#18 Lone Oak, Red Letter Day

#18 Lone Oak, Red Letter Day, 6x6, oil on panel, (click here to bid) 

A cool blue and hot red make a red letter day.

#15 Lone Oak, Fire and Ice

#15 Lone Oak, Fire and Ice, 6x6, oil on panel, (click here to bid)

I think this is about as hot as you can get. Silver and red are such classic colors — think 'little red sports car' with chrome trim.

#16 Lone Oak, Embers and Charcoal

#16 Lone Oak, Embers and Charcoal, 6x6 oil on panel, (click here to bid)

 Cool teal and warm orange to spice things up. Reminds me of warm mulled spiced wine.

Summer Delights!

I hadn't planned on taking a vacation, but I guess I did!

For the first time in a few years I was able to take the time to visit with out-of-town family, travel to the coast and a few other places. While I was plein air painting for the Oregon Lavender Festival I discovered I really enjoyed painting outdoors. I took a couple of plein air classes and a couple of pastel classes too. In between all of that was a few sessions of painting the trim on the studio (has it really been 5 years since I finished building it?), building a fence and catching up on yard work. Whew!

Somehow, I managed to get a few paintings finished in the studio. The North Clackamas Arts Guild had their annual show last weekend and 2 of my painting won awards. The first pastel I have ever finished won First Place in the Pastel Still Life category.

Summer Delights, pastel 16x20, NFS

One of my Lavender Festival plein air paintings won a Third Place for Oil Landscapes. I felt honored to have this little painting receive an award as there were over 100 Landscapes entered in this category.

Talk About Quaint, oil 12x16, $245 unframed

I'll post the rest of my Lavender Festival Paintings over the next few days along with a few of the other paintings I've been working on.

My goal for the next couple of months is to get back to painting more 6x6 daily paintings and some larger works also.

Blessing in Blue

Blessing in Blue, 24x18, original oil on stretched canvas, SOLD

(click here for larger view or to bid on painting)

I painted with some friends this spring and the studio had this little window—isn't it great?. Another friend contributed the statue of a saint, maybe St. Francis, I'm not sure. It was fun to paint this still life and we all had such a good time. Painting with other artists is great because I learned so many neat and interesting new things. Thanks Kat and Jody and the rest of the gang.

I'm Back

Still Life with Oranges, 18x24, original oil painting on canvas, $395

(click here for enlarged view or to buy on painting)

I can't believe I haven't posted for 20 days! I spent over a week in the lavender fields plein air painting. I had so much fun with all that purple! I was rushing so much to get them all framed and submitted to the Lavender Festival show in Yamhill, Oregon that I forgot to take photographs of them. They will be in either the Coldwell Banker Professional Group building or Cusick Picture Frame in Newberg, Oregon for their First Friday Art Walk, August 3, from 5 to 9 pm. Drop in if you are in the area, I'd love to meet you.

After the Lavender Festival I decided to go out and do some plein air painting. I've discovered that I love painting outdoors. There are no distractions, like cats that need to be fed and plants that are begging for water. So, I can focus on just painting. And strangely, it doesn't bother me to have people look at my "not finished" paintings. As soon as I photograph them I'll post them.

I'm posting a larger size, still life painting that I did last winter. I really like  the way it turned out. It has a quality of stillness and timelessness.