"Apple Bath" --- SOLD

I had a good time with this one - all light colors, subtle. My husband likes the more dramatic ones best. But he did suggest the title.

"Line Dance" --- SOLD

Today I got a whole, huge new bag of vegetables from the farm share and am excited to start painting from it. I will try to get in a small painting tomorrow - it is my long day with the sitter here and I will most likely work on a larger painting. If I don't get to a small one I promise to post the larger one. And if it's no good ... well maybe I'll post the last one I did. : )

"Pepper City --- SOLD

This is a variety of peppers from our farm share deal here in Austin. Yes, I am back from Santa Fe and back to painting. And I am on a pepper roll. Hmmm ... pepper roll, that sounds spicy. : )

My kids

Here's a photo of my students (all except Robin) on our last day of class, each holding their favorite painting of the week. The time flew by for me. It was a fabulous group and I am sorry to see them disperse!

"Pepper Party" --- SOLD

I'm here with my class explaining blogger. : ) Here is my demo for today, already sold, title suggested by my students.

"Organic Squash" & workshop grays - SOLD

Click Here to Bid

I'm posting this quick. I just had a wonderful dinner out with my students and need to get some sleep before our last day, tomorrow. Above is another painting I did before I left, of some organic squash (sorry no creative title) from our little farm share deal, and below are grays from my students. When we talk about color we also talk about grays, and at some point I usually ask all my students to mix what they consider a neutral gray, using just blue, yellow, red and white. It's pretty hard. These are the results from this class. They did great!

"Getting On?" & student tomatoes - SOLD

Click Here to Bid

I almost didn't post this one. I wanted to keep it for myself. I LOVE the colors. But I figured someone else will like it as much as I do and that will make it all worth it.

Below are some student paintings. Today I tried something different and had them all paint the same subject: tomatoes. It was really cool to see all the different compositions and interpretations! We got the tomatoes and lots of other cool stuff at the farmers market this morning.

"Projections" & workshop photos --- SOLD

These are some pears I painted right before I left. I was ahead by a few then so I'll post those when my demos sell - as it did today. Below are a few students hard at work. I am lucky - I got another great group!

"Reservation Rocks" & "Afternoon Light" --- n/a

Yesterday my friend and I drove out to a beautiful church we had seen the day before but hadn't time to paint. When we got there the light was different and not as good so we kept driving. We saw these beautiful rock formations out in the desert but couldn't find a way to get closer. So we turned on my trusty GPS and found a dirt road that ran in that general direction and followed it. We ended up driving far out onto an Indian reservation and finally stopped when the road petered out, right next to these rocks. We painted for hours and never saw or heard another human being. It was a generally wonderful experience ... until I stepped in an ant bed. Big ants too, not the little fire ants. Ouch.



This is the interior I mentioned yesterday. I had to paint fast fast fast to get the bit of light coming through the window. It is going to the woman who lent us her beautiful house for the last 4 days. Thank you, Debra!

Tomorrow is the first day of my workshop here in Santa Fe. I will post photos tomorrow night.

"Dusty Road" --- SOLD

Well, here I am in Santa Fe, NM and the weather is PERFECT!!! I have been painting and seeing galleries with my pal, Randi. This painting is from a hilltop near the town of Chimayo, about 40 minutes north of Santa Fe. The town also boasts a historic chapel, but there were too many people milling around it and I was inspired more by this hill with the little dirt road winding over it.

We are staying in a lovely old house within walking distance of Canyon Road - a friend of a friend's house. I did an interior of it yesterday as a gift to the owner and will post that tomorrow as I am really happy with it. When I did it I was thinking of some interiors I recently saw by Kim English ... and today we saw several originals of his - the first I've seen not in a magazine. He's amazing. Possibly my favorite living artist! Unfortunately there is no internet connection at the house and I've been too busy to find one until now ... sorry about that. More later...

"Too Hip Pears" - SOLD

sold

I didn't post last night because I was at a live taping of Aimee Mann at Austin City Limits! It was AWESOME! Today I leave for Santa Fe. My workshop is next week but I am going a little early to paint and hike and see galleries with my friend Randi. Above is yesterday's painting, and below is today's.

"Retina Burn"



sold

I will post any landscapes I do as well as workshop photos. For any of you who buy paintings while I am gone there may be some delay in shipping, but I'm hoping my husband can do some of it for me. I'll be back on the 27th. Thank you for your patience.

"Gathering" --- SOLD

This color combination makes me very happy. It's funny too, because I'm not big on yellow by itself, or purple either for that matter. But something about the yellow, purple AND orangey brown make this all come together for me. I love looking at the color wheel and playing around with different combinations, but mostly, when I'm composing, I go by instinct. I play around with my subject and all sorts of grounds, and stop when it looks "right." A lot of times I can then go to the color wheel and see that if follows some scheme or other ... but I don't start out with a scheme in mind. I wonder how other people do it ...

"Apple Olympics" --- SOLD

This was an experiment. Since most of my colors here are around one side of the color wheel, I chose a color from the other side for the ground. Usually, for a subject like bright yellow apples, I would have put down yellow as my ground so as not to gray down the apples any. But I thought this might need a little rounding out. I'm happy with it. Which reminds me that I need to experiment more.

"Green Hot" --- SOLD

It looks like hurricane Ike is just going to side-swipe us here in Austin. It's a bit breezy outside, but nothing like predicted. There was some trouble with the internet last night when I tried to post, but I think it was probably just too many people home at once checking the weather online too often. : )

Below are a couple of photos of my plein air gear. I generally also include paper towels, wipes, and paint - it all fits nicely in my backpack. The pvc deal is a brush holder my husband made for me, and the box in back is my nifty panel holder from Raymar.

"Two by Two" --- SOLD

I feel like I am finally hitting a groove again after returning from Germany, and it's a good feeling. I like to hit a balance between too loose and not loose enough and I think this one is there.

Donna Clark asked me to post a photo of my backpack and how my plein air stuff goes in it, and I meant to get some photos of that today but alas ... I didn't have time. I will do it tomorrow.

"Purple Plums" --- SOLD

Someone asked me recently to say specifically what I like about my new Open Box M. There are 2 main features that make this box fabulous for me: 1. it's lightweight. It makes a HUGE difference carting around such a light box compared to my previous guirrila box. I always have to hike around a bit to find a good spot, and with this box I am willing to keep searching and not settle for something just because of my aching back! 2. the little holders for keeping the panel still while I paint are perfect. They don't get in the way, and they hold my panel perfectly still while I work. I don't even have to think about it. I don't miss the storage for paints. I bought a backpack for my laptop not too long ago, and my new box fits perfectly into the slot for the computer. Then I wrap my paints up in a grocery bag and put that in another compartment. There are 2 holders on the sides for bottles of water. I put my brush holder in one and my tripod in another, strap the whole thing down, and I'm off. It's a Victorinox backpack from Target, perfect for this sort of thing.

"Plum Ducks" --- SOLD

I spent a little more time than usual on this, my 600th daily painting. Most of the plums I find at the store are rubbed down so they don't have the blue bits on the outside. These are UN-rubbed plums! The blue bits are so beautiful and SO tough to paint.

"Cozy in a Bowl" --- SOLD

Sharon asked me today about taking paints on an airplane. What I do is wrap all my paints up in a plastic bag and then attach an MSDS sheet from my supplier (you can print this off of your supplier's website - it basically says what the paints are made of and that they're not flammable). On the outside of this bundle I write "artist COLORS." Apparently "paint" raises a flag but "color" doesn't. : / Then I put all this in my checked bag. I've had my bags searched a few times, by a few airlines, even gone through customs, and no one's ever said or removed a thing. I'll be doing it again when I leave for Santa Fe next week.

"Wrapped Up" --- SOLD

Thank you all for your wonderful comments the past couple of days!! I am very lucky to have such encouragement when I question myself the most. Thank you thank you!

"We 3 Glow" --- SOLD & the should be wipers

Several people left comments asking to see the should be wipers (would have been if I'da had any turp with me!), so here they are (below). The first is the view from my husband's parent's pasture. You can see a tiny bit of their house peeking out from the trees. The sun was very bright and for some reason I couldn't see the darks properly so they all kind of melded into one. It was a gorgeous view, and I didn't do it justice.



This next view is of lake Schluchsee, in the town we were nearest to. What's funny about this is I was set up to paint along the far side of the lake, near a restaurant where an Elvis impersonator was singing Elvis songs, in English. So there I was listening to Elvis, probably the only one who could hear it AND understand the words. : ) I was trying very hard to get the values correct, but in the end it just wasn't interesting. Ok, now I've aired my dirty laundry. Happy?

Also, one thing I'm very used to with turp is being able to wipe my brushes clean between colors. Using just walnut oil I couldn't do that and so my colors ended up getting fairly muddy.

"St. Blasien" --- SOLD

So I've been avoiding posting and I'll tell you why. I got over to Germany, possibly the most beautiful place on Earth, with such high expectations, and did mostly crappy paintings. Argh! I didn't want to admit it. But there you go, and here's what I've learned:

1. Don't have any expectations!

2. Appreciating a beautiful place and picking out a good view for a painting are 2 totally diferent and separate things.

3. Never travel to a new place without your regular stuff. I knew I couldn't take turp and I didn't want to bother with getting some there so I took walnut oil. Which is totally different than turp. And frustrating if you've never used it before. My new Open Box M is really fantastic, but since I wasn't used to the shallow palette, I managed to spill half my walnut oil the first day, leaving a very embarassing stain on the perfect German sidewalk. Argh.

I painted this scene on the last day, in a little town not far from where we were staying, called St. Blasien. It's a GORGEOUS place with a river running through it and a giant cathedral with a beautiful dome. But it was the little yellow shop that caught my eye.

We really had a fabulous time in Germany. My husband's birth parents were really the sweetest people. They have a beatiful house and land and horses and garden, etc. The food ... the food was amazing! The exchange rate - not so great. We are glad to be back and are still recovering from jet lag. I will be back to posting regularly tomorrow.