These are two pictures I've been working on lately to be hung in a show at our local library. Some of the pictures in the show will be chosen to be part of a floral arrangement design so that was the reason for these two subjects. I thought they would fit in with flowers, we'll see whether the floral arrangers think so! However, even if they don't get selected, I enjoyed the process of painting them - it was a change to do something different from landscapes and trees.

I have just finished this picture which is from a photograph I took of a maple tree at the bottom of our yard. It was fun to do and such a change from painting green trees all the time. I call this one Autumn Glory.

I had a disappointment recently when I entered two pictures into a juried art show in Concord, but sadly neither of them was considered worthy of a place in the show. I was crushed - but when I saw the other paintings that hadn't been selected I didn't feel so bad - there were some beautiful pieces of work that were not deemed suitable either.

On Tuesday this week I got together with a friend I met on line at Wet Canvas.com and we had planned to paint together at a local Wildlife Refuge. However, when we got there it was so cold that we decided instead to go to her home which was nearby, and paint in her studio. She has a great set-up and an enviable collection of pastels, I thought I had a lot, but now I feel deprived!! She gave me some photos to choose from and this is the one I selected. It was quite a change for me and not without it's difficulties, but I was quite pleased with the end result.

Now that our visitors have departed I got back to my studio today and worked on this picture from a photograph I took while we were in Maine for Columbus Day weekend. I'm not sure exactly where it is but I really enjoyed painting this. For so long everything has been green, green and more green! I have been longing for the Fall colors to start appearing and this is the first one I have done.

I was supposed to start a Portrait in Pastel class but sadly there weren't enough people signed up and the class had to be cancelled. I was really disappointed. Although portraits are not my strong suit I was looking forward to learning more and had even bought special pastel sticks for the class. I had planned on doing a portrait of my little granddaughter Sarah, but it was not to be. I'm hoping that the class will be offered again sometime.

This is a photo of a painting I did for some dear friends who invited us to stay with them in a family cottage on Cape Cod. It also happened to coincide with their upcoming 40th Wedding Anniversary, so I painted this for them to remind them of their favorite spot on the Cape and somewhere we have all walked often. They were both thrilled with the picture which pleased me.

The photo is not particularly good because the picture was already framed when I took it, and that always presents problems when trying to take a photograph.

This morning I went to a Pastel Portrait demonstration put on by the Concord Art Association. I loved it and came away enthused to give portraits another go. I am also signed up to do a 6 week class in Portraits in pastel and I'm looking forward to that.

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.