I haven't had a great deal of spare time lately to spend on my art, but I did manage to go out with a fellow artist last week and spend some time at the Old North Bridge in Concord where we spent three hours painting. I have always been nervous to paint outdoors because I was concerned about people watching me. Well, I'm over that! If you don't want people to watch, it's not a good idea to paint at a National Historic Site - there were busloads of people coming through, and often when I turned around there would be two or three people over my shoulder! I've never had my photo taken so often by so many people that I don't know!!

I'm still working on the picture I did and eventually I will put it up here, but I don't expect to get much done in the next three weeks because my sister and her husband will be visiting us from England and I want to spend time with them.

This is a field of Purple Loosestrife near where we live. I know it's an invasive menace but it's just so pretty that I was looking forward to it being in bloom so that I could do a painting of it. this is from a photograph taken from the side of the road. I call it Purple Haze.

UPDATE: On reflection and after taking some instruction I changed this picture and the new version if shown here on the left.

This is from a photograph I took when we went to Springfield, Ma for the weekend so that John could attend a conference. While he was busy I got together with some of the other wives and we went to Sturbridge Village, a replica of a Pioneer Village. It was very interesting and I have to say I was impressed with the way they tried to recreate the way life was at the time. It was a hot day though and I have to believe that the "Pioneer's" were extremely hot in their heavy wool garments.

I have been working on this picture for about a week on and off. It's done in a variety of pastels, on a new surface that I have been wanting to try called Pastelmat.

These are a couple of pictures that I have done recently.

The one on the left is of a meadow that we passed while out driving a couple of weekends ago and I loved all the long grasses that lead up to the field and trees beyond. I call it Bobolink Meadow because it is just the sort of field that Bobolinks love - though sadly there were none there that day.

The picture on the right is of some of the outbuildings of Shaw Farm which is a local Ice Cream Stand that we were actually driving to when we passed the Bobolink Meadow. They have the most wonderful ice cream. I did take a little artistic licence in that I changed the height of the trees a little to make it a more interesting composition.

All my frames that I recently ordered have arrived and they seem to be pretty good. I also ordered backing boards as well, so I'm all set for a while.

On Saturday last week we went down to Boston to a gallery on Newbury Street, to see an exhibit of pastel paintings done by my art instructor in Maine. Then we went to Blick's art store and picked up some framing necessities. After we left there we went for Ice Cream!!

I have done a couple of new pictures since my last entry, but I forgot to photograph them before they were framed. It's difficult to get a decent photo once they are framed because of the reflections of the flash and other things in the vicinity. One of them I may try and take out, because I also forgot to sign it.

This week I picked up my three paintings that were in the art show in town and have been hanging in the library for the month of July. I'm running out of wall space here. I'm going to have to be more selective.

This is a painting I've spent the last few days on. When I first started on it, I was convinced that I wasn't going to be able to do it, but as I got more and more into the work it all started to come together and I'm quite pleased with the result. I think I may enter this one in a juried art show later this year.

This is from a photo I took of a typical doorway in New Mexico. It looks out onto the "most photographed church in the State". It is typical of the look of the entrances to houses in New Mexico - adobe walls and colorful doors. When I took the photo there was a man there with a far more sophisticated camera taking pictures from all angles - including laying on the ground. In fact, his foot was actually in the bottom right of my photo and I had to edit it out when I was painting. I think this is actually a door into a small addition, or maybe a courtyard, as it was attached to a larger building on the left.

I just sent off an order for some frames this morning. Framing is a big concern because it can be very expensive and as yet I am not selling my art, but in order to exhibit in shows I really need to have the pictures decently framed. Presentation is really important for sales. I have found some frames on-line that seem reasonable so I'm anxious to see them.

This picture is another beach scene, the same as the first one posted some time ago, but I did this one on better paper and I think it came out better.

I just took delivery yesterday of some new pastels that I ordered. They came really quick, I ordered the on the 12th July and they arrived on the 15th. These are Mount Visions and I love them. Of course getting 50 new pastels then meant that I had to spend an hour rearranging my pastel box which John made for me a couple of weeks ago. As you can see the box allows me to have all my colors set out according to value (by value I mean light to dark...not cost) and color regardless of brand, so that I can see at a glance what I have. It's much more convenient than having them all in different boxes.

I have started another picture. I'm going back to trying my hand at flowers again and so far it's coming along quite nicely. I'm enjoying it.

When we went to the 4th July festivities on the town common, we walked past a small pond behind the bank and there in the reeds was this bird's nest. I took the photo and thought I would like to have a go at doing a painting of it. Wasn't sure I could pull it off, but it was fun to do.

Everybody who exhibited at the Art Show is eligible to have their paintings hung in our town library for the month of July and this evening I am taking them down there. We are having some strong thunderstorms today but hopefully they will have stopped by the time I get there.