"The Journey"

These limes looked like they had a purpose. As if they were on their way to some destination.

I love these last two paintings. Several of the things I strive for came together. One of the things I did with these two was to try and use the Munsell Color Wheel. I learned about it in a class I took from Carol Marine. The idea is you pick a dominant color then use a little of each color on either side of the wheel and a tiny bit of the color on the opposite side of the wheel. Clear as mud? Look at the wheel I linked to. My dominant color for this painting is orange. I used a little red and a little yellow. Red and yellow are the colors on either side of orange on the wheel. Then I used a tiny bit of blue which is the color opposite from orange on the wheel. I didn't stick with it exactly obviously but keeping the ideas in the back of my mind helped make a nice color combination I think.

Edited Picture I'm having a hard time getting a good photo of this painting. I think this picture more closely shows the true color.

Available: $100 + $10 shipping. Or send me an e-mail.

"Mattise's Orange"
SOLD

I love how this turned out! I had a panel that I had painted over with some Alizarian Crimson and let dry completly. I like having some underpainting show through but always have trouble pulling the background throuh my paint and getting undesired effects. This is the answer I've been looking for. This came together so easily. That hardly ever happens for me. Doing all these paintings must be paying off!

I've Been Tagged
Carol Marine tagged me. My first thought was "ugh, I don't want to do this", but it was kind of fun and it's only 5 things I had to think of. The idea is to tell 5 things about your self so here goes...

1. By the time I left home at 18, I had lived in over 20 different houses, 6 countries, and 5 states.
2. I turned 40 this year.
3. Including myself, there were 15 people in my graduating class.
4. When my husband and I got married we had 10 indoor pets (yikes!)
5. I spend way too much time on the computer (yes, I see the irony!)

Here are the rules: 1. Link to your tagger and post these rules on your blog. 2. Share 5 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird. 3. Tag 5 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs. 4. Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

Here are the lucky ;) people I'm tagging: Deb Kirkeeide, Debbie Miller, Don Gray, Karen Appleton, Sarah Fox. I hope you don't mind too much!

"Lunch Interrupted"
SOLD

Like a lot of artists I see the world as a possible painting. For instance, I could be making lunch and decide that I need to paint my tomato instead of eat it.

"Sweet & Sour"

Available: $75 + $10 shipping. Or send me an e-mail.

"Mr & Mrs Smith"
SOLD

"Bad Hair Day"
SOLD

I love the crazy stems on these guys.

"Rose"
SOLD

Green is a hard color to mix. One of my favorite books is "Helen Van Wyk's Favorite Color Recipes". She suggests mixing thalo green, yellow ochre and burnt umber for dark green. That looked pretty good to me but I liked it better with a touch of cadmium red deep. She's not a fan of cadmium red deep and suggests using grambacher red, but it has a CL warning label on it so is not a part of my studio.

"Fresh from the Garden II"

One of the nice things about living in South Texas is a long growing season.

I'm still working on my "safe" studio. My latest thing to try is cleaning my brushes in oil when I want to change colors. I wipe as much paint off as I can on a paper towel, then dip in oil, wipe and repeat until clean. I save the solvents for the very beginning when I'm laying down an under painting, and occasionally to wash a strong color like phthalo blue out of a brush. (I love phthalo blue). The solvent I use in Gamblin Gamsol. It's the safest one I know of. There is a good article about art material safety in this psd file from Artist's Magazine. You'll need to have Adobe Acrobat Reader installed to view it.

Available: $75 + $10 shipping. Or send me an e-mail.

"Zinnias II"

I'm happy with the way these last 2 flower paintings have turned out. I'd like them a little looser though. It's so hard for me not to get caught up in the details and have an impression of a flower. I took a few process photos of this one.

Available: $100 + $10 shipping. Or send me an e-mail.

"Yellow Pepper"
SOLD

I orignally posted this painting in July as "not for sale". Sometimes I like a painting so much that have to live with it for awhile before I'm ready to let it go.

"Zinnias"

In college I used to draw glass objects often. I forgot how much I enjoy it.

Available: $75 + $10 shipping. Or send me an e-mail.

"Purple Petunias"

Available: $75 + $10 shipping. Or send me an e-mail.