Winter Birch

This painting is an oil on canvas, 16"x20". It's framed in the actual barn wood from our barn that was lovingly taken down this past summer to make room for a new one. My husband saved some of the wood to make frames for just such an occasion as this! So.... I did the painting and husband did the frame from our old barn. A"True" family affair! hehe.

Indian Falls

The Ta-Da moment has arrived and the painting is finally finished!
20"x30"x1 1/2 , acrylic on canvas.
Indian Falls

Steel Guitar

This is the hopefully the first in a series of stringed instruments that I will be doing. This first one is the 'Airline String Guitar", 12"x24"acrylic on board. It has a glazed surface and will be framed, as all of them in the series will. For the music lovers out there!

Abstract Angel

I had the privilege to teach a mother daughter duo in my studio yesterday and we did abstract angels. The daughter was only 7 yrs old and she did very well with this technique. The background was too hard for her so she painted hers in but mother and I did this background that you see here with cheese cloth. We pushed the various paint colors through the mesh onto the canvas and of course it left a lovely course pattern in the background for our Angels.
The Angela were "wet painted". That's a term I may have made up. Apply your colors very rapidly with a wet brush dipped into the paints, dragged onto the canvas, then lightly sprayed with a water mister. It will run to give a nice runny misty effect. To stop the process at any point from running anyfurther, simply lay the canvas flat to dry. We did blow dry the background before applying the angels. However, do not blow dry the misted Angels or the lovely drops will get splayed in different directions and ruin the downward drip effect. Unless of course, that's what you want ; )
Hope you try this Wet Painted technique!

Cherries

This little painting is for my September painting class I do believe.
My grand daughter had the job of pitting a bunch of cherries and she did a very good job of it too I might add. She pulled out a pair of joined cherries and proclaimed them twins and said I was to paint them! So, here they are.

All around the Barnyard!

You all got to see this painting in an earlier post two weeks ago, Travis and His Chicks. 12"x48"x1 1/2".
I have been very busy with chickens and roosters lately and thought I'd do a wacky kind of painting next.

This painting was all for fun after such a serious painting before it. I call this one , Crazy Chickens! 12"x48"x1 1/2". Had a lot of fun with it and everyone who dropped by the studio had a laugh too!

Finally and the END of the line for chickens for awhile is Hen Pecked, a folksy, arts and crafts style painting. 12"x24'.
Sure do hope you enjoyed these barnyard critters!

Electric Guitar

This painting was so exciting to watch happen. At first I had all the wrong colors chosen and I quickly changed Magenta for the sage-ish green. I really think the colors now play beautiful music together. When I posted just a segment of the painting, a little corner, my friends on the social network FB declared that it looked like an electric guitar. So, well you guessed it, we named her just that "Electric Guitar". So while you look imagine your favorite guitar riff.

The Mask

Flow paintings continue here in the studio. This one called "The Mask", measures 20"x24" and is already framed. Love the colors again! Wow, I find this new expression of paint and art to be very fulfilling and quite exciting as I never know what will happen. You can have no real plan when doing these except color choices.

The Genesis

I am so excited to introduce this new painting! It's a three paneled triptych flow painting. Each panel/canvas is 20"x30"x1 1/2". So the true measurement given an inch between panels is 62"x30"x1 1/2"gallery wrap.
I so love this painting! The colors are phenomenal and remind me of the first verses in the chapter Genesis in the Bible. The creation and formation of the world, air, water , sea and light.
I always feel the presence of my higher power at the creation of my paintings, He surely guided the paint flow on this one.
There is just a WOW factor to see this painting in real life. I surely hope you all enjoy it as much as I am.

Summer Days

Lovely new painting just off the easel called, "Summer Days". This painting is very large measuring 24"x48"x1 1/2/"gallery wrap. The medium used is all new to me. My friend Michele has a faux finishing business and had this wax polymer that she used to burnish into wood pieces. She gave me some , and curious, I thought, "Hmmm I wonder what would happen if I mixed paint with it and used the wax as a thickening medium similar to gel?" I did that. I mixed up some beautiful colors that called to me and began. I first laid an underpainting in to get placement and color composition down. Next, I got out the knives! Now you know how I love the knives! All the canvas was done by knife impasto using that wax polymer and acrylic paint. It dried hard overnight. I checked with my friend about the durability of the wax and she assures me that it is quite strong and uses it on fireplace mantles as well as other pieces of furniture. The texture is firm and a semi-gloss when dry.

The Hibiscus

This lovely flower came to me by way of God. Yes, that's right I said "God". I had a few paintings I wanted to do, then in the way that God does, He showed me this image sorta like burned into the backside of my eyelids. It was this deep throated red hibiscus flower. Giant too like an O'Keefe painting. I said to God, "But God, it's already been done before by other artists" Ya know, like whining to Him! I think we are very amusing to him sometimes. Anyway, so, that's the origin and inspiration behind this painting. Now for the particulars. It measures 18"x24"x1 1/2" gallery wrap and is an oil on canvas. The painting part is done, however, I will be laying on some impasto medium over the top to give this painting some gloss and texture.

Sunflowers

I always seem to gravitate toward the bright colors and this time it's sunflowers. This painting is 18"x24"x1 1/2" gallery wrap, acrylic on canvas.

Three Poppies

This little painting is done in oils and is on a 1 1/2 inch gallery wrap canvas.

Drama Queens

I just fell in love with the idea of these poppies. Bold, Rich, Explosive in color! That's why I call them Drama Queens. The periwinkle of the sky is in such dramatic contrast to the orange and cadmium red of these poppies just waiting to fly open with the first light of day. There are also some thistle heads and other flowers laid into the background for color balance.
This painting is rather large at 20"x24", oil, with painted edges matching the orange and greens of the foliage.

John's road trip

Ya know how you "friend" folks from high school on facebook? Well, I friended this guy John. As far as I can tell he posts mainly about all these wonderful road trips he takes on his motorcycle all around the country. I saw a couple of his shots and just got inspired. Wow such beautiful fall colors that he captured and I wanted to capture them in paint as well. So this one is called "the Leaves are Turning", because that's just what they're doing.



This next painting is called, "The Running Creek". I got so in tune to this painting while doing it that I could, in my mind, hear the babble and gurgle of the rushing waters as they flowed over and around the rocks. I could just feel the cool air with the warm sun just streaming through in a few spots, my feet just lightly crunching and whooshing through the fallen leaves. Oh man, can you smell the water and the moss, hear the rustle of natures creatures on the forest floor?

Thank you John for taking me on your journey with you.

The Birch Trees

Doc put me on steroids for a heel spur to try and calm it down, but it perked me up! So, in a steroid rush I had to put paint and knife to canvas. I just love mixing acrylic paints with gel medium but the biggest thrill is getting the knives out! Oh man, I get excited just thinking about the scrape of the knife as it deposits it's load of paint to canvas. This is a large painting measuring 24"x48"x1 1/2" gallery wrap. All the more exciting on the bigger canvases as it's a whole body movement with each stroke. I get fully involved and committed to the painting. Of course ya gotta have some music playing as well. I think my friend picked John Mayer this time. We chatted and painted, my friend and I, as stroke by stroke this painting came to life. Another snatch of Fall frozen in time with an Impasto flourish!

Old Souls

This painting shown in various angles is called," Old Souls." It measures 24"x72"x1 1/2" gallery wrap, and is an acrylic on stretched canvas.

Now, the story! Some time back I made a painting called "The Travelers". In that painting which was very similar to this one, the tumbling pieces represented souls or sparks of the divine, returning to Source, or, the greater spark/light. In this painting I was suddenly overcome at midnight to make many entries to Source. So, in my jammies I began to trowel and knife in the colors of the Light. I did this in silence, moving speedily and with great purpose. I mixed the colors with a gloss gel medium to better move with the knife and blend with the long trowel. I also wanted to have the movement recorded in the painting. I worked on the "Souls" which are represented by the blue travelers, each returning to source in their own way by many pathways.


Where they get their name as Old Souls , happens as a result of the many times they have made this journey. As we sometimes note, and I might add, all cultures do, recognize that certain look in the eyes of some. We may be heard to remark, "He has the eyes of an old soul". These travel weary souls journey back to Source, some finally completing their journey some already waiting expectantly for their next trip. The Old Souls were painted to various music from the 70"s mostly, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Cat Stevens, and yeah I even threw in some gospel from Mahalia Jackson just because I like her.
So, look and see if you see what I saw. Or, do you see something else?

Zinnia-Bee

My friend Barb is an excellent photographer and she took the original photo from which this little painting is modeled after. We're gonna call it "Zinnia-Bee, because that's exactly what it is. A painting of a bee inside a Zinnia flower way out in the land of sunshine, sea and glorious mountains, yup, California.

As you can see, I used a lot of thick paint to bring out the depth of the petals.

Dreadlocks

This is another Flow painting that was done to the album, "Best of Santana!" Oh you know, Jingo, Evil Ways, Black Magic Woman...etc....etc...
So, again, done with lot's of layers starting with varnish to allow the liquefied paint to flow more easily along whatever path it's going to take. If you add Flow Medium to your liquefied paint you will get the vibrancy of color that's quite lovely and bright. Like this one here.

I have found in these flow paintings that if you try to control the pathways of the paint, you may end up with a painting not a flow painting. Tilting , shaking, and wiggling are all acceptable movements though and produce beautiful blends. Fingers and brushes tend to be too controlled of movements and take away from the affect.

SHE HAS A NAME AND A STORY!

I spoke with lots of folks about this, apparently, little girl. She has brought out emotions of all ranges of the spectrum. I like this comment the most:
"I think her name is Freedom and she doesn't need hair. Her body is moving free and she has escaped all that has held her down. The joy on her face says it all, I see no fear, pain or hurt. Just the joy of freedom."
I won't say whose comment this was but I will tell you that we have dealt personally with Childhood Cancer in our own very close family. Our little one fought hard for two and a half years with leukemia and WON.
So, Freedom is her name, she is a little girl, and she will stay bald.
Yea!
Happy Fourth of July!