Cowgirl Up! Visit

 These nine art friends and I visited the "Cowgirls Up!  exhibit.

We carpooled to Wickenburg, AZ for this exhibit, which left all of us "artists" both inspired and intimidated" for our work! But, we all enjoyed the integrity of the art at this Los Caballeros Museum exhibit, so we all went away happy. Then, on to Anita's, a wonderful and traditional lunch stop for our museum visit for Cowgirl's Up exhibits through the years.  We always love the camaraderie and food there after a very inspiring tour through the Cowgirl Up exhibit. Personally, I can only refer anyone visiting there to the "Chiles Rellenos" there, as they are "to die for"! Many of these women are my therapy "every-Thursday-watercolor-group" which I meet with so these are my main choice of friends with whom to visit these exhibits with whenever possible. They are the best, and the main sources of my laughter/fun/therapy and support!

Ocotilla - 2013

Every year our huge Ocotilla gets prettier and prettier. This year I am taking a photo as most of the blooms have opened up now. We had a tremendous windstorm last week which blew quite a few of the blooming spikes off, but we still have lots. Love it!

I have painted this once when it was a lot younger, may need to do that again, I just love the colors of the blooms.

A-Z Visit

 Aubrey and Zane came to visit last Thursday and we had such fun! Aubrey was in her princess dress when they arrived, and very much looked the part.

Aubrey had been given a pair of flip-flops that had blingy peace signs on them. When the shoes broke her Mom suggested they cut them off and bring them for Aubrey and Grandma to make jewelry from when they visited. The results were quite stunning, or at least Aubrey and I thought so!

We made jewelry and we painted. Zane was not so impressed with his first painting session with Grandma as his sister was at hers, but he tolerated it just fine. He was too busy running around our patio and sinking baskets with his ball.

Being a Grandma is such a hoot!

Taos Shadows

This is a painting I finished (?) yesterday at the Thursday afternoon watercolor group painting session/therapy session/comedy club. My reference was an excellent photo by Terry Dekker at Paint my Photo. I loved those shadows! I need to paint more, I lost my passion for this project because I took so long between painting sessions on it.

Colorado Barn - WIP 3

I am calling this WIP 3 since I haven't completely decided if it is finished yet, or not. I like it the way it is, but maybe I have missed something?

Colorado Barn - WIP 2

In the interest of maintaining some artistic integrity here, I am posting the WIP 2 of this painting, although I am hardly proud of this stage. It was not until I took a photo of this that I saw the wonkiness (new word) of the barn roof line and the one window. Why can we not see these things in our own paintings IRL that we see in a photo or in others'?! This is yet another example of why we should paint every day instead of just once a week. You lose your skills! While I haven't managed painting every day this week, I have taken two opportunities to work on this one, and will take it to my art group this afternoon and paint for my weekly painting that I always try to accomplish.

I have added the darkest darks and have started adding more darks to the depths of the background. I will next try to correct that roof line of the barn and window. Grrr!

Colorado Barn - WIP 1

I decided to add some more WIPs to my blog, so here goes with my current one. This is from a photo I took from the highway traveling from Pagosa Springs, CO to Chama, NM two years ago. I have been wanting to get back into more sepia paintings since I enjoy those so much; so this is a quarter-sheet study for what I hope will be a larger painting, maybe half-sheet at least. I did this totally wet-in-wet and like to set the lights and mid tones first, then go back and refine those tones once I get the darkest darks added. This barn has some very dark areas in it so I will work on those next, before doing anything else with the rest of the painting. I like the looseness of this so far.

Painting Left-Handed

I am placing this painting on the left side of the blog since I painted it left-handed. The January project for the Watercolor Workshop was to paint this photo with your non-dominant hand. I decided to try this, and was it ever a challenge! I didn't realize how right-handed I was! To add to the challenge, this was painted on stretched canvas which was treated with Daniel Smith Watercolor Ground. This has such an abstract look to it, really doesn't look much like the reference photo.

I did like the photo a lot, so I think I will try it with my RIGHT hand, on watercolor paper and a larger size.

New Year's Eve Surprise

 Our son, Ben and his longtime fiance surprised everyone with the announcement they were getting married on New Year's Eve. We found this out the Saturday night before New Year's Eve Monday! It all turned out well, the ceremony was nice and we are all happy. We welcome Deb and her two daughters into our family officially, although they have been one with us all along.

Remember Our Freedom Fighters

While checking out some of my fav blogs this morning, I found a wonderful poem on Coni Kornell's blog. It truly says a lot that we should all think of more often than we do in my opinion.

Merry Christmas

This painting from the past is for all my cyber friends and family...I send best wishes for a blessed Christmas and blessings for 2013.

Many of us have endured less than perfect health and prosperity in 2012, so please join me in prayers and positive thoughts for the best of new years.

Giverney - WIP 1

Thanks to Joan Hahn-Widman for sharing this photo of Monet's garden and allowing me to paint from it. I still have lots to do, clean up, etc. with this. I didn't have my reference photo with me last Thursday so I didn't dare go too far on my own and there is still much to do. I am painting this on Daniel Smith Watercolor Ground over regular canvas, the first attempt to use this ground. So far, it acts very much like cold press watercolor paper and I am enjoying it so far. Those odd things that look like green and blue ducks, will actually become (hope, hope) lily pads, but I needed my reference photo to get the shading and highlights correctly done. This watercolor ground allows you to lift back to almost white in most cases.

I received this e-mail joke in the mail this morning and thought it so funny that I will share it here. This may not be so much of a joke for me, though, since I have done no decorating at all and may not do any this year. Since our kids won't be coming and there won't be any little ones to miss a tree, I may skip that part of the holidays.

I hope that you and yours have the best of holidays and a safe and prosperous new year.

I finished this painting of Lin Frye's excellent photo during the watercolor session Thursday afternoon. I just love to go in, drawing-less, and splash and dab paint! I used a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser for lifting the sunbeams. Might have overdone this just a tad, but it worked!

Lin's Sunrise - WIP

I have chosen, with her permission, another of Lin Frye's wonderful photos. She took several sunrise photos recently and I was impressed with the rich sunbeams she captured.

I didn't draw any of this, choosing instead to just go in with my bristly brush and add layers of blobs as the first wash began to dry a bit. I love how it granulated in all the right areas.

Next, I will add the suggestions of tree trunks here and there and then start lifting to try to re-create those sunbeams.

We had such a fun time at our art session yesterday, where I started this painting. We actually do accomplish some artwork during these sessions; but more than anything we have FUN!

Cairo Rose

This is yet another attempt to develop a negative painting skills set. I think this is the closest I have come in achieving this goal I have set for myself. Having said that, I know I have so very far to go before I can make this appear as I have it in my head.

This is a Cairo Rose Hibiscus, I had two of these wonderfully colorful blossoms before the frost damaged it beyond resuscitation, so I am glad I captured the photo while I could.

Watercolor, 11 x 15, Arches 140-lb

Negative Sunflowers

Negative Sunflowers, a study of Lin Frye's inimitable negative painting techniques. I say inimitable because I can come nowhere  near her wonderful paintings. But, I am showing it here to show I am still painting, just not as much or as often as I would like.

I find it so difficult to wrap my brain around this technique; I find it time-consuming and often frustrating. I am wondering why it is so important to me to "get" this technique? Maybe I will add some negative painting techniques in a positive painting, not try to do a whole painting with this technique...yeah, that's what I'll do.

Ruth Knowles

I was saddened this morning to hear of the sudden passing of Ruth Knowles. She was a very good artist who served as President of the Arizona Artists Guild for several years recently. Ruth faithfully led the AAG through the turbulent years of struggling to get our permanent building built, and saw it through its first year of existence.

If you would like to see some of her work, click here, she painted many pears in many different media and compositions. She called herself "The Pear Lady". 

Ruth, you will be missed.

Vicki's Lotus - WIP 3

Well, I got to add the yellow blossom colors yesterday, and now will try to finish this by nitpicking it a bit here and there. I need to define the leaves a bit more as well as do some edge control here and there. But, I was very happy to see some yellow in this!

Vicki's Lotus - WIP 2

I still have more to do with the background, but decided to show another WIP before I continue. So far, so good; but I am still hoping to see some of the yellow lotus blossom emerge, soon!

Vicki's Lotus - WIP 1

I actually did something I said I would do...went to the Art Club and painted with my friends this afternoon. I managed to finish most of the underpainting of this lotus, that belongs in the wonderful pond of Vicki G, in Florida. Imagine having your very own pond!  Thanks Vicki for the use of your excellent photo.

I chose purple acrylic ink for the underpainting since the flower will be yellow. I love the somewhat abstract shapes in this that hopefully will become a more realistic, recognizable shape that will be a lotus blossom. I am planning on going very dark with the water, and will look forward to doing that. I am thinking that I will do the background first, but then may go the other way. I never decide that part until I am mixing up the paint to begin. Do any of you have a hard and fast rule about whether to do the background first and then the flower or the flower first and then the background? I have never been able to decide which works better for me so I do it either way, without reason.

Danged Spammers and Hackers!!

I thought, out of consideration for my fellow bloggers, that I would eliminate the need to do the word verification thingy. Well, I have become very weary of deleting all the "anonymous" garbage comments with links to God-Only-Knows what, so have decided to put the verification back on.Sorry about that.

Due to a fall injury to my back, I have saved my mobility for the most basic of tasks for the past week and have not painted anything. I am so hoping to return to my Thursday afternoon group today and get started on a lotus painting and, possibly start the current WcW project. It has been sitting in my studio, stagnant, since I fell and it ready to go in my new rolling cart with me to art this afternoon (hope, hope). Maybe I should have tried painting while I still had some of the good (as in narcotic) pain pills left...might have been a new creative avenue for me! Actually, I think those happy pills dulled my thinking as well as any creativity that may have been lurking.

I will post my painting attempt from this afternoon tomorrow, hopefully. I am re-inspired!

Mexican Birds of Paradise

I said I wanted to do my next project on Yupo, and I did. This is from a reference photo taken in front of our bathroom window when the sun was slashing through the mesquite tree and lighting just a bit of the foliage in front of the bathroom glass block window.

I just love playing around with Yupo, and find it invigorating to work on sometimes. While I will never leave my beloved watercolor paper, working on Yupo is very inspiring when I want to just play. Sometimes, it just turns out to be what I expected it to be!

It is still on the board if anyone sees anything blaring to you, but for now I am just letting this marinate for awhile before I decide it is finished.

Yupo, 20 x 28

Zane at Eleven Months - Final

I finished Zane's portrait yesterday afternoon while painting with my art group. I so enjoyed doing this one, which is unusual with portraiture for me. I think this was because early on in the painting I felt more comfortable with capturing his personality than I usually achieve in portraits.

For my next project, I am feeling the pull to paint on Yupo, stay tuned!

Zanes Coming to Life

I have intensified the shadows on his face here and added some color to his eyes.

More color to the eyes as well as the beginnings of some eyebrows.

Added the first glazes of color to the shirt and hat, as well as kept working on the mouth and eyes.

Still more glazing of color and values to the eyes and, again, the mouth. Most people fear doing the eyes, I fear the mouth as I find that the most difficult. So far, so good on this, but there will be at least one more glaze on the inside of his mouth to help differentiate that from the lips..

I am at the point that I have to quit before I do something I regret with the piddly stuff. I will let this marinate at least overnight and see what I come up with next.

I had a fun morning of painting Zane!

Zane's First Portrait

Our project for this month for the WcW group is to paint a portrait. I realized, not long ago, that by the time Zane's sister was his age I had done 3-4 portraits of her! None so far for poor Zane. Baaaaad Grandmother! So, this is the beginning of Zane's first portrait.

He worked so hard to get these three teeth in that I wanted to be sure to have a photo that showed his sweet smile as well as the teeth. My DIL, Christine, obliged with this shot while they were at Legoland.

This is the first phase of the portrait, where I set in some of the most important contouring shadows, both warm and cool. So far, so good.

Here, I have bravely gone on to adding some color, which I hope will be less impacting when I get the skin tones correct as I glaze on more skin color. We'll see.

Feel free to follow along on this one, if you see something I can correct at this point, speak out! If not, just assume, as I will, that it will be corrected as I go along. There is always hope!

Adelante Show

I had three paintings acccepted into the WHAM (What's Happening in Art Movement) art show at the Adelante Healthcare complex.The reception was last night and it was very well-attended and a lovely evening was had by all. Here are two of my artist friends, Betty and Sharon and I standing by one of my paintings; Magnolia Plantation. Another friend, Connie, was taking this photo with my camera and will forward others she took of us with her camera.

Here is my Hibiscus that was also in this show. Even though I had my camera in my hand I didn't think to take a photo of the third painting, Crystal Bowl. Must be getting old?

Pears and Flutes

This painting is for the monthly project for the Watercolor Workshop. I love the fact that the moderators keep coming up with stunning photos to push us past our comfort zones into doing something more difficult than we think we can do. While I am awaiting critiques and comments from the group, I will submit this here, and then if many changes need to be made will add again.

Fremont Petroglyphs

I just finished this full sheet painting of petroglyphs from the Fremont People in Utah. This is called Newspaper Rock, although there are other examples of newspaper petroglyphs elsewhere that we have found, so it is not specific to the Moab area.

I recently cleaned out my studio so it is now useable again, I don't know why I can't seem to keep it organized enough to use it, but it is sure nice to use now. I guess the term "procrastination" would apply?

Super Moon

Last night was the so-called Super Moon. I am not sure how the moon appeared elsewhere, but I was surprised it was not a larger size. It seemed fairly normal for a full moon.

We did have fun, though, going to the entrance to our community so I could shoot the photos from this angle. I do wish I had worked more with learning to take my camera off auto-everything and get more dramatic effects. Too late for that, though, now.

Sue's Tulips

I've been working on this little painting for a few weeks. I still have a few more tweaks to do to make it finished, but am awaiting any critiques from the WcW before removing it from the board. I need to clean up some of the blobs in the lace, etc. This is a throw-away mat that I use to crop paintings, so the finished mat will look differently.

Sue Drennan supplied this photo and it is of tulips from her yard. Must be a gorgeous yard to have these growing in it!

Herd of Pears!

The project for this month at the WCW was to paint from a photo of Bosc pears, which are brown. Our challenge was to not paint them brown, but to go outside our comfort zone of painting just what we see. I chose to take the pears drawing along with me to my regular Thursday afternoon painting group/gabfest. As you can see, I did a lot more gabbing and laughing than focusing on this painting.

My drips got out of hand and it makes the pears look like some psychedelic animals, so I am calling it Herd of Pears. Oh well, I achieved my goal of creating something unique, and it looks like I did that!

But, it was a fun afternoon and this painting turned out to be more fun(ny) than serious, so that ain't bad!