The view I will never tire of . . .

I have painted this scene across the road from us a dozen or more times.

Each time, it will sell at the next art show. Go figure.

It's the view outside my shop window and it changes weekly.

This week the dried blonde distant field is slowly greening while the rusty Bluestem is remaining red. Last Spring this field was burned to clear out the weeds and it came back beautifully.

Waiting for the grass to lie down and the green grass to overtake it again.

I cannot get enough of this view.

 And time to start on a few flower watercolors - out of my element kind of.

I tend to stick with landscapes and buildings that allow me more looseness.

The flowers seem to tighten my hand and it will be good to make myself loosen up and let the water do the work.

Mums in a vase. Reference photo from the new Pottery Barn catalogue.

Below - iris stems. I'll try this one again in more iris colors. These are a little too rose-y.

Too critical?

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.

Ice.pocalypse 2017 . . .

Ice Storm : January 2017 


Sedum and frozen Bur Oak leaf

Surprise snow days . . .

The forecast - light rain, maybe a flurry. The end result - 6" of wet snow. But what a great day to warm up the shop and clear the bench for watercolor playtime.

With flakes falling as big as chicken feathers, staying in and watching the cedars change was enough inspiration to experiment with faded greens and foggy distance. Learning how to pale out the snow and fog is more than just adding water - it's greying out a color and learning value differences.

You know how some sketchbook artists can hold up their sketchbook to show you the lovely scene they just painted? Well, apparently that's an acquired skill. Or maybe my scene was too far away. And photographing with your phone in one hand and your painting in the other, all the while trying to bring the background scene into focus so it all makes sense? Harder than it looks. Trust me. You can barely make out the scene across the road. And the Burning Bush at the end of our drive? Pssshh.

I love this old Mulberry.

Across the gravel road . . .

The beautiful, ever-changing view across the gravel road from our farmette.

This scene moves easily from full on snow in January and February to patchy snow in late winter, pale greens in the spring, tall Big Bluestem in summer months, and the eventual blonding heads turning rusty red when summer's over.

I love every month and season of this view and have been thankful for every year we have lived here that the land is protected CRP, never having been broken.

To think that this is the same field that was burned off in the spring to eradicate weeds and was so soon green again is wonderful to have witnessed.

I will be painting this same scene again with the fall colors and quite possibly a few of the blackened earth during the spring burn.

Before the snow goes away . . .

One last chance to play in the snow before it all goes away.

The Cub on skis

Ed finds the Honda 50 and snow irresistible.
But unmanageable.









Which reminds me of this little beauty from two years ago.

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.

Project Next . . .

Project Next : Miniature watercolor on teabags

Yeah, I know.

You're saying, 'lynn, you haven't completed your 30 paintings in 30 days, yet'.

True, I have not.

But this is prep work for the next challenge.

Drinking a lot (and I mean a LOT) of tea lately.

I'm saving the bags and drying them on the back of the sink.

So attractive in the kitchen.

Who cares.

It's an art sacrifice.

Once dry, I cut the top of the backside where the staple is,

shake out the used tea and glue stick the top back together.

With a dried paper empty teabag, I will paint miniature watercolors.

Objects, landscapes, patterns and designs.

I was hoping to put these all into a little notebook.
A Moleskine.

Maybe framable as little works of art?

I have a friend who is a framer in a small shop and it will take his eye to help out here but I'm thinking they could turn out kinda cool.

We'll see.

Until then : Merry Christmas, kids! 

Day 22 : An Oil a Day 30 Day Challenge . . .

Day 22 : Milkweed

Since we live in the middle of farmland, it's only natural that it is my first choice for a subject to paint.

Just up the road a ways is this neighbor's field.

Very soon it will be dusty golden yellow from harvesting corn and beans but for now,

this field is blooming with milkweed throughout.
And summer haze.

Details : Oil on canvas

6"x6"

Day 20 : An Oil a Day 30 Day Challenge

Day 20 : Person to Person

I love to paint wide expanses of prairie and sky with farmsteads on the horizon.

But I can't shake the feeling that they are somewhat lifeless until I add

what is always there but not so obvious - tall radio and telephone towers.

So I call this one 'Person to Person' as farms used to be

remote and out of communication until telephones came along.

And now we all have these little handheld devices that beam your conversation

up into the sky where it connects with a satellite

then beams it unbelievably to the person you wish to speak with.

I can see that this painting needs a little touchup but you get my message.

Details : 8"x8"

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

Day 7 : Untitled

Wow, a week! Seven days and seven paintings!

I have impressed even myself with this 'every day' thing.

Okay, what did I learn today?

That there are more artists than just me who paint the same subject matter more than once. I have been reluctant to repeat landscapes or clouds or grass because I think (well, who know what I think?) that it simply isn't done.

Boy, was I wrong.

Last night I got out a few basic painting and color theory books and found that this is exactly what I should be doing if I ever intend to improve on whatever my subject matter happens to be.

Duh.

So there will be more gravel roads, more grass, more skyscapes, more more more.

Now I'm getting a bit more excited about this process.

All things unfold in their own time but I seriously wish I'd not been telling myself for these last 40+ years that I could not paint.

Detail : Oil on canvas

8"x8"

Day 5 : An Oil a Day 30 Day Challenge . . .

Day 5

What did I learn today?

That it's okay to wipe off a painting and start over, once, twice, and three times.

What I was working on was a fading gravel road with a gold and green field.

Another distant horizon.

But it was all wrong. Color wrong. Grass wrong. Gravel wrong.

I wiped it off and went back to what I knew to work and maybe that's the key.

In my metalworking, when I try to hard to get detailed and intricate, I miss the mark.

But when I let my design go broad and expansive, I hit it almost every time.

So here you have another little painting of the expansive Nebraska grassland.

A big farm with two silos that is dwarfed by the vastness of sky.

Detail : Oil on canvas

6"x6"

Day 4 : An Oil a Day 30 Day Challenge . . .

Day 4

Color mixing is almost as much fun at brush play right now.

Strange how reluctant I am to paint things as they are not in real life.

Somehow they are not jarring as I thought they might be.

Play is important for now.

Details : 6"x6"

Oil on canvas

Day 3 : An Oil a Day 30 Day Challenge . . .

Day 3 and I learned today that doing something a little different is hard.

This little painting originally had a diagonal road running through it but 

(and I say 'but' because I wiped it clean off the face of the earth)

gravel roads can look chalky and artificial.

I don't quite have the technique down, yet

(and I say 'yet' because it will come, it will come.)

For today, another landscape from a photo I took of the field across the road from us.

It is wide and open and the skies have been gorgeous this Spring.

On this day, high cirrus clouds and hard sunshine.

Details : 6"x6"

Oil on canvas

Day 2 : An Oil a Day 30 Day Challenge . . .

Day 2

 What did we learn today?

We learned that in just a few strokes of the brush, 

a painting can go from okay to a little less than okay.

This one had a good feel to it until I messed with a cloud stroke. Sad face here.

But I learned some good stuff, too.

Like greying out the treeline so it isn't so harsh.

So back away from your computer screen a little and squint.

It'll all work better.

Until tomorrow and Day 3 of the Oil a Day Challenge.

Details : 5"x7"
Oil on canvas

Day 1 : An Oil a Day 30-Day Challenge . . .

This may be harder than I thought.

I have committed myself to 30 oil paintings in 30 days 
and hope for several things to come out of this challenge.
1. I hope to become a better painter.
2. I hope I end up with some decent paintings for selling later. 

Not all paintings come easy and after no fewer than four wipe-offs, this one stuck.  

Not an all time favorite but a start.

Details : 10"x10"
Oil on canvas

My name is lynn . . .

 

 . . . and I'm a uku-holic.

I spied this darling little red ukulele gem in the music store window and absolutely had HAD to have it. Decent enough to take along on our hotrod road trips without having to pack my good uke and worry about it getting knocked around. I can strap it to my backpack or drop it into my tote without fret. Get it? FRET?

The little guy that started it all a few years ago

Wise guy

So now I own two and will probably be on the lookout for others since I believe that if one is good, two is better. 

And three? Well . . . 

Snowy cornfield study . . .

A quick watercolor study out the back window. This snowy field took all of 20 minutes. I can see using this as a reference study for other, bigger paintings. Not much detail but just enough of a suggestion to know there is a slight rise in the field and cedars in the hedgerow. This little guy could easily morph into Spring - if that ever comes.

Rock Creek . . .

 The early Spring rains have paid off here in Davey, Nebraska!  Even with the damage of hail and wind and that old tornado, things have flourished.  Finally.

Lush : I love my patio in the morning

Patio

Volunteers!
(okay : a little crabgrass, too)

Front walk : Baby Talk

marse connell

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