Still Life Study

I am working on painting from life and in this case, I get to eat the set up (though the orange slices do dry out under the lights). Tomorrow, I may add a glass or reflective surface to the set up.

Artist Note: This is Qiang Huang's (which is also Richard Schmid's) palette. The transparent darks (mostly transparent red oxide and ultramarine blue) make a good distant background and are incorporated into the shadow colors.

Home again

This was photographed while still on my easel (hence the shadows on the top by the hands). It was painted on the fourth day of Carolyn Anderson's fantastic workshop that I attended a week ago. Carolyn filled the four days of class with fabulous demonstrations, hands on explanations and help while the class painted from models, and one half day from Carolyn's photographs. Carolyn also shared and explained her understanding about light and color, edges, color mixing and ideas about components of an exciting, interesting painting. Probably this was the best workshop that I have experienced. I hope to continue learning from it as I look over my notes, attempt to incorporate what she taught, and read the books Carolyn suggested. I also want to relook at works by Sargent, Serov, Fechin, Tkachev and others that she shared in class as she discussed color temperature and types of edges.


At the conclusion of the workshop, my wonderful husband picked me up. We traveled to see the exhibition of Sargent's watercolors at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and celebrate our 29th wedding anniversary. On our way home, we stopped at Chad's Ford and saw work by another favorite painter, Andrew Wyeth. Now, with the cat continuing to complain about my prolonged absence (howling everytime she spots me) , three loads of laundry going, my notes transcribed and e mail answered, and I am starting to feel "home. Hope you have been painting. I can't wait to share what I have learned......

October: A slower painting month

It is starting to feel like autumn here. However, it is still hard to fathom where October went...What a great month: lots of travel,  fantastic workshops both attended and instructed, a painting juried into another great show (web site will have details because my web mistress is busy updating as this is written ), and some lovely small paintings that I loved painting!!

Christmas is coming and I am starting to collect images to "get in the season". I have a wonderful dog in a Santa hat that I collected from 2012 and some commissions that will be gifts, so not publishable (yet).

Little Owl

Little Owl/watercolor/ 6 x 6/ SOLD

I love this little guy. He was tucked back into a corner of his cage with poor light and yet those green eyes were still visible watching visitors watching him...


Artist Note: I continue to work on birds, using them to practice the foreground being integrated into the background (see how the white in the shoulder becomes the white of the background).

Sunflowers: Learning and practicing

If you are a painter, or even if you love to look at paintings, please consider asking someone that loves you to give you Richard Schmid's newest book: Alla Prima II (link).
You will love the images of his paintings. I am trying to use his paintings to learn to paint flowers These brown-eyed Susans are a still poor copy of his but I will have many opportunities to retry them since I now own this beautiful book....

Chessmen will be in Wilson

The travel portion of the North Carolina Watercolor Society National Exhibition opens in Wilson at Barton College. on November 6th. 2013. A reception is scheduled for Saturday, November 9th 5 PM to 7PM in the Case Art Building, Art Gallery Building on the Barton Campus. I would love to see you there! This exhibition closes December 16,  2013.

Flamingo Study

Flamingo Study/ watercolor/  6 x 6/ Low Country Gallery

This is my series of birds continued.
My goal is to abstract more of the birds themselves (see how the back is the background?)

 Artist Note: The colors in this are scarlet red, yellow ochre, translucent orange, some cobalt violet and quin gold plus whatever was on my palette to make a black.