Tending Our Feathers

      It's been a while since I posted, sorry about that, but I finally cracked the code and got back into my blog.  I haven't been blogging, but I have been painting!

      This is an oil painting that I did on my recent painting vacation to the Buckhorn Inn with my family and good painting friends.   A wonderful week in the mountains, inspiring nature to paint, and wonderful food at the Inn!  Join us if you are a painter next year.

      The Inn has two resident swans on their pond.  I decided to paint them preening on the bank with the trees from the other side do the pond reflected in the water,  This is an 8X8" painting on a linen panel.  Must be out of practice, you will have to click on the painting to view the whole painting. :)

'Red Winged Blackbird' (Sold)

Another small (8"X8") oil painting in my bird series. He was fun to paint!  This painting has found a good home. 

Dream Song

Here I am in an abstract mode. This one was fun to do in watercolor. Just thinking about the meditations, thoughts, and ideas that are in our minds that no one can see. Just thought I'd put mine in a painting. I love words in paintings and have not begun to plumb the possibilities of including words in my work. I was thinking the other day of the faith it takes to feel certain that there is a heaven, when the thought came to me that there are many worlds we cannot see and yet we know that they are there - for instance the 'world' in each of our minds. Secret worlds for the most part except for what we choose to share.

Sing For Joy - Sold

The image of a singing bird has always been meaningful to me. I'm not sure even that
I can put it into words. However here I have tried to say it with paint! This is the first of a series of bird paintings. I'm striving to be "painterly" and paint in an impressionistic way, using a "lost and found" approach and minimal strokes. This was so much fun to paint that I didn't follow through with that very well, but I'm happy with it anyway.

Reflections

This is a recent oil painting. My empasis is on soft edges. I am pleased with the effect this gives to the painting. I believe that lost and found edges lend a slight emotional feeling to a painting, perhaps this is a subliminal bit of mystery? Edgar Whitney (wbo I studied with many times) would have said it is part of the 'entertainment' in the painting - (never go far without changing something - an edge, a value, a color,a texture). His well known saying: "We are not 'artists', we are entertainers!"

'Pansies'

Here's a little (6" x 6") oil painting - just for fun! Aren't
pansies beautful?.....

Seagulls

This painting was done with watercolor and gouche. I loved the combination of media and the vivid colors. It also satisfied something in me that wants to express the subject without being realistic. To me that is really what art should be. I love to feed the gulls when I am at the beach. I know, it makes the beach residents mad at you, but then, I'm not there very often so I figure they'll just have to put up with me. I love it when you feed one gull, and then it tells all the other gulls and suddenly you can see them flying in all the way from the horizon, until they are hovering in a cloud around your head. Then they remain suspended in front of you until you toss a morsel to them. Anyway, I think I caught that suspended sense of feeding frenzy in this painting!