which are held in the great facility they have there, which also includes studio space and has workshops and all sorts of interesting things going on. I'm very excited about it.

This piece is from a photo I took of the Sandhill Cranes that regularly strutted past the rear of our home when we lived in Florida, and I am going to enter it into the Annual 4th July Show here in Chelmsford this year.

I have been watching a lot of Arnold Lowrey videos lately and I was interested in the way he uses Canson paper and blends a lot, so I thought I would try it. First I had to dig out my Canson Paper from under a pile of sanded papers which I usually prefer. I don't usually work this big, but I used a full sheet which is about 20" x 26". It was an interesting experiment and I was actually quite pleased with the way the sky came out after I blended the heck out of it. It's not perfect by any means but I enjoyed myself.

I was excited to find out today that I have had two pieces of art accepted in a juried show to be held by the Chelmsford Center for the Arts in early April. This is the first time any of my work has been juried into a show. Admittedly this show is quite small, but it's thrilling nevertheless. The accepted pieces are the "Feather light, feather bright" and "White Peonie" which both appear earlier on this blog.

This is from a photo of Hay Bales in a Tennessee field taken by Paula Ford and was part of a challenge on Wet Canvas.com. The challenge being to start with an underpainting prior to putting in details. I chose some pretty vivid colors for my underpainting and mostly they were completely covered by the work I did on top, except in the trees where I allowed some of the red to show through.

We've just had our kitchen remodeled and I painted this picture of pears to go on the wall, alongside the earlier one I did of grapes in a bowl. I have just got a new camera and am still finding my way around all the various controls. I may also enter this in a juried show that is coming up soon in our town.

I painted the picture on the left about a month ago but have only just got round to taking a photograph as I had to cut it to size and mount it for framing. This is not easy when you paint in pastel because there is always the risk of smudging the finished work. It is from a photograph taken by someone on Wet Canvas and I call it Distant Sierras. It's 16 x 20.

This right hand picture is just a little one, 5" x 7" using up a scrap of sanded paper that I had lying around. I don't remember where I got the photograph.

I wanted to try something different and I came across this picture which seemed like it would be a challenge ........ and I was right. I think I'm going to enter it into a juried competition here in Chelmsford, though I don't have any great hopes of it being accepted. Watch this space!

More Mist

OK - so I seem to be in the mood to paint pictures of mist at the moment. This is an early morning view over a misty lake in the Adirondak mountains of New York. It is offered on the Spotlight thread of Wet Canvas this month as an exercise in cropping a photo to the satisfaction of the artist. However, rather than doing anything fancy, I chose to go with the landscape format because I wanted the maximum amount of mist in the frame. Photo by Don Ketchek.

Into the Mist - (again)

This is my second attempt at this picture. John has taken the original one to work and has it sitting on his credenza. He's thrilled with it. This time I painted it 16" x 20" and made it a little bit mistier that the first one. It's from a photo taken by someone with the Username Katfre in the reference image library on Wet Canvas.

This is the latest thing I have been working on. It's really small. I have never done anything this size before (about 5 x 7) but I wanted to give it a go. It wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be, though there are certainly challenges.

This is from a photograph I got from the reference image library on the Wet Canvas web site. I call it "Into the Mist" and I think it's my favorite painting to date. It was a challenge trying to figure out how to give the appearance of mist, but I think it came out reasonably well. I like this one so much that I think I'll do it in a larger format, this one is 11 x 14 and I think I'd like to do it 16 x 20. John loves this and wants to take it to hang in his office.

I haven't been here for a while because although I've been at my easel I didn't have access to a camera due to the fact that my husband was in England visiting his mother and he took the camera with him. However, he is now back and I have been able to photograph my recent work.

There is going to be a Cupcake Fest in Chelmsford in February and the local art society members have been asked if they would like to paint pictures of cupcakes to be displayed in conjunction with the event. I thought this would be a fun thing to do - which is was - so this is my contribution. Unfortunately, I had already framed the picture when I photographed it, resulting in a shiny spot right in the middle, it's a bit difficult to see, but you get the idea.