Tulips, Watercolor 9×12 Original Sold
I think Mother Nature is playing mind games this week. After withholding snow until winter sport season is almost gone and people are thoroughly read for spring anyway, she’s seen fit to drop a few inches of powder on us each of the last couple nights. She’s too late, though. i’ve got flowers on the brain, and it’s gonna take a lot more than a few dusting of snow trip to turn that back now.
Prints and Cards of this painting are available here.
i’d like to tell you I have a veggie garden because I’m really into organic everything, but the truth is there’s nothing quite as satisfying as watching my kids fight over fresh greens. In my defense, I have stopped telling them the peas were candy.
You can buy prints and cards of this painting here
Best Laid Plans
I know the Big Guy is not the only married man who becomes paralyzed with terror anytime he hears his wife utter the words, “I have an idea.” To be fair, usually the ideas involve holes in the ceilings and wall-sized holes in the walls (for the wall-sized window of course).
The only time my home improvement ideas don’t trigger stroke symptoms is in the dead of winter when my scrappy hardcover book of graph paper is my first sounding board.
There’s no logical reason for it, but sometime around the end of January, visions of backhoes and rototillers dance in my head as I fill page after page with new layouts for my veggie garden. In the end, only the colors change places, but the doodling has become a satisfying substitute for the words, ‘I have a dozen ideas’. At least where the garden is concerned.
You can find prints and cards of this painting here.
Digging In 11×14 Watercolor
Last year I broke my foot, and it never completely healed. For most of the last year I felt like I’ve been driving a Pinto with the left turn signal on waiting for the tiniest little ding to knock my appendage out of commission which made gardening last year a fantasy.
this year I’m getting equipped to make the fantasy reality, but I’m a little bit nervous about what mother nature’s planned. We can usually get peas and greens in by March and have first pickings before The trees are fully leafed out.
This year, however, Mother Nature may beat us to the punch, having given winter it’s pink slip already. I think she’s tempting us to get the peas in early.
You can buy prints and cards of this painting here.
The thing I love about watercolor is that paper is relatively cheap. that means you can kiss a lot of frogs is in the hope of getting a handsome print. This one is more of a tadpole, but it wasn’t a wasted effort. It’ll be chopped into bookmarks but not before that serves as a study for a much bigger piece it has now inspired.
Spring is on the way. The nights are still cold, but the days are getting warmer, and the sap buckets are starting to appear.
Take Two from the springtime laundry line.
It’s the dead of winter, and a middle-age mom’s thoughts turn to laundry lines and apple blossoms.
it’s a rough draft, I just feel so I’m in the mood for garden paintings. Next up, Take Two.
I know only God can make a tree, but for some reason I’m not intimidated by trying to do mountains–maybe it’s because most of the time you’re painting curbs and shadows and not individual trees. But with a sunset you’re actually trying to paint the light.
I don’t think this effort is going to end up in our collection of fire starting paper, but every attempted a sunset is a great reminder of why they call the masters, the Masters.
I have been struggling with ideas for the February show. I love landscapes but want to keep expanding my horizons.
The Big Guy suggested doing something to celebrate Spring, which won’t be far away when the show kicks off. Saturday, the first of the seed catalogs arrived, and I decided that would be a good idea.
I had to skip gardening a bit last year because of a broken foot that makes walking on uneven ground treacherous on the best of days.
With the appearance of the first seed catalog and the move of my studio from the back room of our house to a chilly attic overlooking the garden, however I know I’m going to have to find a way to get out there and get dirty.
This doodle won’t make it into the show, but it did get me in the mood to start painting gardens and flowers. I think I’m going to be happy with the decision now that winter has finally decided to make a belated entrance.
Picking My Battles 