Merry Christmas Greta

A group of us from the area paint together (as I've mentioned before) in Bullard every Tuesday and Friday at the home of Greta Faulkenberry. She has a gorgeous home and decorates "to the nines" for Christmas. So, last week she brought some of her ornaments down for us to play around with and I selected some red ones (or course) to do a mini painting. We don't all paint the same things...just whatever strikes our fancy. She doesn't read our blogs, so she will be surprised when she sees this little painting framed and wrapped and given to her at our Christmas party tomorrow. I've also posted it on Artcolony. This is only 5x7 and was done in an afternoon session, but very loosly painted and was lots of fun. I just love red...obviously!:) As I mentioned in the other blog, it's so affirming when one of your painting friends really admires absolutely everything you paint! Ha!

Mandavilla Vine

This is the little painting done this morning in our Friday session. It's small...8x11...so it's one of those quickie paintings that are loose and fun. I was really wanting to play with the background and try some negative painting, but needed to quit early today to get ready to go to Austin to babysit in the morning. My daughter-in-law is going to NY to visit for the weekend and my son gets an assistant for his 7 month old. Not a bad gig for Grammy. I'm going to take my painting gear as I'll be there for at least the next 3 days. We'll see if I have time to do any painting.

Painting Day

Every Tuesday and Friday a group of us meet at an artist friend's "art retreat" south of Tyler for a few hours of painting and gossip. We are painting as peers and not teacher/students and it is such fun. For anyone who wants to see real progress in their work, just schedule these regular sessions and you'll be surprised how you progress. I have referred to the "Ruidoso ladies" many times in the past and this group is those artists. Our hostess, Greta Faulkenberry has spoiled us rotten with individual tables, lights, brush holders, tissue, a giant light box, cable tv w/stereo music of our choice...I could go on and on about the comforts of our studio. I think her husband, John, is very indulgent of us and I need to pass along a "thank you" to him also. If I finish what I'm working on this morning, I'll try to get it posted this afternoon. The weather people are saying that we might get a little snow today so I'm trying to make a sweep through my gardens to make sure that I've moved everything into the studio that I want to save through the winter. Don't know why I have soooooo many plants???

Big Red

This guy is my favorite rooster in my chicken kingdom. He is very gentle and eats out of my hand...and the ladies all like him as he shares his bug finds with them. And, he knows that he is handsome. Too bad I couldn't come up with a more original name. Ha! I am going to try to post a bit more of what I am working on and have made a promise to myself to post at least one painting a week. I'm still working on the Glass n'Stripes and hope to have it finished before too much longer. And, on our Artcolony blog we are having a Christmas painting exchange and I will post Ellie's painting as soon as we "open" our gifts from each other. It has to remain a secret for a little while. Janie Freeman drew my name and I'm very excited to have an original from her.

JapaneseCrimsonQueenRedLaceMaple

There is no way I can paint this gorgeous favorite maple and do it justice, so I thought I'd just post a photo. Our mild fall has given us absolutely glorious colors this year so we don't need to be unhappy that we missed the fall follage tours in New England. Still have a rose blooming, chartruse sweetpotato vine, orange cosmos, purple Mexican sage and all my bromilaids are still outside. It'll take me HOURS to put all my plants in the studio and I seem to put it off later and later every year. When the temps suggest that we may have our first frost, I usually kill myself getting everything inside the studio that should have been moved while temps were in the 60's. Oh, well...no sense in doing something different from what I'm guilty of doing every year!

Art for Mission House

Each Tuesday I paint with a group of friends in a little town south of Tyler..Bullard, Texas. Two of my artist friends, Greta Faulkenberry and Katherine Bunce have founded a yearly art show and sale honoring the memory of their first watercolor teacher, Genny Woods, who has passed away. They bring together a great group of artists and put on a great sale and show with part of the proceeds benefiting their church's Mission House food/clothes/medical services pantry. Another of our artist friends, Kay Smith of Brushworks Art Studio in Big Spring, has given me permission to donate a painting I completed based on a demo she recently did for a workshop. I absolutely loved her pears and thought my painting friends would really enjoy painting something similar. So, I redrew the piece, added a few leaves and twigs and did a demo with my twist for our little group. The paintings are matted 20x24 and were painted on 140 lb.Arches paper. The pear painting turned out so successfully in my eyes that I thought I'd paint a companion piece of apples and donate both to the artshow silent auction benefiting the Mission House. My artist friends are simply the best!!

Moon Pies

As usual, I'm running really late with my postings for ArtColony and this is the latest challenge going..."moon". There were several other subject lines with a moon that I just couldn't see painting and one of my artist friends from Houston, Nita , suggested MoonPies. Loved the idea. In my childhood, when we came home from school we usually had a moon pie and a Pepsi. These challenges are not major productions so we can really throw something out..and this is just that..thrown out! I drew it in about an hour, painted it in about 2 hours and need to do a little more detail work, but our deadline for ArtColony is the 15th. And..today in addition to being tax deadline (for the final extension..DUH!), is the challenge deadline. This piece is only 5 x 7 so if any of you punch this up, it will look really "messy" as it will be sooooo large in magnification. Sorry about that. I still have not honed my computer tech skills enough to know how to get to the right editing program with Photoshop yet to reduce the posting sizes. I will admit to eating this setup of MoonPies, although I did half it with our dog, Gunney. On the wrapper it stated the calories at 300 so I couldn't make myself be that indulgent. And, Gunney doesn't care about calories!