shadows

These are two shoots of the deep blue shadows that caught my eye all day yesterday. They were everywhere because we got some fresh snow and a really azure blue sky.

Moving Day!

Well it's been a year and a half since I moved out of my studio space above our garage and my daughter moved in. Today we reversed that. She helped me carry all my stuff up there and I am set and ready to paint. Best of all my daughter will be painting with me and we have room for visiting artists to drop by and paint for the day. This is a great room with two skylights and two big windows. Lots of light and good privacy from the rest of the house. Can't wait to get started tomorrow.

Progress

Well I am plugging away at this. It is very fun to see it develop and to work out problems as they come up. It's almost like putting a puzzle together. Hey maybe I need to put in a puzzle since that's another thing we like to do! I have started to sketch out the next three - Spring, Summer and Fall. I find I have to push myself to go back and clean up an item and not leave it so thin and sketchy. I really am used to sitting down and painting a small painting in an hour or so. This is taking more discipline than I imagined. It's a good thing it not any bigger!

Faces #42

Hair and earrings my favorite things about a face. Hmmmm need to work on that! Making good progress on my Christmas Sampler. I'll post another picture soon.

Faces # 41

Almost half way through my 100 Faces and still learning....

Faces #40

I wanted to try to do this one off center. It gives it a different feeling.

Faces # 39

Back doing Faces this weekend trying to catch up with the rest of the  Hilton Head Gang. We are a group of artists that met during a Karin Jurick workshop. Check out our new blog. We are challenging each other with painting our "mug shots" and cheering each other on.

Christmas Sampler 36 x 36

 Day One

I am working larger than normal, which I like , but it takes a lot longer. I wanted to post last week but didn't have much to show yet. The concept for this painting is a Christmas Sampler. Each object represents either a tradition we have as a family, a keepsake, or a belief we hold. Does anyone else put oranges in their stockings? This was handed down on my side of the family. My Dad said that during the Second World War he got an orange and a lead toy soldier and that was it.

  

 Day Two: I've added some items to represent the baking I like to do. The sleigh bells were from my parents. We liked to hang them on the front door so we could here our older kids try to sneak into the house, knowing they were out too late.

Day three: The Amaryllis finally bloomed over the weekend so I could add that in. It's a little tricky because it's really red and I have the red background. I am using my Mom's Bible under neath it to make it stand out from the back ground. Mom used to open her Bible to Luke Chapter 2 and place it on a bed of greens near the  creche each year. Just a few more thing to block in and then I can work on finishing each section.