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?

Daily inspiration . . .

I get inspiration from all places if I pay attention but one of my favorite places
is a daily post on Facebook by one of my friends, Katherine Endacott.

She posts a daily photo of her surroundings and calls it Good morning, Pleasant Dale.
Usually a photo of the fields around her home or of a drive into town, she uses her iPhone
as her instrument and takes the most beautiful shots
of whatever inspires her. 

Yesterday was such a day that she inspired me to paint this foggy, snowy, grey field
with a few cows sprinkled in for Nebraska-ish elements. 

I'll be doing this scene a number of times as it is stuck to me like glue.

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 last show of the 2016 Holiday Season . . .

The Lincoln Craftacular!

This is the first year I've been able to do this show and what a night!

People came ready to BUY!

I LOVE my little antique table!
And those boxes and advertising memorabilia always make me clutch my pearls.
Mink Chow - love.

If I had had time to take pics of the crowd, I would have but it was busy from the time the opened the doors at 4:00 to those early shoppers to 9:00 when we all began packing.

Over 80 artists and crafters with an incredible array of work.

I think (I think) I was the only watercolor artist there (woohoo!) so for sure I hope to be invited back next year.

Did I mention that the temps outside hovered around 5? These folks were BRAVE!






So much sold tonight including a few that I have really grown attached to.
I'm never sure if people understand the attachment to and the meanings behind these little paintings.
I hope so.
These have found some wonderful homes.

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.

Lazy . . .

So.

Tell the truth.

Is it lazy to spend a summer morning indoors deep in watercolor?

June . . .

A new month - a renewed beginning.

I am finally organizing my work so I can post new work on my BigCartel shop site.

This is the hardest thing for an artist, I believe.

To take time every day to photograph and market their work.

How will the world ever see these sweet little works if I don't make time?

New month - new attitude.

It's all out there.

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!

Back at it . . .

Ashland Road

I'm finally back at the easel after a couple of rough weeks.

With our garage finished and now extended to nearly twice its original size, 

it is officially bigger than the house.

I know, right? 

And with that project complete, we cleaned the workshop on the south side of the building and set up my shop studio in one side, 
complete with my lapidary equipment,

saws, stones and slabs, easel and all of my oil painting accoutrements.

LOVE it. Totally.
Warm, bright, spacious.

So.

I picked up this unfinished beauty yesterday and dug into it with gusto.

I like the way it turned out and have more to learn about

structures, buildings and houses and how to make them look realistic in the setting.

Sometimes they look like they're floating. Not grounded.

More work.

Details : 10"x10"

Oil on canvas

Roadside daylilies . . .

Roadside

Ah, yes.

Practice.

I just can't tweak the foliage any longer.

At some point, I will paint this again.

When my hand gets looser and more confident, I'll try the daylilies one more time.

For now, I still have the essential barns and outbuildings

that I see all day every day.

And that's good.

Figuring out how to release the flowers will be my challenge

for now and in paintings to come.

Still, I like the composition and color.

It's coming. It's coming.

Detail : Oil on canvas

6"x6"

Day 24 : An Oil a Day 30 Day Challenge . . .

Day 24 : Salt Marsh Evening

Okay, so this challenge has turned into 30 paintings without

regard for the 30 days.

Still.

24 paintings and well on my way to 30!

This is from a photo reference that I've taken some liberties with.

I am trying to improve my grass technique and my trees seem to be improving.

I'd give anything to be able to take a class with Carol Marine.

I so envy her brushstrokes and try to copy them in my own work.

Someday.

When I've been painting for as long as she has.

Maybe there are people who say that about my metalwork.

Get 15 years under your belt and come see me then.

=-)

Detail : Oil on canvas

12"x12"

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

 Day 17 : Fort Robinson Bluffs

Getting back into the 'one a day' swing again and feeling the burn.

Spring a year ago, Ed and I took a driving trip west from Lincoln into the Sandhills of Nebraska and on into the Black Hills of South Dakota, through the Badlands, Mt. Rushmore and Custer Parks and a few others.

I'm okay with people calling Kansas and Nebraska 'flyover states' and it seems to keep the riffraff out of the way while you enjoy the unbelievable scenery.

No mountains to get in the way of the view.

No people, no crowds, nothing but sky and grassland.

In west central Nebraska is an old US Army fort - Fort Robinson.

Here is where Sioux Chief Crazy Horse surrendered and died.
The Fort Robinson Massacre was here.

Here is the site of a German Prisoner of War camp during World War II.
Local farmers would come to the camp for field workers.

The place is infinitely fascinating with history and lately I can't get enough of it.

Something in my center makes me feel at ease in the grassland and prairies.

It is hard to imagine the prairies treeless but you can read My Antonia
 and get a wonderful description of Nebraska through Willa Cather's eyes. 
Trees were brought in by settlers and people walking their way to the West, 
hoping to make homes.
Buffalo Soldiers were stationed here.
There are good things about this area and bad things - all concerning the Red Cloud Agency, Sioux, Lakota, and Cheyenne - and most definitely there can be sadness felt here.

I'm deeply moved when I'm out here and can't drink it in fast enough.

Details : 12"x12"

Oil on canvas

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 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 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

Controlled Burn

Another 30-minute study from photos of a neighboring field. Spring is a time of prepping the fields for new growth and controlled burns is one way to clear the old vegetation and enhance the soil. I love to watch the crews as they work patches of fields and burn off grass and urge the creeping fire on the ground. I have lots of pictures of a local crew and will be painting more of these soon.