"Strawberry-zilla" --- SOLD

IMPORTANT: I am having technical issues with Ebay. It's their problem but they tell me it will take 5-7 days to resolve. So, meanwhile I have researched other auction sites and have posted this painting on ebid.net. It is a reputable site so I don't anticipate any problems. Feel free to check out my feedback ratings on ebay (since I don't have any on ebid yet). Thank you for bearing with me through this!

The mystery of the paint gift was never solved - so I'll assume it was promotional (from M. Graham and co). I have been using it the past few days and like it but not more than my regular Utrecht paint. That may be because I'm used to the consistency of my regular paint - familiar with what it can do. The M. Graham paint is ... looser? It's more like warm butter, where my regular paint is a little stiffer. I find I can go a little thicker with my regular paint, which I like. But, not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, I am still experimenting with it and will report if my opinion changes.

"Hanging Out" --- SOLD

My son is asking a lot of questions these days. It started out with "What's that?" and now, depending on the answer to the first question, he asks what the thing is doing. So, if it's a tree, for instance, he says "what's the tree doing?". I say things like "the tree is growing," or "it's blowing in the wind." But he keeps asking, as if my answer isn't quite right, and after a while I hit my fallback answer which is "it's hanging out." For some reason he seems to be satisfied when things are just hanging out. Now he's getting into "why?". So, if he asks, "why are these strawberries hanging out?", can I in good conscience answer "they just are"?

"True Love" --- SOLD

I normally use a viewfinder that's about 2 inches sqaure, but wanted to zoom in on these cherries ... so I cut a much smaller viewfinder - about 1/2 inch square. It's very cozy. I find that it doesn't work on anything larger because if it's too close to my face the edges of the square get very fuzzy. Which reminds me of the time I did a self-portrait (at a recent workshop). I got a mirror and held the viewfinder up to frame my face. Unfortunately, all I could see in the mirror was the viewfinder. : ) Sometimes it takes me a minute.

"Rendezvous" --- SOLD

Sharon asked me today to share some about how I paint with a 3 yr-old running around. Well, I don't. : ) From the beginning I have painted only when he naps and (knock on wood) he still sleeps 2-3 hours/day. It's actually the perfect amount of time to do a small painting every day. I've also hired a sitter to come 2 days a week so I can do larger paintings for galleries. And ... sometimes I paint on the weekends when my husband can watch Jacob. In some ways I think I'm more productive now than before Jacob - since now there's no excuse - when it's time to paint, it's time to paint.

"Polka-dot Two Step"

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I am LOVING making my own fabric designs. Above are peppers on more stamped fabric, and below is the larger (20"x20") painting I did today, and the background fabric was created by cutting 2 colors into strips and sewing them together. It was a bit of work, but totally worth it. Tonight I went and bought a whole bunch of new colors for more stripes. Dude!

Today, in the mail, I received some M. Graham & Co. paints & medium. I didn't order it, so I'm a bit perplexed. There's no note, so if someone out there sent this to me, please let me know. If it's promotional, how did they find me? I'm not familiar with the company, but I'll try them out and tell you what I think.

"Two Hot" --- SOLD

I'm not sure what kind of peppers these are, but they spoke to me when I saw them at the store. I realize now that the shadow on the left is kind of jutty ... but it's how it was. Another juggle between what's real and what looks good and I may have dropped the ball. But I love the colors - the bright yellow-orange and the gray-purple ground.

"Cherry Rings" --- SOLD

Back to cherries now, and a new stamped fabric. And today, today I ventured into batik, and I won't even post my first attempt. Somehow it turned out so light as to be almost non-existent. : ) All art is a process.

"One Last Goodbye" --- SOLD

This is my last rose attempt ... for now. My hero in the rose painting department is John Michael Carter. He is a master of them (among other things) and someday, when my boy is older, I will be able to take a workshop from him. Until then ...

"An Offer" --- SOLD

For this rose I used a different light. The last two were spot-lit with a "daylight" spotlight that is actually fairly yellow compared to ... the light I used here which is VERY white. I tried a slightly different approach here and waited to put the darks into the flower at the very end. This worked well I think but it was really hard to get a feel for it as I went along. I had to try hard to get the lighter values right as I went, and to trust that it would work out in the end.

"Desert Rose" --- SOLD

I know I keep saying this, but roses are freakin' hard to paint! The next two are going to use a different light on the rose. The light I used on this one shined ... shone? ... right through the petals making the whole thing glow. While pretty, it made it even more challenging.

"A Rose Note" --- SOLD

This one was more difficult to paint than it maybe looks. Getting the shadow to line up just right with the background stripes ... and then the rose on top of that ... yikes. But I am really pleased with how it turned out ... especially the glass (it's simple but you can tell what it is!). I painted several more small roses today as I had the whole day to paint and didn't feel like doing a large one. It's a good thing too because by the end of today the roses were done for. I'll be posting them going forward - they show how I experimented with techniques in rose painting. It was really fun!

"Distressed" --- SOLD

Let me just state for the record that roses are tough to paint (if you want a challenge, paint a rose). I tried a million compositions before I found this one. The shadow really spoke to me, and the color of the rose against this background. This evening I stamped more fabric. I still haven't tackled the batik, even though I have all the materials. I have to admit - I'm a bit daunted by it. I know once I get started I'll be fine ... but it's the getting started I'm having trouble doing. : )

"Unreal Tomatoes" & "Back to Back" --- SOLD

I did these 3 paintings last week. When I started the tomatoes above they looked fine. I started with the most saturated oranges and went darker. When I started in on the background suddenly the tomatoes seemed unbelievably glowy. (yes, glowy is a word) They WERE fairly lit, but perhaps not quite this much. I then moved onto this one...



...and re-learned a valuable lesson. On days when I do a large painting first, I tend to feel a bit ... spent ... for lack of a better word, and any small ones I do afterwards are generally less inspired. : ) The painting below is the one I did before these 2. It's a bit more traditional than what I generally do, but the cheese was begging to be painted from this angle, and everything else just fit into place around it. I am including 2 details pictures below it.




(detail)


(detail)

"Texas Wildflower" --- SOLD

These yellow flowers seems to thrive on the Texas heat and really get going during the summer when it regularly tops 100 degrees!

I am going camping this weekend with my family (in our air conditioned pop-up - so we won't die in the heat!). It is coming at just the right moment as I need a break from painting. I've been pushing myself too hard again. So ... toodles until Monday.

"Sunshine" --- SOLD

This is a cosmos from my garden, but what I really liked was the glass vase from this angle, and the little splotch of light in the shadow. When I'm doing a vase like this, or anything elliptical, I measure. Because my brain likes to play tricks on me, so for instance I measured, with my brush and thumb, the distance from the bottom of the vase to the bottom rim of the opening. Then I compared that to the distance from the bottom of the rim to the top of it. It's actually a fairly equal distance, but my brain was saying "THAT CAN'T BE!" So I ignored my brain, as I do often, and put down what I saw and not what I thought I saw.

"On the Vine" --- SOLD

My husband just suggested it's a bad time to be posting tomatoes - amid fear of Salmonella! But be assured, these are on the vine, so they're ok. In fact, there was a space right next to these at the store with no tomatoes, and a sign explaining why.

"The Volunteer" --- SOLD

I'm a couple of paintings ahead with the small ones, so I actually did this a few days ago. It was the end of my plum run - tomorrow, tomatoes. Today I painted the larger one below (another poor photo, taken inside). The striped fabric I made. I am really stoked about the stripes because I have been wanting to put them in these larger still lives for a while. The flowers are from my garden. I planted cosmos this spring specifically for painting. I was so excited when the pink ones came out! The are really stunning against all the green in my garden. Hmmm...

"Circles on Circles" --- SOLD

This is the first of the stamped fabric I made last week. At first I thought it wouldn't go with plums about the same size and shape, but I really like the color contrast. I also made some striped fabric and after a couple of tries I learned the best way to get straight lines is with tape.

"Plum Stripes" --- SOLD

Tonight I am going to an art opening for a good friend of mine & fabulous artist, Laurel Daniel, at the Davis Gallery here in Austin.

"Plum Dots" --- SOLD

I love dots. They make me happy. : ) Today I FINALLY got my batik materials in the mail and will be trying them out as soon as I get some white fabric to experiment with. About the time I mentioned batik I got an email from Melody Johnson who suggested I try stamping fabric with acrylic paint instead, and so I've been experimenting with that as well. I'll use my new patterns soon!

"Tomatos on Glass" --- SOLD

These tomatos are from a local farm. We are getting a batch of vegetables, all organic, from this farm weekly. Yummy. What a great program! Below you will see another 20x20in. painting, finished today. It's a horrible photo because I didn't want to drag it outside, but I'll get a better photo and post it on my website at some point.

"Peachy Keen" --- SOLD

I finally got my FAQ together - 2 actually: 1 for painting stuff, and one specifically for buyers. They are pages on my regular website, but accessible from here too. Please let me know if you have any other questions you would like me to address there, thanks.

Peaches are a tough subject but I was particularly happy with how this one turned out. I really like the composition. It's not too posed, if you know what I mean, and I think this is really tough to capture. I struggle with it every day. And I really like the saturated orange/peach against the gray/blue ground.

"Texas Peaches" --- SOLD

I was at the grocery store yesterday picking through peaches, mostly green and hard. A fellow strolled by, picked one up and said "these are all hard." I said "yep," and kept picking through them. How could I explain that the hard ones are better for painting? I suppose I could have. But I told a flower lady once that I painted flowers and she said "so do I!" She brought me over to a display of painted flowers - she made the white ones blue ... or red ... or whatever color requested. I've taken to keeping my profession to myself. : )

"3 at Sea" --- SOLD

A few friends have suggested to me lately that I try painting some large paintings in the same vein as my small ones. Today I decided to give it a go on a 20"x20" panel. The result is below. It's not the best photo as I took it in my studio with the wrong lights, but what do you think?