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!