Christmas Tree with Candy Canes

Somehow the candy canes on my tree never lasted until Christmas.  But that was many years when my kids were kids and living at home.  Now, I often have some left over candy canes.  

Christmas Fire

This is the smallest painting I have done at 5X7in.  I like the red walls and the little bits of red that show through the branches of the tree.   

 

 

Christmas Gifts

I finished painting Christmas Gifts last night when I got home.  I am feeling pleased with the color and lighting effect.  My apologies to all my friends who suggested pets and children and notes to Santa.  I will save those ideas for another painting.  

Paint with paint

So, I asked for your opinion and got a lot of good suggestions, some of which might be beyond my skill level!  So here are a couple of versions that I tried out using Paint (the program).

The first one is pretty easy, mostly straight lines.  I like it but on the other hand....

The second one includes a child looking out the window at something more important than the presents under the tree.....

Remember, I have not really painted anything on the work in progress.  Still time to think about it.

A teddy bear? A rocking horse? A stack of presents? What is needed to finish this?

I also worked on this painting today.  Ran out of time and energy so I will have to come back to it later this week.  I am thinking about adding something to the left side.  A white teddy bear with a red bow?  A rocking horse peeking out from behind the tree?  A stack of nicely wrapped presents?  

One Jumped Over the Pole

Another fun Art Day with Kathy.  I am thinking about showing something at the Small Works, Great Wonders show at the Art Mill in Grafton. What ever you make cannot exceed 12 inches on any side.   I used the back side of a stretched 8"x 10" canvas, added findings from my stash of jewelry making things, a fish from a single earring(I flushed the other one incidentally), and a wire fisherman that I made a while back after we made some wire sculptures in Ms. Kari's Art Sampler class at NSAA.  

Poor guy, the fish he caught is all "bones" and the one that got away is a fat one!

Autumn River in the Driftless Area

Another scene inspired by my Saturday drive to the Driftless Area of western Wisconsin.

We were only 2 hours from home and still had not stopped to get pumpkins.  I was driving when I saw a line of wagons filled with pumpkins and gourds.  I made a quick right turn, came around the long circle of driveway and finally we had our pumpkins!  Only 3 dollars each which is cheaper than Walmart!

Autumn in the Driftless Area

10 hours, 450 miles, beautiful scenery, a short visit with a friend, apple cider donuts, pumpkin pie and a beautiful autumn day well spent crossing Wisconsin from East to West and home again inspired this painting. This year the yellows seemed brighter and the reds seemed redder!  We saw whooping cranes in a field and a red fox running across the road and then running away through the field only his back and tail showing above the crops (soy beans, I think).

She was worried about getting her clothes wet. I promised to wash and dry them when we got home so she left her shoes on the beach, rolled up her pant legs and went for a walk, dug holes in the sand, and threw rocks in the water.   

Path to South Beach after the Storm, acrylic on stretched canvas

The hillside along the road to South Beach in Port Washington has been covered with clover for several weeks now and every time I ride my bike there I think how beautiful that hillside of flowers is.  We have been having some quick storms coming through in the past couple of days.  Here by the lake we can see the dark storm clouds racing toward us and wonder if they will pass us by on the North or the South or if we will actually get the rain we need.  My friend, Sally, is an ardent red hatter so I decided to add the woman with her red hat heading around the corner for her walk on the beach.  Her dog has to take one more sniff before following her.  So my inspiration comes from bits and pieces of my life and experiences here in Port Washington next to Lake Michigan. 

 

Path to the Lake at Sunrise.

As you can see I am still exploring the Path to the Lake theme.  This one is inspired by a photo my friend Mary took before sunrise, which is WAY too early for me in July.  I am a winter sunrise photographer.  In this piece the sky is still dark enough for some stars to show.  Please do not lecture me on constellations that are visible in the east at Dawn.  This is a work of imagination, not documentation. 

Fireworks!

I am always interested in the way the smoke drifts across the sky during and after the fireworks.  After watching the fireworks on Fish Day evening, I kept thinking about it and picturing it in my mind and finally I decided to try to capture the experience.  Can you hear the oohs and aahs as each new burst of color fills the sky?

Path to the Lake, Acrylic 07182014

I have done several versions of this piece in pastels and acrylics.  This is the first one with flowers and seagulls.  Each one adds more details. 

Rachel 07162014

I don't know her.  I made her up just like I have been making up people since I was old enough to hold a crayon.  Why Rachel?  I'm not sure, but it has always been one of my favorite names.  She will be for sale at the Blue Heron Artisan Gallery in Port Washington or you can contact me if you are interested. 

Art Day with Kathy

Some mornings the sky seems like it is on fire!  Other times you can barely see for the fog. 

 

 

                                                      Sky on Fire, Acrylic 07102014

 

 

 Sailing out of Fog, Acrylic 07102014

 

                                                

S O L D !

 

Blue Heron Artisan's Gallery & Gifts   I have a space at Blue Heron Artisan's Gallery & Gifts.

  I just signed the papers on Wednesday and finished hanging my pieces on July 4th in the morning before the parade.  Today, I got an email to let me know I sold 2 pieces yesterday afternoon!  I sold this one and another landscape that I never took a picture of!  This week, I need to get busy and increase my inventory and remember to get the picture files done! 

 

 

 

Only a few more days for Art at Work

I used to make these little fish pictures all the time and then I stopped for some reason.  Today for some other reason, I decided to try making them again.  The new Paint program has a lot better tools and so this one came out extra cute.  Not fine Art- just Fun Art.

 

Morning 06082014

This piece is acrylic on canvas, 16 X 20". 

 What a busy day I had yesterday, helping out at the Kiwanis Brat Fry, Art day with Kathy and then dinner (small plates) at the Twisted Willow Treehouse with Kathy and Karen.  

I was determined that this piece would be brighter and lighter.  Out with the dark and in with the light!  I worked on it yesterday for a couple of hours.  I was not satisfied.  I asked Kathy, "what do you see?"  She said "a lake and hills, a meadow".  Well that was not what I had tried to paint but since I wasn't happy with how it was turning out with my idea, I took Kathy's interpretation and ran with it.  Now we have a lake, trees and meadows-plus 2 horses and the sun rising out of the morning mist and clouds.   Oh, yeah the river was there all along.  

After my visit to the MAM exhibit of Kandinsky's work, I was inspired to try imitate his works.  Someone at my house wants something like this on her wall. 

Work Art 06/05/14

I went to the opening of the Kandinsky exhibit at MAM last night with 2 other people.  Each of us saw different things and interpreted the same painting in different ways.  Here is another piece of Work Art, done using the Paint program.  When I look at this, I feel like Summer. 

06/04/2014 Sunrise Color Reflections on Water

Sunrise Color Reflections on Water

More Artwork from Work!

I started this piece on 5/27/14.  Everyday I worked I spent some time on it.  I used different brushes, pencils and techniques, just trying out to see what effects I could get.  Today, I am done.  Time to move on to something new. 

Work Art 05-26-2014

Working on Memorial Day.  Haven't done that for a while. More green out the window everyday.  I hope you all understand that I am leaving the parking lot out of my pictures.  Otherwise you would be seeing cars, trucks, light posts and campers instead of trees and grass.  Actually, the grass is all in my head and so are the paths.  I was watching a show on PBS yesterday about how to paint roads or paths so I decided to add some into my picture. I also added more purplish shadows.  I usually like blue. I like it.

More Art at Work

My favorite colors. 

Art at work, literally.  This was done using Paint on my work computer.  05-21-14
I look out big windows, which is a big perk.  I have been watching spring arrive, seemingly one leaf at a time.  It is May 21, 2014 and the trees are not full, the grass is not all green.  We have a family of geese including 4 or 5 babies living in the pond on the side.  They walk across the parking lot through the cars and trucks and RVs. 

McHenry, Illinois

This painting was done in my hotel room in McHenry, Illinois.  Again the lighting was crappy!  I turned every light in the room on and had the curtains open for what little daylight I could get!   This canvas has a ripple in it on the left side because I had it in my carry bag and something hard and round pressed in to it.  I decided it to use it anyway since right now I am just trying new things.  I like this one so I am trying to get that ripple out!

Chasing Spring

When you drive from Wisconsin to Louisiana in March you go from winter gradually to Spring.  For us Spring didn't start until we got south of Memphis.  Then we noticed the grass, then the trees and finally in New Orleans we had flowers!  Of course the return trip reverses the process and even after being gone 9 days, we still came back to snow on the north sides of roads, houses, yards and piles of snow in the parking lots.  I did this piece in our hotel suite at a window that looked out at an empty brick building.  I didn't realize how bad the light was until I found myself with this dark little painting, which is not what I set out to produce.  Actually this is the 3rd reincarnation.  The first one, I didn't like much so I painted some more.  The 2nd version reminded Karen of Big Bird (she wasn't totally wrong) and so I painted some more and got this dark little piece where it seems we are looking back along the route that we took as we chased after spring and finally caught her. 

The Racers

 In honor of the upcoming Kentucky Derby, I have my race horses emerging from a cloud of dust, heading straight at you.  None of my jockeys needs to use a whip.  

This is the same painting but as you can see the colors are very different.  The one on top is the original, the one on the bottom was "auto enhanced" by my computer program.  Usually, I like the enhanced version, but in this case the contrast is too much, the colors are not right.  Which version do you like?

My granddaughter watching the tub fill with bubbles.  

Self Portrait02182014

Self Portrait.  11X14 Acrylic.   I have more wrinkles, my teeth are not that white and my nose is not that long.  Oh, well, I look happy so what else can I say!

 These are art projects I brought home from NSAA in Grafton where I have been volunteering as a teacher's aide.  The kids range from 4-13 years old.  I have been learning more than the kids!  The spoon project was to make a "Totem Spoon".  Mine has Karen and my initials and a wine glass, not that I am that big a wine drinker.  The glazes were ones that someone Kari(the teacher) knows who was going to throw them away.  They worked perfectly and were beautiful!

This little coil pot was my second attempt at a coil pot and if I do say so, it is a big improvement over the first one!  The secret is in using the palms of your hands to roll the coils so they are consistently sized.  The actual color is more purplish, but it turned pink with the flash. 

 

 

My favorite little project is these wire people.  It was fun to do and made a happy little sculpture.  The kids had trouble with this project, the wires were hard for little hands to manipulate and the instructions were geared for an older class.  The little 4 year old kept looking at me in puzzlement when I was giving her directions.  Finally she said "what is divided in half mean?"  Luckily one of the other helpers was there to save me from failure!

This is the view of Green Bay from the Landmark in Egg Harbor, Wisconsin.  I have been volunteering as a teacher's aide for 2 art classes for children at the North Shore Arts Academy in Grafton, WI.  The teacher is great and I am learning right along with the kids.  This is acrylic on canvas.  I did it for the 24 hour art show at the Grafton Arts Mill.  No one took it home so it I hanging on my wall instead.  I like the contrast between the still gray waters of the lake and the wilder sky. I don't like the trees and the tree trunks especially. 

This is Kari.  The main reason I like this one is because it is Kari.  A pretty good likeness.  I don't like the green stuff going round the bottom of her shirt.  I should have done that differently and I think I will go back and fix that a bit.  More detail for the hair is needed.  Will report if it comes out better.

Art Day- a day to practise and socialize.

My friend Kathy spent the afternoon with me
working on some art.  First time in a long time we had the chance.  I really enjoy having company when I work! 

The first piece is done with pastels. It pictures my son and his kids several years ago on the first day they were all together after they had been separated from each other for about 6 months. They were in a very crowded restaurant and yet they built a separate private space apart from their surroundings.  Some parts of it I really think came out well, others--well that's why we practice! 

This beautiful, colorful young lady is my step-daughter.  You never know what color her hair will be, red, blue, purple, lavender.  This was done using acrylics-the kind that come in an arts and crafts bottle!  If anyone has any idea why some of my uploads are sideways, please let me know!

Art practice, experimentation and happy accidents

I am practicing using my new acrylics and brushes and so I thought I would add my efforts to my blog.  Why did all of these upload, upside down or sideways?  I can't figure it out.  At first I was a little unhappy with the upside downness, but the more I look at it the more I realize it doesn't even matter!








It does make looking at Kari kind of weird.
















This one is a beach scene that I actually like better upside down.