Brighter than sunshine the flower blooms

Perfumes are the feelings of flowers, and as the human heart, imagining itself alone and unwatched, feels most deeply in the nighttime, so seems it as if the flowers, in musing modesty, await the mantling eventide ere they give themselves up wholly to feeling, and breathe forth their sweetest odours.  Flow forth, ye perfumes of my heart, and seek beyond these mountains the dear one of my dreams!
~ Heinrich Heine, Translated from German, 1855

5x7 ampersand gessobord $30.00

(This painting is no longer available)

Just living is not enough.  One must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower.

~ Hans Christian Andersen

Flying Chicken

Barnyard painting No. 3, I present the flying (well, running) chicken.  Chickens can fly a wee little bit, probably more like a flutter. To make up for that, they can run better than fly.  They can run about 9 mph, not too shabby for a chicken. 

6x6 ampersand gessobord $25.00 + shipping

The Three Amigos

In the chickens of Somerdale series, I present the three amigos. All of my chickens are free range and 100% organic. :D

Chickens aren't the easiest things to paint with their odd shaped bodies and combs and waddles and such, but it's interesting and a learning experience for sure.

Thanks for stopping by.  Peace, love, and chickens. 

In the barnyard

I really went out on a limb and way out of my comfort zone with this painting, but that's what it's all about. Trying things you're not comfortable with and stretching and growing is the name of the game. So I'm heading to the barnyard for a few days to work on some new paintings. 

6x6 gessobord

Rooster Fun Facts:

A rooster is a male chicken.

Chickens have a great memory.  They can distinguish between over 100 different faces of people or animals.

Chickens have full-color vision.

The rooster's wattle is used to bring attention to him when dancing for the hens.

Each chicken sound means something specific.

The fear of chickens is called alektorophobia.

If a chicken has red ear lobes, it will lay brown eggs; if white, white eggs.



http://www.backyardchickens.com/a/chickens-are-cool-50-chicken-facts-you-will-love

I heard it through the lake vine

I started this painting just before the big storm yesterday and finished it with the last of the light by the window after we had lost power. After we got our power back this early evening I added just one more vine to balance it out. 

SOLD

5x7 Ampersand Gessobord

Thank you for viewing my blog, good people. Live, love, don't worry, be happy. 

It's like apples and oranges!

I've been busy with my real job so I have to pull a few things out from the way back machine.  

Painting fruit is interesting and a lot of fun.  I love painting apples and this time I decided I'd slice one open and give it a try. 

And why stop there? I sliced open an orange as well.  These were also fun and interesting to create, with the added bonus that when you're through, you can eat them!

6x6 canvas board

Thank you my friends, for stopping by. Comment if you'd like.  But please, have a blessed day!

Ship At Sea

Another in a seemingly endless series of ocean paintings. ;D  My daughter loves the sky in this one.  She says it's very dramatic. 

6x6 gessobord

Cloud Fun Facts:

When moist warm air rises to a cooler elevation and water condenses onto microscopic dust-like "seeds", bacteria or ash.  Air and seeds that updraft = clouds.

Every planet with an atmosphere has clouds, even the moon.

Rough Seas

This is a painting I started a while back but just finished painting it today. I had to set it aside to dry a bit and then sort of forgot about it until now. It happens that way with me sometimes. 

9x12 on ampersand gessobord

I hope you have a beautiful day with absolutely no storms on the horizon; just beauty, calm, and peace.

Free Painting Giveaway

You have a chance to win of of these 5 paintings that are part of a free painting giveaway that I'm hosting on my blog.  

If you join my blog through "Friend Connect" in the upper right hand corner that says "join this site with Google Friend Connect", you will be entered into a contest to win one free painting of your choice from the 5 paintings pictured above.  

All names of current members and new members who join by midnight EST on June 30, 2015 will be eligible to enter. 

A name will be pulled from a hat from all eligible entries on July 1, 2015 and announced here on my blog.

There is no cost to you.  I'll pay the shipping costs.  

Your painting will include a frame. 

Each painting is 5x7.

Only one winner for this contest.

Good luck to all who enter.

Rainy day in the marsh

I wasn't sure I liked this painting at first because it seemed so plain. But I've come to realize that this is the beauty of it. Marshlands or bogs are by nature, water with nowhere to run off, and there is beauty in that.

Comments are welcome. Thanks for stopping by today. Peace and love.

Bogs do not support large populations of animals because productivity is low and the water can be quite acidic. However, bogs provide important habitat for such species as moose, deer, black bear, beaver, lynx, fishers, snowshoe hare, otter, and mink, either because bogs occur in remote areas due to the climate or altitude, or because they are not suitable for agriculture, forestry, or development (Mitsch and Gosselink 1993). As the land use in surrounding areas changes, wildlife species are driven to these relatively undisturbed habitats.

Migratory birds use bogs on their flight paths. From warblers to wood ducks, many bird species breed, nest, and feed in bog habitats. The greater sandhill crane, great gray owl, short eared owl, sora rail, and sharp-tailed sparrow depend completely on bogs and fens for survival (Mitsch and Gosselink 1993). Bogs with a pH greater than 4.5 may provide habitat for game fish species such as pike, walleye, bluegill, and smallmouth bass (Camp, Dresser, and McKee 1981; Novotony and Olem 1995).

http://www.water.ncsu.edu/watershedss/info/wetlands/types3.html

Let's do the wave

I've been busy on my day job the last few days which is good because I love this particular client that I work for and that's always a good thing.  With that being said, I'm finished with this job and can now get back to painting. Yeah!  

I've been fascinated and focused lately on beach/water type scenes.  On this one, I thought I'd do a close up of a wave and here it is:

5x7 gessobord

In science, a wave is defined as a transfer of energy.  Ocean waves are called mechanical waves because they travel through a medium.  The medium in this case is water.  The water doesn't actually travel with the wave, but only moves up and down.  It's the energy that travels with the wave.  

Swells are rolling waves that travel long distances through the ocean.  They are not generated by the local wind, but by distant storms.  Swells are typically smooth waves, not choppy like wind waves.  A swell is measured from the crest (top) to the trough (bottom).

http://www.sailblogs.com/member/smartmoveadventures/?xjMsgID=300687

The Last Time I Saw Richard

Hot off the easel............

I thought I would show you the process of this painting.  At first I painted this:

*Yawn*  B-o-r-i-n-g
So I thought I would paint a duck coming in on the right, getting ready to land in the water.  Could be interesting.
Here is the process of painting the duck:

First the head.....

Then the body and a wing...........

The other wing, and feet.....

Put it all together along with putting some specks on the land for interest, and making the tree more full, and you get this:

And still it's not interesting.  I need to add something before I fall asleep! Why is the duck landing in this spot? No reason that I can see. So I gave him a reason to land:

Now it's interesting!  That's my process for this painting. Let me know what you think of this process in the comments if you'd like. 

Thanks for stopping by!

Storm at sea

With the storms that have been in the area lately, I felt it fitting to paint a storm at sea. I painted this yesterday and gave it some time to dry before I added the sea foam.

SOLD

I really like how this one turned out.

6x6 gessobord

Comments welcome.  Have a wonderful day!!

This recent painting is another in a series of water paintings. 
Comments are welcome.  

5x7 gessobord

If you enjoy looking at these paintings, please sign up and join my blog. You won't receive emails or reminders.  It will just be your own personal bookmark.  
Enjoy your day or evening my friends.

This painting is one I did with my sister. She painted hers with a knife (it's awesome!), and I used a brush. I love when we paint together and paint the same thing. They are both unique in their own way. Loving it!

This painting is no longer available.

Another painting from the archives, painted within the last two months or so.  This one has a cool/cold feeling which is the effect I was hoping to achieve.

5x7 gessobord

Comments welcome.

My thoughts on choosing paint:

Why use professional paints when student grade paints are so much cheaper?

They are cheaper and at face value it appears that you would save a lot of money.  But what does student grade mean? Simply put it means there are fillers mixed in the paint so there is less pigment which equals less money for you to put out, but the cost is a much lower quality of paint. 

You might say, so what? Who will know the difference?

You, the artist, will know the difference because it will take you a good while to mix your paint to get the right colors since it is so "watered down" with fillers. 

An experiment you can do to see the real difference between student versus professional grade paints is to take a tube of student paint and a tube of identical color professional grade paint and add some white to each of the colors.

You will quickly see that the professional color keeps the true color, while the student grade totally loses the color. It's kind of a washed out color. This means you have to add more and more and more of the color to achieve the same results as the professional grade paint. 

Not only is it a fabulous waste of time, but it will take a lot of the cheaper paint to achieve the same color because it has less pigment in it, and will wind up costing you not only time, but money.  

Moral of the story?  Get the best paint you can afford to save time and money and a big 'ol headache in the end.

P.S.  If the label says "hue" it is student grade. It the label says "permanent" it is a color with lots of pigment or a professional grade.  Although sometimes you will see a student grade of alizarin crimson that says permanent. This is because it is such a strong color that it can usually hold its own whether synthetic or permanent.

Where I want to be.........

When summer comes and decides to stay, maybe this is where I want to be. Me and my easel that is. ;D

Hot off the easel, another water scene. 

Have a great day my friends!

This is an appropriate painting to post with the rainy weather we are (finally) having. It's my second rainy weather painting although it's the first one I'm posting. Comments are welcome.

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