Day 30 ~ Behind the Glass

8″ x 8″ oil on canvas

I took a photo of this cute little guy when we were at our favorite Guthrie coffee shop Hoboken. Don’t look too close, but I just noticed a lion face on the hood of his sweatshirt. I’ll have to change that… 🙂

This is the last day of the challenge and honestly I can’t believe I made it. I don’t want to whine on here, but just to say I went through several days of excruciating middle back pain. My shoulder has been hurting intensely where it was hit by a car years ago… to the point where I had to hold my arm up to paint at times. My husband has had a terrible tooth abscess, my daughter has been sick for a week with chills, fever and headaches… It has been a difficult month. On the brighter side we are all recovering and feeling a whole lot better. 🙂

 

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Day 28 ~ Saddle Up

Day 7 ~ The Catch

6″ x 6″ oil on canvas

Day 4 ~ Be Still and Know

8″ x 10″ oil on canvas

This is really a self portrait… I slipped on a black skirt and my barn boots one day, because my daughter offered to take some pictures of the shawl  I had just finished knitting. Love the way this picture turned out so I stored it away to paint it someday. First self portrait I’ve ever done.

I thought the painting had an contemplative feel to it. When the song “Be Still and Know” came on my Pandora station, I knew that was the title for it. 🙂

Cushion Bushing

Have any of you heard of a cushion bush? When I saw a photo my daughters brought back from their trip to Australia, I couldn’t resist trying to paint it. She told me that you could actually sit in these bushes and relax, and that they are really comfortable. 🙂

12″ x 12″ oil on gallery wrapped canvas

Leucophyta brownii (also known as Cushion Bush).

Leucophyta brownii is a small, rounded shrub with tangled tomentose branchlets that give it a silvery appearance. It commonly occurs on the exposed faces of cliffs and dunes on the south coast of Australia. Although it can grow up to 1 metre high, it is more usually 0.2 to 0.7 metres high. It produces flowers during summer (December to February in Australia). These are white – yellow globular heads and about 1 cm in diameter. ~ Wikipedia

Day 17 ~ Water Skiing at Chelan

I’ve been thinking a lot about my amazing daughter-in-law who is having troubles with her back at the moment. Earlier this summer she posted a picture on Instagram of herself water skiing. I thought it would be fun to try painting it sometime, so I saved it in my collection of things that inspire me. I had so much fun trying to paint this water…

 

6″ x 6″ oil on gessoed panel

Day 16 ~ It’s Raining

It is raining here today… and I am way out of my comfort zone with this painting. But I’ve wanted to try working loosely with a pallet knife and try a rainy scene in town for a long time. I don’t feel finished with this… and I so don’t know what I’m doing, but I’m posting it as it is…

12″ x 16″ oil on canvas

Day 11 ~ Watching the Boats at Manarola

Here’s another experiment… Have you heard of the Fibonacci spiral, or the Golden spiral? I just happen to follow the Pic Monkey blog and the most recent post was The Golden Ratio : What You Need to Know to Make a Great Photo.

And what do I find while reading this article, but several ways of looking at your canvas differently than the rule of thirds.

So here is the golden spiral…

 

I used this spiral today to paint this scene taken at Manarola, Italy…

 

8″ x 10″ oil on linen

I have some more work to do on this painting, but can you tell what is in the center of the spiral? Did your eye go there first? Am I getting this right???

 

Day 5 ~ Remembering Ras Tanura

This painting is a commissioned piece for  a very old friend of mine from back in the days when we lived in Saudi Arabia… Yes, we did. In a town called Ras Tanura on the Persian Gulf. I’m sure everyone who has ever lived there remembers the beautiful turquoise waters and the white sand beach…

8″ x  8″ oil on linen

SOLD

She wanted a painting of her and her 4 sisters and her mom on the beach. I pulled this painting together from several different photographs. The girls on the beach building the sand castle were actually in a photo decorating a Christmas tree. I had to come up with something for the mom and the littlest sister. The beach scene is from an actual  photo of Ras Tanura beach.

Sure brings back a lot of memories…

Not So Sure…

8″ x  10″ oil on canvas

So there are a lot of things I’m “not so sure” about, but this little guy definitely looks that way. I’m “not so sure” what to call this painting. My husband thought “Not So Sure” was a great title. What do you think?

This was a shot that the photographers captured at my son’s wedding. It reminds me of something Norman Rockwell would have painted. It took me a long time to get a face on that little guy. I used a magnifying glass… And I did scrape it and start over quite a bit.

Hope this makes you smile. 🙂