For some people, wheat is home

An upcoming show is "house and home". My daughter made the comment about the wheat after hearing me rapturize about the wheat fields for the "nth" time.

Merry Christmas

A textured, chunky little abstract that I am somewhat pleased with, "Epistle".

Merry Christmas and thank you to all that visit this blog, all the love and help from all my artists's friends, all the love and encouragement from all my other friends and a special thanks to everyone that bought paintings making it possible for me to continue painting.

Self-portrait with Straw hat

I was inspired by the all the portraits I have seen lately and decided to take one more shot at a self-portrait. Working from photos is always a challenge because there is never enough information but it beats holding a mirror in one hand.

Beverly and Bonita

Sun-bronzed bathers.

Happy Winter Solstice!

This is a portrait I made of myself wearing my solstice headdress. It even jingles. I posted it on "Artists Paint Themselves" a blog for artist's self portraits:
http://artistspaint.blogspot.com/

Please check it out, some of the portraits are astonishingly strong.

Replay--Annelein

My painting of Annelein in last year's DSDF paint in.

Last Year's Portrait

Annelein Beukenkamp made this portrait of me for "Different Strokes from Different Strokes" last year. It keeps me company in my studio! Check out her lovely paintings and her great book at: http://abwatercolors.blogspot.com/

WOW....DSDF response

The response to the DSDF portrait was amazing and I am having a great time checking out other people's blog. But, I need to get some painting done today and walk the dog, bring in wood, etc. I will have to check out more websites tonight.

If anyone knows of any other sites that allow people to post paintings to them (like DSDF) I would like to hear about them. Has anyone turned their blog into a book?

This is a detail of a self-portrait collage I made when I was just getting started in '05.

DSDF PORTRAIT

Karin Jurick sent the call out for her portrait exchange for the Different Strokes from Different Folks site and this is the painting I am returning. Please check out the website, there are some terrific portraits. This is such a cool event to take part in and I have met some wonderful artists through it. I love the photo I had to work from, very "Wuthering Heights", hence the title "Could be Kathy".

LLoyd and Lou-ellen

It is sunny but very cold outside. I just came in from walking my dog and my fingertips are still hurting though I was wearing heavy gloves! It's nice to sit by the furnace and paint beach scenes.

The Claus Makeover

I spent more time than I probably should have overhauling these old cut-outs, but Bruce was happy to put them out in the yard.

I am experimenting with Nova color paints. They have a bit of a thin consistency but they are cheap like Borsch. They carry a flesh tone that I use to paint skin. It saves me a lot of mixing and I can alter it until I get what I want.

A pause revisited

Using photoshop, I removed all the color until the image was just black and white and I flipped it so that it viewed the opposite way (head facing left instead of right) and discovered that part of the problem was that her head was too wide...so I went back in and narrowed her face down. Then, I toned down some of the oranges...I think I'm done with this one. I need a better title, however.

Myrtle and Morley

I love old swimsuit photos. I especially like photos of people wearing the old swim caps (although I loathed wearing them).

A pause

This is the painting that I have been futzing with for days. I am going to leave it for now.

Sad

Well, really more like frustrated. I was very happy with my initial dancer painting, but when I attempted a second one, it looked like a dog's breakfast ( sorry Ralphie). I slaved on that stupid thing for a couple of days. I am going to move on and try something else. Normally, I would paint over the darn thing, but I am holding off to see if I learn anything about what is making it fail so miserably. Onward and upward. There is lots of Christmas social occasions to contend with.

I received two flu shots yesterday and feel a little sore but hopefully bullet-proof against nasty flu bugs!

The dog was just a cute fellow I met in my summer travels. Oh, for warm weather.

FAlling Leaf

This is the abstract I started some time ago. More experimentation is necessary in future abstracts. I was disappointed that the gesso ground and crackle didn't add more texture. Will play some more on future paintings.