Tag: new painting

New Starts

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This canvas is 16 X 20 and I really felt the calling to paint a garden scene again. I like to do one every so often. This one will majorly morph but I started it out with Cleomes, then I have plans for purple Liatris. The various colored background gives it so much interest behind the flowers. It will also have various mediums and marks too. I love doing these paintings and they are not fast to do. It takes much research and thought behind it.
I have so many quilt tops, quilts in progress, quilt material that I would not need to buy anything for the rest of my life. My Mother quilted and I quilted and that is where I acquired all these wonderful items. I have made a pact with myself to get working on these a little at a time and not buy anything extra.

This quilt is my own design and I love needlework and applique so this has both. I decided not to use a hoop to quilt so I can just fold it up and take it easily where ever I go. I found a cute piece of fabric in my stash made by Riley Blake Designs for the backing. Then I decided it would make a great mask too.

I am not being picky about the quilting because I haven’t quilted for a while and if I am too picky it will take too long to get it finished.
This is our resident turtle that goes between retention ponds. I am always surprised when I see him come out of the water making his way to the other pond. He looks like a pretty good size and we can’t see the rest of his body in the water when he is popping his head up. We always wonder what makes him go back and forth. One is much more shallow, maybe one has better food. He moves pretty fast for a turtle.
These next pictures are the flowers that are blooming right now. This daylily is so big and pretty. It is so smooth and buttery.
I say this every year, this is my favorite. It is named Betsy Ross and starts blooming during the Fourth of July. I think the red is just fabulous!
The balloon flowers always amaze me and they bloom around the fourth of July too. The star shaped blooms are perfect for this time of year.
These coneflowers have the most beautiful color. Just vivid!

Another thing I have started working on is sorting all the loose pictures I have before digital. They need documentation and then we have old pictures from Tom’s family and mine too. This is a large project also. Something to do a little at a time.

Hope your fourth was fun, we had quite the fireworks all around us. Our heads were spinning back and forth plus we watched the Macy’s fireworks on tv which had to be spectacular over New York!

Unconditional Love

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Last year I painted this mixed media picture of a cat with all different designs and colors, because cats come that way. This cat is lying in the grass and batting at a feather. There is a monarch butterfly and a bird, all the things that cats like to chase. It is titled “Cat Love” and the inspiration was about all the cats I have had in my life. My first cat I remember…Tutor…when I was very young….to the six cats we have now. Yes….six. My sister Linda bought the original but so many look at the print and sing the words, or other cat lovers just go awwww, because they understand and feel it.

Pavel….came to our porch one cold March day. Hungry with an infected bite on his back. He is named after a Detroit Red Wings hockey player,

Here are the other five, (from bottom left) Pookey, Sophie, Lily, Mama and Miggy. Each one has a story. They were all interested in this new toy and see that sock? Lily is always dragging them out and doing her special sock meow. We find them all over the house.

When I was at the Louisville show, October 2017, a customer asked when I was going to do a picture for dog lovers. So this is the dog I used for the painting to complement the “Cat Love”. Her name is Mackie and she is in our cousins family. She is a Labradoodle and I love this picture with her nose so close to the camera. I bet she was interested in some snacky snack.

I also used her on a postcard to benefit Artlink here in Fort Wayne. Artists donate a handmade postcard that patrons can buy for their fundraiser.

Very early stages of the painting. It is on a 10 X 10 stretched canvas. I am using pieces of textured wallpaper and attaching them with gel medium.

The elements that I want to include have been added to be painted. Texture has been added through stenciling and paints. The nose and eyes have been painted in.

The completed painting, “Unconditional Love”. No matter who you are, your dog loves you. This dog has adoring eyes, a squirrel to chase, a leash to go for a walk with, a spiffy red, white and black ball to play catch with. Along with all this she is thinking about dog treats. Dogs are your companion, they need to be treated kindly and we need to take care of the animals. This is why I decided to donate $5.00 to the Fort Wayne Animal Care and Control for every print that I sell of this painting. I am only making 2000, so they are a special limited edition group. Fort Wayne Animal Care and Control have many good programs in place to take care of the strays and animals relinquished to them. Just recently they treated a dog with a bullet wound, many animals get adopted through retail rescue, they have a community cat program that spay and neuter cats and then put them back in the area they were found and make sure they have shelters and food. This way the cat population gets under control. These are just a few programs and I am sure there are many more. I do know that they will always need food and veterinary care. So if you would like to help, a print can be ordered in my Etsy shop. If you would like to see the other programs that are going on at FWACC click here. I know they take volunteers too.

 

Broad Ripple Art Fair this weekend!

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Imagine yourself sitting at the bottom of a hill and you look up to see a beautiful evening sky with a hint of pink, surrounded by a sea of color. This is my newest painting, “Under the Blue Sky”. It will be for sale along with many others at the Broad Ripple art fair in Indianapolis.

When I started this painting I knew I wanted snapdragons with a lot of texture. The sky, then the snapdragons then I wasn’t sure which way I was going. Intuitive painting is putting down paint on a canvas and then eventually it will turn into something to work with. You stand back and start seeing different elements, shapes, colors. Check out the Indianapolis Art Center site and come visit us at booth 117.