Happy Holidays!

Wishing Everyone a Wonderful Holiday Season!

And a Happy New Year!

sold

Shorter Days

Last Days of Fall

 5x7 plein air 

sold

5x7 plein air 

sold

The nice weather days are hit and miss as the days get shorter and the temperatures seem to be on a roller coaster.  The fall colors are fading and falling and now the cedars take center stage for the colorful green that will dot the landscape over the winter.  They are one of my favorite trees.

HAC Show

Heartland Art Club

Hope you can come to the opening!

The show is up until January 3, 2020.

Maybe the last of fall

A Beautiful Fall Day

8x10 plein air oil

Cliff Cave Fall

The weather has been up and down.   Rainy or cold with very few days to enjoy painting the colors of fall.  Great color was predicted but windy wet days have made the trees lose their leaves faster than I had hoped.  Last Sunday it was a beautiful day.. Warm and sunny with very light wind so I was able to try to capture the colors that were still on the trees.  This area with it's dried grasses and the cedars with their deep green shadow side really caught my eye and gave the color in the distant trees a nice contrast.

Fall Begins

Claire Gemp

5x7 plein air oil

A small study of the first signs of color changes taking place now.  Claire Gemp is a small natural area that originally was a farm and is now preserved as a nature area.  It's not far from my home and I like to visit and see how nature changes with the seasons.

Seifert Farm

Happy Birthday

Aunt Helen

On the Sunny Side

5x7 watercolor

gifted

Aunt Helen is turning 99 tomorrow.  I found a photo of the farm where she grew up and used it to paint this for her birthday card.  I hope it brings memories of nice sunny days for her.  She has a sunny personality and a wonderful smile.  Happy Birthday Aunt Helen!

Kirkwood Memorial

Vietnam Memorial

 Kirkwood, Mo.

6x8 plein air oil

sold

Next to the Kirkwood city hall there is an area dedicated to memorials for veterans with nice landscaping and benches surrounding them. These Hydrangea bushes were in full bloom and just beautiful all around the Vietnam marker.  It reminded me of a small version of the wall.  A beautiful reflective stone carved with names that should be remembered.

Hazy Meadow

Summer Haze

12x12 oil

It's been very hot and humid here and as I was working on this painting that feeling kept coming to mind.  A typical mid western meadow in summer with the hazy atmosphere is what I tried to capture here.  I used photo references from locations not far from me for the inspiration.

Hot and Humid

Laumeir Sculpture Park

6x6 plein air oil

sold

It's been hard to get out to paint with daily thunderstorms and a very hot, humid weather pattern.  Finding a shady spot is necessary if I don't want to melt.  The Laumeir Sculpture park has some beautiful big trees to get under.  This large red sculpture standing in the big open area with the bright green lawn is so striking, I couldn't resist it as my subject.  Just a small study but was fun to do.

Spider Lily

In My Backyard

12x12 oil painting

I am not usually compelled to paint flowers but when they are part of the landscape I like the bit of cheer they bring to an ordinary area.  These Spider Lily wildflowers are doing very well this year by my patio and I thought I'd try to capture them.  Complex and challenging but charming and cheerful, I enjoyed trying to give them my best shot.

Bluebells

A Shady Spot

Bluebells

8x10 plein air oil

It's a sure sign of warmer days ahead when the bluebells bloom in the woods.  Unfortunately they don't last very long.  I always hope I don't miss them.  This spot is always lovely.

Gravois Creek

Under the Bridge

Tenacity

8x10 oil

I've been painting along this creek for a few years now and I'm always amazed at the tenacity of growth that continues under this bridge.  After yearly flooding or drought nature returns.

ART SHOW

Twelve Women Together

I'm excited to be part of this show with eleven other women artists.  Hope you can come see the variety of work presented.  Thanks to Grafica for hosting this beautiful show.

Late Bloomer

Poinsettia

6x6 oil on board

sold

Last year we received a Poinsettia plant as a gift.  We decided to plant it in the yard in spring.  It did well and easily doubled in size.  So last fall we found a large pot to plant it in so we could bring it in the house and hopefully have lovely red flowers for Christmas.  We followed directions on how to do this but Christmas came and went with no sign of red leaves.  Thinking it just wasn't going to happen we just enjoyed the green.  What a surprise in February it starting blooming and is still going strong.  Not knowing how long this will continue I decided to paint one of the flowers.  They are so lovely.

Spring is Coming

Inside and Outside

There have been some nice days for painting outside at last but still some that are too windy or rainy.

So here is an outside painting and an inside small still life.

6x6 Radishes

sold

5x7 Cliff Cave Park 

sold

Inside and Outside

Two Still Life's and One Plein Air

We had one day that I was able to paint outside for a short time before the cold got to me.

Still life painting is a challenge to find unusual things to paint.

The antique tool is from 1901, a pineapple eye snip. The other is a Tangelo and a clear glass.

Painting Indoors

More Tools

I don't think I have seen many paintings of tools but I'm finding them interesting items to paint.

 Three little oil cans

Brass, Copper and Blue paint

Pipe wrench with reflections.

Still Winter

Still Life

I'd rather be out plein air painting but winter is just hanging on so in addition to practicing drawing more, I decided to do some small still life paintings 6x6" size.  In addition to the usual food subject matter, I picked out some tools from our large collection. Some are antique, some just old.

A New Year

A Wintery Start

The weather has been extremely cold (An Arctic Vortex) that has given me the opportunity to brush up on drawing out the window for my landscape subject matter.  The magical vision of 10" inches of snow and a week later the melting values of cloudy days and melting leftover snow.  

A bit warmer day enabled me to get out and paint a quick study of an amazingly changing sky!

                                                                 Outside my window

                                                    Outside Kirkwood Community Center

From under the shelter at Cliff Cave Park