Blooming Vetch

To bid

I took a walk with my pup way down into a  hollow that spread out into a beautiful field the other day.  The temperature was perfect, there was every kind of wild flower blooming.  I even spotted a deer and watched while she considered if I was a friend or foe.  She decided to lean toward the safe side and got up from her hiding place and made it across the field and into the woods.  I thought it was such a beautiful place and the weather was perfect that I decided to  hike back up the hill and go get my painting supplies and come back  I completed two little sketches that I am very pleased with.  They both feature the 'weed,' vetch which turned the ground to a pretty violet where ever it sprang.

It was too pretty to pass up...

It was too pretty today to pass up an opportunity to paint.  I took my dog for a walk down on the back 40 and then decided that the weather was perfect, the scenery was perfect, the birds were singing and so we hiked back to the car, went home, got painting supplies and hiked back down to paint.  A beautiful day

SOLD

Thoughts on gardening on the wild side

I was out in the garden yesterday and picked lettuce and some spinach.  I noticed purslane growing in with the basil, sorrel and lambsquarters growing in with the lettuce and dandelion and poke scattered around as well.  I wish people would stop seeing this stuff as weeds and realize that they grow without any help from you, provide food during more than one season and plant themselves again for the following year.  Why would I dig or pull these things up?  I no longer do.  I bring the sorrel in to add to my mint tea and pestos, lambsquarters for anthing that uses greens including salads, purslane for fresh salads and poke for cooked greens and to freeze for the winter.  We need to start seeing things differently if we expect these valuable plants to survive corporate farming. My garden probably doesn't look as organized as those with out a weed and everything in its proper rows but I have decided to see it as useful and beautiful as it is. 

Testing the waters

Memories... Everything about the beach makes me feel good.  Some of my favorite years as a child, as a teen, as a mom and now.... still makes me feel young to be there although I no longer catch the eye of the cute lifeguard :-)  This painting came out of some great photos sent to me by a client for a commissioned painting.  I have since used these photos for some lovely little paintings.  This is one of my favorites.


To Bid

Mulberry Tree

One more day in the tops of the trees and I think it is finished. 

I love my job.  Who else gets to hang out in the tops of the trees all day, listening to the birds, watching the squirrels race around and eating fresh berries while doing so.... oh, and did I mention, getting to oil paint too?  What a life.
If you want to bid on this it is on ebay for the next few days on auction.  Bid here

A work of art from the garden

Revisiting a painting from this time last year

I decided not to paint the peonies this year and just pick them and enjoy them.  I do love to paint them but this year put my energies into some other kinds of paintings like my rainy city series and my tree tops.

To Bid

Mulberry Tree

Sometimes the question pops up... " Should I pick it, or should I paint it?"  That was the case the other day as I climbed the steps to our little tree house garage apt. to check out the mulberry tree.  They are nearing ripeness but still white.  In the mean time I had a flash back to when I was a young girl who loved to climb trees and sit in the tallest branches.  Soooo I decided to paint the tree instead.  It is almost finished but not quite.

Canoeing the Boundry Waters

9x11 oil on canvas

Mayfest Invitational

I am excited to be invited again to participate in the Mayfest International Invitational show this year.  It opens Wednesday night ( tickets are around $25 and go to support the Mayfest) After that it is free until it closes on Sunday afternoon.  Always exciting to see what my artist pals pull out for this show. 

This is one and dang it, I can't find the photo of the other one which is a painting of a city street in the rain.

To Garden or to Paint? That is the question.

I love Google.  I googled a recipe for honeysuckle jelly and decided to add a few rose petals for good measure and color.  I thought I had everything covered and went to get the pectin and mine was powdered and the recipe called for liquid so I did some very quick reading and my fingers are crossed that it will jell properly.  If not, I will do the old trick with cream cheese w jelly poured over it, served with crackers and just say, " I meant to do it." :-)

The Journey

A lot of people think that when they see a painting on the wall that the artist had a specific idea of how it should look in the end and that is how it turned out.  For most of us, it is a journey.  We have a very vague idea and we jump in and see where it leads.  I did this painting last year as a class project.  My class wanted to do a landscape and a portrait and so we combined the two.  I really liked the landscape and I liked the pretty face on my portrait but wasn't pleased with the rest of her and didn't like the way the two fit together.  It took me a year to give it a second look and so here is where we are today....

Wanna bid on this on Ebay?  Click here

To Garden.... or To Paint.... or Both!

This week I am doing a lot of both. To start off with the harvest of lots of dandelion and redbud blossoms a few weeks ago is going to pay off in another few weeks ( my fingers are crossed) with some tasty dandelion wine.  I tasted before I bottled it and it was pretty darned good so hopefully nothing goes wrong with the rest of the process.

I am also working on a painting of the lilac bush that was in full bloom last week, a painting from our trip down the Buffalo River last weekend ( a mere pleine aire sketch at this point,) and finishing a painting from my adult class.

a short painting demo

I had forgotten about this until someone commented on it today.  A pretty good little demo if I do say so myself.  It is me painting one little white cup.  It takes about 5-7 minutes or so. 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLy5nQlqmkE&authuser=0

Oklahoma Artists League Show

This Thursday, April 9th at the Circle Cinema in Tulsa, OK opening 5:30-8:00
Those of you in the area, please stop by.
It will be up for 2 months so feel free to stop in later and take in a movie as well :-)

Portraits and Sky Oil Paintings

 I thought I would revisit a few paintings that were used as an excuse to paint both a portrait and a wild and interesting sky.  We have wonderful sunsets, dramatic storms and beautiful clouds out here in the flat lands and I like to include them when ever I can.  The middle painting is open for bidding on Ebay today.  The others have already been sold.
To Bid

Playing in the Creek

This is a painting of my great nieces playing on Summer vacation at one of our favorite haunts.
To Bid

My experiment in automatic watering system

I put a little how to video on you tube about the creation of this system.  It was very easy to do and by trial and error, I finally got it to not be leaky.  The key to that was use a calk that is specifically used to calk guttering and is found on the guttering isle ( not where the other calk is) in my local hardware store.  Basically this is a closed system that allows water to come in via a hose connected to a very large rain barrel.  The key to success is a float that I ordered online that is made for this system.  It was a little tricky to find the right attachments to make this work but a very sweet guy at Home Depot spent around 15 minutes w me looking for just the right attachments and cut some pvc pipe to make it all work out. What you can't see in this picture ( and thanks to my husband, Scott who drilled the big holes in the bottom of each of these) is that there is about a 3" circular hole in the bottom of each of these where we dropped a little basket which dips down into the water in the gutter and is filled with potting soil which wicks up into the rest of the bucket where I have various seeds and plants planted.  Cool, huh?  It works!!

Just an interesting, no flour recipe for great crackers that I made up

Sorry that this is the kind of recipe that calls for a pinch of this and a handful of that but it is the best I can do...

I made something quite delicious the other day and thought I would share w you. took one can of low sodium white beans, put in blender w one egg, a bunch of almonds, a heavy dose of cumin, garlic pwdr , chili pwder, cayenne, blk pepper... I think I added a little water to make it pourable if I remember correctly. Pour on parchment paper on a cookie sheet so that it is as thin as you can get it. Sprinkle w seseme and other seeds that you might have handy. bake at around 350 and check it every 5 minutes or so. fliip it when it looks like it has tosted a little. I left the parhment paper on one of them and stripped it off one w the same results either way and then cook a little longer to toast the other side. They were DELISH! great crackers.... Scott said he hated to put anyting on them because they were so good by themselves. you could use them for pizza like crust as well, i bet.  I would post a picture but darn it.... they are all gone but the crumbs!