Veiled Beauty

I got inspired to paint this from a photograph I saw of a little girl in a costume with a veil over her head. So headed to the store, bought a piece of "toile", and snapped some quick photos of my daughter and the toile. Got some pretty interesting shots. I recently entered this one into the OPA National. Fingers crossed!

Yellow Iris

A few weeks ago when they were freshly cut from my garden, I painted these yellow iris. I was really drawn to the way they all flopped to one side. They are such a complicated flower, but simple at the same time. The day after I painted these, the buds had opened up into blooms already! And the blooms only looked good for one more day before quickly fading. Glad I was able to finish them in one sitting.

Creek Bend

This is another landscape I painted last month in Roger Dale Brown's studio workshop. I learned so much from Roger! I need to get outside paint more so I can practice what I learned.

White House

I took a studio landscape 3-day workshop with Roger Dale Brown last month and started this painting in class. After I got home, I messed around with it a little bit trying to get a good sense of light hitting the area surrounding the house. (The color in this photo is a little more saturated than the actual painting.) I learned so much from Roger! He's a really great artist and teacher (and a really nice guy too!). This was my 2nd workshop with him, the 1st being approx. 6 years ago. I really love painting landscapes, but usually end up gravitating back to painting people!

Peonies

Here's a painting I recently finished of some peonies that grow in my garden. They are very short-lived and so fragile. They were in the latter part of their lives when I picked them. Within a couple of hours, they began to droop but were still beautiful. They were hard to paint! The silver urn is one I bought at an antique store and finally got a chance to use it in a painting--it requires large flowers to fill it well. Thanks for looking!

Comfortable

I finished this painting last week. It was very fun to paint the subtle color changes in her white skirt. I have entered this in the Oil Painters of America's National Show along with "Straw Hat". Hopefully one will gain entry! Thanks for viewing!

Soft Light

Here is something I painted a couple years ago. I really liked the composition--especially the model's arms and hands. Also, the combination of warm reflected light hitting her from the left and cool daylight falling on her from a window on the right was so appealing. It was fun to paint the white part of her dress by adding lots of other colors to the white. I am going to enter this painting in the Oil Painters of Amerca's National Exhibition--hope it gets in!

Stairway

This was a tough painting! The view from below made the drawing difficult--especially the facial features. It was also a challenge to paint the effect of the light hitting the black painted railing. But all in all, I am pretty satisfied with the outcome.

Flower Girl

I finished this painting a few days ago--the latest in my quest of trying to capture the effects of bright sunlight that creates interesting patterns. The possibilities are endless if you have a nice, bright window. Unfortunately, the lightest areas on her skin were washed out to pure white in the photo. To see what was really happening in those areas that the photo couldn't record, I had my daughter sit in front of a sunny window a few times and took some notes. Wouldn't it be nice to have a model sit perfectly still with the light never changing for hours at a time?