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!!