Sawmill Farm Hill

This is the view on the steep road up which I hike each day. I want to lighten some of the grass areas and do more with the barn, but this is a rough draft. 18x24 acrylic - 7-11-09

First Summer '09 VT paintings...yup it's a FL scene

It's been cold and rainy in VT so my thoughts have gone to FL where it is hot hot hot. I took a number of photos with the idea of using them as art references and am just now getting around to actually painting a few. I think the figure will be my focus this summer. This one is tiny, just 5x7, acrylic. Lily on the boat, Indian River, New Smyrna Beach, FL

New Smyrna Views

I've had the pleasure of painting this spring with the most amazing artists. We 4 women meet at a the beach, a park, each other's homes and paint once a week. I'm posting my last few paintings, some not really finished, but hey, here goes. All are acrylic on canvas. This one is the view from Edgewater looking towards the south causeway in New Smyrna Beach.

This one is Tim's boat on a sand spit off the inner-coastal, the Indian River; New Smyrna Beach condos are in the background.

Last FL Art This Spring, Off to VT

This last one was a small painted sketch done while we floated down the St. John's River.

More FL Art

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Grooving on the Florida landscape as usual, especially since it is February and VT is cold, sloppy and still fighting off winter. I'm working on my color palette with these two paintings. Both were done in, or inspired by, the Jane Slivka workshop I took in January. Jane is a Ohio transplant, a painter from Mt. Dora, FL, who has studied with Robert Burridges and Steven Quiller, both colorists and fans of loosey goosey brush work. This is all good for me too. As a recovering tight watercolorist I aim to get loose and free with brush strokes and use color in such a way that the painting looks colorful, although not like a carnival. This is not always easy to achieve, I fail at it more than succeed. Jane was experimenting with gray skies and I may bring some gray back into my palette as well, to offset the color.

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A Workshop Painting from Daytona Beach Art League Workshop

Here's another painting I did during the Jan. 19-23 Jane Slivka workshop. I used a photo of a tourist village in some great warm place, not sure where. I thought the mutli-colored roofs would be fun to do but found I had to revert to a black and white photocopy because the color of the roofs and buildings confused my own color sense. Dark/light, that was what I needed to focus on. There's more to do here, but it's fun to look at.

Tim on the Beach

We're back in FL once again, sold the VT house and made the big move. This painting is 8x8", acrylic on canvas, painted from a combo of photos of Tim, my hubby, reading in a deck chair in Maine last summer, and a photo of the beach in New Smyrna Beach, FL where we live. I just took a workshop from a wonderful FL artist, Jane Slivka, http://www.janeslivkagallery.com/ who lives in Mt. Dora, southwest of Deland. She studied with Steven Quiller and Robt. Burridge so is a colorist and free spirit who paints luscious loose works: FL landscape and architecture as well as some Caribbean scenes. I love her painterly style.

Closure

We sold our VT house this fall. The day before the closing we had a bonfire for our personal closure, I threw in a few art pieces including this paper mache art spirit I'd made after receiving a flying Balinese carved wooden female from a friend who traveled there. This photo says it all: flying into the flames of the unknown we end an era of building our house, raising our family, stability and homesteading. Now on to new and exciting adventures!