Vintage Pitcher and Egg

I had a new student last week and rather than scare her away with a complicated still life, I set up a very doable still life for her while the rest of the class finished up a very difficult one.  This is for auction this week through ebay at a very low start price of $40.00 or buy it now for $150.  To bid click here
Here are both paintings:

Tango in Tulsa

This is one of my favorite paintings, maybe because I love the dance... Anyways it is on auction this week on ebay.. hate to let it go but willing to send it off to a good home.  Want to adopt it? bid here

Oh, I almost forgot, I have a painting on auction this week starting at only one penny.  click above, enter into the ebay site and click on my other items.  What a steal!

a penny auction!

Every now and then I take a sketch and start an auction at a penny.  It brings people into my ebay gallery and  hopefully will get them shopping there.  This was a painting done after a trip to France where we stayed at a friend's abby where she was celebrating 25 years there.  What a beautiful place.  Anyways this is a painting of the lavender fields that lead up to the abby which is bordered on the other side of the road by a huge field of poppies and then an almond grove.
To be the first to bid, click here

Tornado

One of my favorite subjects to paint is the Oklahoma sky.  You can't paint Oklahoma skies forever without including at least one tornado.  This is a tornado that I actually saw ( it was a little further in the distance when I saw it )  We pulled off the road just long enough to snap 2 photos and then high tailed it on out of there.  I have painted its portrait a couple of times.  To bid on one of them click here 

In the beginning....

Spring Garden
I have left over lettuce from the fall, Kale, Arrugala, Spinach, Onion, Garlic, too.  In my perennial garden I see Salisify, Mint, Parsley and will see soon.... Asparagus.  I have my fingers crossed on artichokes.  I have planted turnips, artichokes, lettuce, spinach, onion... and even peppers, and tomatoes which I will cover it it gets too cold. 

Red Roses on Terracotta

This painting was painted after picking some roses out in the back yard and putting them on the kitchen table.  Normally I wouldn't think I would like red and orange together but I was struck by how pretty those flowers looked against the terracotta walls in my kitchen in mid afternoon.  I had to paint it.  This is on sale now in my ebay gallery.
To Bid

Cowboys and Indians

Cowboys and Indian Toys fight it out in this still life.  My students wanted to kill me after this painting.  I set this up for my first year students.  I never know what the skill level is going to be and try to set up something that isn't too "girly" when I have guys in the class, so I thought I was doing pretty good with this one.  Unfortunately the complicated still life made them very nervous as most of the students had never picked up a paint brush before in their lives... so it was kind of like survival of the fittest... We lost one along the way and the rest of them learned a thing or two :-) .... although they hate my guts...
To Bid
To Blog

My friend, Louise had made me 2 birthday cakes in my lifetime and on both times they were so pretty ( and delicious ) that I thought I would paint their pictures.  This is one from last year's cake.  I experimented a little with pallet knife as I buttered on that frosting.  THIS year's cake is on auction and you can even bid on it here!
You can also visit my blog here

Some great music to listen to while you paint

My son, Dylan is owner of Scissor tail Records here in Tulsa.  Although his home base is here, his artists hail from around the world as do his followers.  He choses music that is very easy to listen to (not to be confused with " easy listening " music found in elevators and dentist offices... Yikes!)
Check his collection out at https://scissortail.bandcamp.com/

Honoring our grandmothers

Several years ago I lead a weekend painting workshop at Gilcrease Museum.  What fun I had going through the shareable archives there and hand picking some things to include in a still life that I did w my group.  I wanted to do something that centered on what our grandmothers might have had in their possession back in the day.  No Barbies back then for little girls ( notice the dolls ) and I figured my grandmother ancestor ( and Scott's ) would have a working knowledge of the forest, what you can eat, and what to use for medicinal purposes.  Anyways.... This painting is on auction this week through my ebay gallery. http://www.ebay.com/itm/390780388600?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1586.l2649

Tango

What do you do when you inherit grandma's dancing shoes?  Well if you have just jumped into learning the Tango, and you are a painter, you paint them.  This is on auction right now on my ebay site.  One of my favorite paintings.
To Bid

a cool video that features the music of my son, Dylan

http://vimeo.com/87413948

Jesse Aycock CD release March 7 Fassler Hall, Tulsa, OK, March 8th in Little Rock, AR

Watch the Currentland video Here

Purple Ribbon and Silver Coffee Pot

If you want a little peek into my classroom, you can find it in the silver coffee pot :-).  The class groaned when they saw this still life, thinking they could never paint the reflections on the silver.  I keep telling them, "don't concern yourself with painting a silver coffee pot, just paint exactly what you see... The values, and shapes etc and low and behold, when you stand back from it, you will find you have painted a silver pot.  What is always fun to me is that you get so caught up in finding shapes and correcting values that often when you stand back you are surprised that YOU are pictured in the reflection and you didn't even know you were painting yourself.  This painting is on auction this week on ebay.  To Bid

6x6 vineyard sketch

I actually painted the first one of these paintings on site very early in the morning at an Oklahoma Vineyard.  What a delightful day.  I painted while others picked and then around noon everyone broke for lunch prepared by vineyard bed and breakfast staff, complete with wine of course.  The original painting was sold several years ago but since then students who remember the original, asked for me to demo the process for them. Pictured below is a 6x6 sketch from which I created a larger piece. The painting on auction this week ( 16x20 oil ) is a product of that 2 day demo.  It is on auction this week on ebay.  To bid  
When you click the " bid" link above you also have a portal into all my other art auctions on ebay.  Enjoy my little gallery :-)

Red Roses against a Terracotta Wall

I had picked these roses from the garden and liked the effect of seeing them against my terracotta wall.  I was surprised that I liked it since I would not normally put those two colors together.  It has become one of my favorite floral paintings.  I have it on auction this week.
To Bid

A new batch of ACEO paintings on auction

At the request of one of my ebay art collectors, I started painting these little ACEO artist trading cards.  What a great idea for an affordable way to start your art collection and for us artists, a great way to introduce people to our work.

To check out this auction click here.  Bidding starts at $28.50 with no reserve.

Green Pears on Red and White Striped Cloth 6x6 oil

This is one among many daily and larger paintings on auction this week through my ebay gallery/auction site.  This began as a class project.... painting one object on a striped cloth.  My students breathed a sigh of relief when I mentioned that our next project involved only one object.  They breathed another kind of sigh as they saw the addition of the striped cloth rather than a plain backdrop.  heheheh
To bid

Garden " Bed"

Just an update.  I made this from an actual bed spring wooden form last summer.  The lettuce that I planted a month ago is coming right along under the protection and added warmth collected by the old window that rests atop it.

Last Night's Writing Theme, " Night sounds"

Last night Scott and I were sitting out back by the fire and had a bit of time before the Beatles retrospective was coming on the TV.  We decided to write something.  Scott's turn to pick the topic.  Night sounds.  He started off thinking about the sound of bugs on a hot Arkansas summer night but that Beatle thing was now in his head so he surprised me with the night the Beatles came on the Ed Sullivan Show.  Here is what I wrote:

Night sounds

I feel a slight chill as we leave the warmth of the counselor’s lodge and step out into the night.  Behind us now the sounds of conversation and laughter fade and the light from the windows ceases to light our way. 

I have spent the day in my swimsuit with my brother and sister sunbathing on the dock and playing in the water in front of the lodge which sits on the banks of a quiet, secluded lake in the Adirondack Mountains.  My mother and other counselor’s wives in bathing suits and sunglasses sit in lounge chairs  on the dock and keep an eye on us as we play.

A day in the sun and an evening by the fire inside the lodge has left me tired and longing for bed.  A loon calls from the lake and is answered by thousands of unseen insects in the deep forest that surrounds our pine needle path which leads to our borrowed two room cabin in the woods.  The path is thick and soft with hundreds of years of decaying wood, pine needles and leaves.  Even with my meager  sixty pounds  I can feel the path give and push back with each step.  The sound is quiet and comforting…. Until, to quicken our pace, our dad mentions the bears that might come out and bite our bottoms.  He punctuates with a pinch on the closest bottom which makes us all laugh.  We still quicken our pace as,  ‘you just never know…’  We are familiar with bears as one of our favorite weekend pastimes is to visit the town dump at night with others of like mind, where we watch them come out of the woods to feed. 

“ What would you do if you ran across a bear?” we ask our mom. “Well, just as he opens his mouth to bite me, I would stick my hand all the way into his mouth and down to his tail and pull him inside out.”  That answer was quite satisfying to all of us and we felt protected.  In our little world all stories have a happy ending and little children don’t ever get eaten by bears.

We come to an opening and we see the water pump up ahead where we always stop to pull down a paper cup and fill it with hand pumped, ice cold water.  We turn off the flashlight as the stars and full moon will now light our way.   The air surrounding us is crisp and clean. 

From across the lake we hear the sounds of a bugle playing taps and calling all to rest.

“ Day is done.

Gone the sun.

From the lake…

From the hill….

From the sky.

All is well…

Safely Rest.

God is nigh.”

In my bed in the same room with my brother and sister with mom and dad in the other room, I am safe.  I am loved.  All is well.