Cashing in on Christmas . . .

"Ed's Road"

You guys.

I got the best thing for Christmas.

Well, every Christmas.

I ask for a gift certificate to a locally-owned art shop and I always get what I ask for.

This year I took my $50 and bought the big set of Derwent watercolor pencils and I'm so excited!

That $50 put a only small dent in the cost but SO worth it!

So here you go.

New work.

New watercolor techniques.

Detail and wash.

Aquabord.

Exploration.

The little green bungalow . . .

Such a sweet little house.

I shouldn't call it 'small' since I've never been inside and it isn't mine,

but I know the neighborhood and the homes are darling.

Quaint, cozy, perfect.

This bungalow belongs to a friend who asked me to paint it in watercolor when I had time.

I finally had time.

I have two photos of it - one winter and one summer.

The summer house has 4th of July bunting and is beautiful and lush.

But there was something still about the home after a snowfall.

Tight and grounded. Clean and composed.

I love this setting with the pretty green against the grey skies, the hinted-at shapes 

of the trees and foliage.

She loves it and I can't wait to see it framed and in her home.

Love.

Soldered glass watercolor pendants . . .

All ready for one of my favorite shows this Sunday.

Art & Soup benefit for the Visiting Nurse Association in Omaha.

I have packed 50+ watercolors and 20+ oil paintings and these.

I had so many little pieces  of watercolor paper left from cutting paper to the right sizes for bigger works that I hated throwing them away.

I started painting these little paintings - 1" square to 3/4"x2" - and suddenly I had a pile.

What to do?

My darling friend Rachel Two Dog Pond gave me a one on one lesson.

Lucky me!

So $200 later for equipment and gorgeous rolo chain, here we are.

Ready for their first showing tomorrow.

Good luck to me!

Mini.masterpieces . . .

Are these the sweeting little things?

I have a pile of clipped edges from earlier works where I needed something

to fit into a particular size.

You know. Tailings.

Pieces that I usually use for testing colors and strokes when I paint.

So as if my work could not get any smaller,

I decided to paint some tiny scenes.

Cool.

What to do with them?

I asked my darling friend Rachel 'Two Dog Pond' to teach me

how to tin with solder and darling friend that she is, she did.

Now I can add truly 'wearable art' to my collection!

I am preparing for Art & Soup in Omaha in February and these should be a

wonderful addition to my landscape watercolors and oils.

Affordable and totally wearable.

On another note, it's time to update my etsy shop with my paintings.

I have decided that I would not set up another shop there

but add these paintings to it.

Others have been successful in blending two different media or more into one 

and I'm ready to give it a shot.

Mostly, I just need to get it all out there.

I've tried a couple of shows and it's going well so this is the time to get it really out there.

Time.

Day 23 : An Oil a Day 30 Day Challenge . . .

Day 23 : Platte River

Just south of Columbus, Nebraska, August 2015.

Shallow enough to wade across in most places.

And wide.

This painting took less than 30 minutes to complete.

Quick and impressionistic.

Dark blue ground with is what you see in the scumbled background

and in the vegetation here and there.

I just let it show through for a little depth.

Details : Oil on canvas

6"x6"

Day 16 : An Oil a Day 30 Day Challenge . . .

Day 16 : Seward July

Yeah, I took a break.

Not that I wanted to.

It was kind of forced on me by first my sinuses and then my intestines.

I won't go into more than that.

So.

Here I start in once again at Day 16 with a quick and light summer scene.

From the Seward, Nebraska Airport, I can see a far off farm.

Looking so clean and tidy and bright from a mile off,

sultry summer clouds building and dying, building and dying.

Milo is yellow/green with heads ready to turn rust soon.

Details : 6"x6"
Oil on canvas

Day 10 : An Oil a Day 30 Day Challenge . . .

Day 10 : Two Farms

Maybe I should title this "Farm vs Farm"

Another expansive, vapor of a sky with grassland far and near.

One the left is the traditional farm with two silos, barn and outbuildings.

On the right are three windmill power generators.

(In need of a little more definition.)

The war will continue for some time over the land and the wind.

Details : Oil on canvas

6" x 6"

Day 8 : An Oil a Day 30 Day Challenge . . .

Day 8 : Two Farms

If no one is impressed but me that I've stuck with my 30 Day Challenge, 

then hooray for me!

I'm starting the second full week of painting an oil painting a day and I cannot believe how energizing and affirming this is.

Especially when I posted Day 7 on my Facebook page and got 59 'likes'.

More 'likes' than I got on my birthday, I think =-D

Anyway.

This painting is another simple prairie landscape with some unexpected detail.

If you look closely, you can see that this is a painting of Two Farms

but not the traditional farm.

This is a painting of wind turbines that are cropping up all over the central states.

When I look at the maps for the amount of wind in the central US,

the highest amounts of wind are concentrated from Texas northward through North Dakota and Minnesota and the highest areas are through Iowa.

Traveling between Omaha and DesMoines is jaw-dropping.

One day I quit counting at over 100 near Walnut, Iowa.

This developing source of power is having serious consequences and affecting the true farming communities and farmers in ways not imagined.

So here you have Two Farms.

Non-traditional.

Details : Oil on canvas

12"x24"

Day 6 : An Oil a Day 30 Day Challenge . . .

Day 6

Okay, here's the deal.

Sometimes the magic works and sometimes it doesn't.

Here it doesn't quite make it.

Yesterday I started this landscape three times and three times I wiped it off.

Today, I was determined to stick with it.

I'm not happy with the way it went but I am happy that I 

held in there and finished the job.

Details : Oil on canvas

5"x7"