The Square Format

I must admit, the square canvas format is starting to grow on me. It is challenging as far as composition, but I am enjoying it.

Here is painting number 4 which is a view through the blossoms of the Oriental Dogwood tree with the orange and yellow splattering of the California poppies and calendulas.

Square # 3

As I posted earlier, I will be entering the "27 Feet of Art and More...." fundraiser and auction for the Washington Center for the Performing Arts in Olympia.

I purchased a package of seven 12" X 12" canvases and have been busily painting. I am on number five! Number four, when it is dry enough, will be photographed and posted.

Here is oil painting, square #3.......

Square # 3

Remember, you will get to vote on your favorite when the series of seven are completed.

Sunday Sketches

What is it about the poppy flower that make you fall in love?

Is it their juicy color? The crepe like petals? Their wonderful centers full of invite for bees and fascination? Or, is it the bulbous pod with wagon wheel like top knot?

I cannot get enough of them! Many varieties are scattered throughout my garden, and have been subject matter for several paintings.

This red one became so tall that when the wind and rains came it continued to bloom on the ground. I thought this made for a great composition. What do you think?



More Sunday Sketchers......

27 Feet of Art.........and MORE!

Each year in Olympia, The Washington Center For The Performing Arts has an annual fundraiser called "27 Feet of Art....and MORE!" It is an art exhibit and online auction fundraiser which began with 27 artists, but has grown over the years.

Artists donate a piece of art that is 12" X 12" to raise money for the arts in our town. Submissions are in early August and the final selection is announced by mid-month. Last year I attended the event which was not only fun, but also an excellent exhibit.

This year I will submit an oil painting. Since I bought a package of seven 12" X 12" canvases at the art store, I will be asking for your input in selecting the one to enter. Bonus, leftovers will be shown locally at Holiday Happenings in November.

Here are the first two squares......

"Square #1"

"Square #2"

Sunday Sketches

Not in my garden! I could not resist the grace and shapes of this delicate flower; the alpine lily.

Actually, this beauty is a native plant of Washington.

I will have to seek her out for my garden :)

More Sunday Sketchers....

Sunday Sketches

I'M BACK!

Wedding and childcare now history, I can pick up my brush once again!

One of my favorite flower is gracing the landscape these days; the foxglove or also called by its formal name, digitalis. I have taken somewhat of a kinship to this beauty in that I refer to the spots as freckles. Between the freckles and wonderful shapes, I continue to paint several renditions of this charming flower. Today it is watercolor and ink.



I feel an oil painting coming on......

More Sunday Sketchers

Monet in New York

If you are not able to travel to Giverny, France to experience the world famous gardens of Claude Monet, you can visit New York. In the Bronx over the next several months, the New York Botanical Garden will offer a taste of Monet’s indisputably radiant living masterpiece — a riotous display of color, plant variety and landscape design.



The exhibition, which runs through Oct. 21, will feature a seasonally changing display of flora, currently a spring kaleidoscope of poppies, roses, foxgloves, irises and delphiniums inside the botanical garden’s Enid A. Haupt Conservancy. It also includes two scarcely seen garden-inspired paintings, Monet’s wooden palette, rare photos of Monet in his garden and 30 photographs of Giverny by Elizabeth Murray, who has recorded Monet’s flower oasis for 25 years. These are all located at the botanical garden’s LuEsther T. Mertz Library.

A facade of Monet’s pink stucco house with its bright green shutters — a historically accurate replica by Tony Award-winning set designer Scott Park — marks the start of the exhibition. From there, visitors are led down the Grand Allee, a shorter recreation of Monet’s rose-covered trellis pathway lined on both sides with thick beds of vibrant flowers. The path opens up to a replica of his famous Japanese footbridge arching over a water lily pool encircled by willow trees and flowering shrubs.

In the courtyard outside the Victorian greenhouse, two immense water basins contain a plethora of water lilies.

Claude Monet, artist and avid gardener, lead the Impressionist movement and revolutionized painting in the 1870s.

The story is that Claude Monet noticed the village of Giverny while looking out of a train window. He made up his mind to move there and rented a house and the area surrounding it. In 1890 he had enough money to buy the house and land outright and set out to create the magnificent gardens he wanted to paint.

Talk about the power of imagination!

Full of COLOR

I am absolutely enjoying the unfolding of color in my yard this year after three years of labor. Believe it or not, the Rhodies are the only remnants of what was a bare front yard.

Here are a few photos of what I get to see everyday!

Art to Change the World

JR, a French street artist, uses his camera to show the world its true face. He makes his audacious TED Prize wish: to use art to turn the world inside out. A funny, moving talk about art and who we are. Take the time to watch......



Learn more at www.insideoutproject.net