Sunny Vista Living Center Juried Show

Early Fall Morning

Oil 9" x 12"

Available at Sunny Vista Living Center, or please contact me if interested

I am thrilled that two of my paintings were accepted in to the juried show at Sunny Vista Living Center, Colorado Springs.  And, I'm really pleased that "Early Fall Morning"  received an Honorable Mention.

G44 Gallery Colorado Springs

 For those of you who live here in Colorado Springs, I hope you can come to my show at G44 Gallery, 1785 South 8th Street.   The opening is Friday May 10th from 6:00 - 9:00 pm.  If you can't make the opening, please stop by the gallery before June 14th.

I had knee replacement in March.  It's been a slow recovery.  Some people recover quickly, some people (me) recover more slowly.  Then, last week I was back in the hospital for a manipulation.  Now I've gone from a cane back to a walker, more pain, etc.  I don't yet have enough movement to pedal all the way around on a recumbant bike, but part of my physical therapy is to go to the gym every other day (I also go to p.t. every other day) and push the pedals back and forth as much as I can for 20 minutes.  The gym is almost next door to G44 Gallery and I was so excited when I saw this poster in the window.  It made my day!

Out On The Range

Out On The Range
Oil  18" x 24"
On Hold - However, Please contact me if interested

This is another of my western skies that I just finished for the upcoming show at G44 Gallery, 1785 S. 8th Street here in Colorado Springs.  The opening is Friday May 10th, 5:00 - 8:00.  Hope those of you who live locally can come!

It seems that spring is finally here.  Earlier this week it was in the 20's.  Today it's in the 70's.  While I'm still not able to hike, or really walk very far, since having knee replacement in March, I am looking forward to painting outdoors!  My plein air group, Garden Artists, paints every Tuesday and Thursday morning starting in May.  Let me know if you'd like to paint with us!

The Dolores At Dusk

The Dolores At Dusk
Oil  10" x 8"
SOLD

This piece is from the Dolores River on the western slope (for those of you not from Colorado, that means on the other side of the Continental Divide.)  I loved the fall evening that my husband and I were hiking over there.  The refections in the water were constantly changing.  There were never endless opportunities for future paintings staring at me.

You just never know when a painting will sell.  I recently posted some pieces that were part of a group show at the Colorado Springs Airport.  I received an inquiry about one of them in January.  Through several months of communication about that piece and several others, I ended up meeting the client, having him over to see the other paintings that he found on my website (the painting that he inquired about was till at the airport.)  Then, weeks later (this week), he bought two paintings.  We all know that we can't sell work if no one sees it.  It's important to get your work out there.  I know that sometimes that's challenging.   I was thrilled to be a part of that show.  It allowed people who didn't know about me to see my work.  I just received another inquiry from him about bringing his fiance over to see the piece that he saw in January!

Yesterday I was the co-host on Artists Helping Artists.  The show was on branding, ie:  creating an art image.  During the show, Leslie Saeta wondered if she asked people on FaceBook to describe her art if they could.  I commented that you could do the same thing on your blog.  So, I am.  If you've read this far, could you please comment back using 3 words that you think describes my paintings.  Thank you!  This will let me know if I've branded myself well.  If you see my paintings the same way I see them.  Thank you again!

High Meadow

High Meadow
Oil 18" x 24"
On Hold - However, Please Contact Me If Interested

I love western skies.  Our skies are vast, open, majestic, and ever changing.  They sometimes seem like the focus of the vista.  And other times seem like the supporting cast for the landscape.

This painting is part of my upcoming show at G44 Gallery, 1785 S. 8th Street, Colorado Springs.  The opening is Friday, May 10th 5:00 - 8:00 pm.

Once again, I am going to be the co-host on Artists Helping Artists.  Hope you can listen in to the show, this Thursday, April 25th at 9:00 PST.   Leslie Saeta has created a great show on Spring Cleaning your brand.  Tune in to find out why you need a brand for your art business, how to create a strong brand and how you can use packaging, photography and graphics to share your brand with potential collectors.

Maui Palms and Fun News

Maui Palms
Oil  6" x 8"
SOLD

This painting is headed off to Austin.  I painted one like it last winter when we were in Maui.  But, just after I set up to paint, it started raining and the painting became darker and reflected the rain colors of the moment.  At the request of the client I've painted this lighter, sunny day view.  After finishing this and going back through my photos of that trip, I hope one day we'll go back to Hawaii!

Fun News:  Tomorrow I will be the co-host on Artists Helping Artists, Blog Talk Radio.  Leslie Saeta and I will be interviewing Melinda Cootsona about her book:  "Open Your Studio-9 Steps to a Successful Art Career".  I've wondered about having an open studio, but was never quite ready to jump right in.  So, I loved reading this book.  Hope you can listen in!  The show is broadcast live at 9:00 am PST or you can listen to the podcast any time.

Orange Slices

Orange Slices

Oil 11" x 14"

$295.00 + $10. s/h

I love how reflections add so much dimension and color to a painting.

My knee is continuing to improve.  Today I was able to paint for about 1 1/2 hours!  I'm slowly getting back to my old (I should say former) self!  Thank you to everyone for your comments, emails and thoughts about my recovery!  Another great thing about the blogosphere and social media:  there are always friends out there!

Winter Day

Winter Day

Oil 11" x 14"

$295.00 + $10. s/h

While spring is upon us, I hadn't yet posted this piece from a short while ago.  I'm not sure who started the saying "Springtime in the Rockies."  But, it doesn't refer to flowers, blossoms, buds and warm nights.  Yesterday was a very windy 21 degrees!  Colorado Springs is at 6,000 feet and the changing weather is always a topic of conversation.

My posts are a bit less frequent than normal.  Recuperating from partial knee replacement is almost a full time job.  Three times each day I do 20 - 30 minutes of physical therapy.  Several hours each day I sit in a CPM machine, which moves your leg, so that even when you're doing "nothing" your leg is in motion.  Three times each week I go to the Physical Therapist, who swears he wasn't a Chinese Torture agent in his last life, but I'm not sure!  And, everything that I do is an effort and takes a long time.  I'm just grateful that I live in this century and that in a few more weeks I'll be even better!

Lucy...and other news

I Love Lucy
Oil 12" x 12"
Sold - Commission

I just mailed Lucy off to her home in North Carolina.  Lucy is a Miniature Black Angus.  I didn't know anything about Miniature Black Angus, so I googled it!  Interesting what you learn through painting.  Lucy's photo was hanging in my studio for several weeks and  during the painting process my husband and I became very attached to her and affectionately started calling the painting "Not For Dinner".   We couldn't imagine eating her!  She's so cute!  How could you commission a painting that would soon become dinner?  So, I emailed my husband's niece, whose family raises these, and asked her about this.  They use the females for breeding and the males for meat.  So, with a life expectancy of 12-25 years, Lucy will be a part of that family for years to come!

Other news....I have hardly posted this past month, because I haven't painted much this past month.  I recently had partial knee replacement.  I've had knee problems for decades and finally realized that it was time to fix this!  The last several weeks I've been recovering, going through at home physical therapy, laying around, watching netflix, hobbling around in a walker, taking naps...everything you do after knee surgery.  Painting and standing (or even sitting) in front of my easel just hasn't been possible.  I didn't have the physical or mental stamina.  Drugs take it out of you, and although I've been thinking that doing some abstract painting might be fun, I wasn't quite ready for drug induced abstract.  So, I'm on the mend, doing more each day, and am looking forward to painting again soon!

Colorado Springs Airport Show

Morning Light

Standing Bull

Two of my paintings, Morning Light and Standing Bull, are hanging at the Colorado Springs Airport as part of the Ranchlands Artist Gathering Show.  The paintings in this show were from the Artist Gathering at the Medano Zapata Ranch last June.  

The Ranchlands Artist Gathering was formed to support art and illuminate the important work that is occurring in land and wildlife conservation through ranching, creating a window into modern ranching through an artist's point of view.

The medano Zapata Ranch is managed by The Nature Conservancy and Ranchlands in a unique partnership that stresses conservation and the establishment of a wild bison herd.  This body of work represents the ranch's unique landscape, 2,500-head bison herd, the adjacent Sangre de Cristo Mountain Range, Great Sand Dunes National Park and native wildlife and plant species.

I'm thrilled to be a part of the Artist Gathering and loved seeing the work at the airport.

Panama Palms

Panama Palms
8" x 6"  Oil
$100.00 + $10. s/h

When ever we're in the tropics I always end up painting palm trees.  I've never lived anywhere where palm trees grow, so they just seem like such a unique tree to me.  This was painted from the same spot as the last Panama post.  I just moved my easel to another view.

One day while in Santa Catalina, we went snorkeling at Coiba National Park, about an hour and 15 minute boat ride out into the Pacific.  Coiba National Park is a World Heritage Unesco Site, formerly a prison, and made up of over 30 small islands.

This is the first island where we stopped to snorkel.  The reefs and fish in this area were unbelievable!

It was great snorkeling!

We stopped at this island, the actual site of the penal colony, for lunch.  Our boat (in my mind not very big for an ocean trip!) is one of these small ones.  

We walked around the island after lunch.  This sign says:

  Crocodile Area "Tito" Beware!

We never saw Tito, he must have been off in the shade.

On the ride back we stopped at another reef for more snorkeling.  Spectacular schools of fish!

We had a great captain who pointed out lots of marine life throughout the day.  

Here is a whale shark.  We stopped to watch him and the captain told us we could

 put on our masks and jump in!

All in all, another great day in Panama!

Santa Catalina, Panama

Santa Catalina
Oil  6" x 8"
$100.00 + $10. s/h

My husband and I recently got back from three weeks in Panama.  We like to go some place warm for a bit each winter and a visit to the Panama Canal was on our list of places to see.  So, off we went.  We spent four days in Panama City, part of one day at the Miraflores Visitors Center ie:  the Canal Museum, and one day on a trip through the canal.  We chose to do the full transit, which took all day as you go from the Pacific all the way across the country to the Caribbean side.  But, that was one of the reasons we went to Panama, so the full transit, vs the partial transit, was it for us!

We spent the rest of the trip in three different towns, Bocas del Toro, Boquete, and Santa Catalina. 

This painting is from Santa Catalina, which is below the town of El Tigre on the 

south west-ish side at the bottom of the smaller peninsula.

This is the front lawn of our hotel.

  I had no idea that the tide was so great, 18 to 20 feet!  When we arrived the first evening and looked out at the ocean, we saw just that:  ocean.  The next morning we saw more or less 2-300 yards of rock, then the ocean!   Much of the time we had overcast, grayish days.  Even still, the sun was strong!

This is the view from the hotel front lawn.

Here's the beach down the road from our hotel.  It was interesting to me that one beach in Panama had black sand and just a few miles down the road the beach was white sand.  In this picture the tide is way out.  When it came in, most of this was under water.  Santa Catalina is a surfing beach and town.  We estimated that the surfers had to paddle about a quarter mile out beyond the rocks to the big surf and huge swells. 

St. Francis

St. Francis

20" x 16"  Oil

SOLD

This painting of St. Francis is of a statue from Mexico.  I don't often paint with a palette knife but I like the way this turned out.

I knew that St Francis was a guardian of animals, we have a different sculpture of him in our garden.  But I didn't know much more so I googled him.  I find this pretty interesting.  Here is what Wikipedia has to say:

Francis of Assisi (born Giovanni Francesco di Bernardone; 1181 – October 3, 1226)^[2] was an Italian Catholic friar and preacher. He founded the men's Franciscan Order, the women’s Order of St. Clare, and the Third Order of Saint Francis for men and women not living monastic lives.^[3] Though he was never ordained to the Catholic priesthood, Francis is one of the most venerated religious figures in history.^[3]

Francis was the son of a wealthy foreign cloth merchant in Assisi, and he lived the high-spirited life typical of a wealthy young man, even fighting as a soldier for Assisi.^[4]While going off to war in 1204, Francis had a vision that directed him back to Assisi, where he lost his taste for his worldly life.^[4] On a pilgrimage to Rome, he joined the poor in begging at St. Peter's Basilica.^[4] The experience moved him to live in poverty.^[4] Francis returned home, began preaching on the streets, and soon amassed a following. His Order was authorized by Pope Innocent III in 1210. He then founded the Order of Poor Clares, which became an enclosed religious order for women, as well as the Order of Brothers and Sisters of Penance (commonly called the Third Order).

In 1219, he went to Egypt in an attempt to convert the Sultan to put an end to the conflict of the Crusades.^[5] By this point, the Franciscan Order had grown to such an extent that its primitive organizational structure was no longer sufficient. He returned to Italy to organize the Order. Once his community was authorized by the Pope, he withdrew increasingly from external affairs. In 1223, Francis arranged for the first Christmas manger scene.^[4] In 1224, he received the stigmata,^[4] making him the first recorded person to bear the wounds of Christ's Passion.^[6] He died during the evening hours of October 3, 1226, while listening to a reading he had requested of Psalm 141.

On July 16, 1228, he was pronounced a saint by Pope Gregory IX. He is known as the patron saint of animals, the environment, and is one of the two patron saints of Italy(with Catherine of Siena). It is customary for Catholic and Anglican churches to hold ceremonies blessing animals on his feast day of October 4.^[7] He is also known for his love of the Eucharist,^[8] his sorrow during the Stations of the Cross, and for the creation of the Christmas creche or Nativity Scene.^[9]

Cowboy Coffee

Cowboy Coffee
8" x 10"  Oil
$195.00 + $10. s/h

I posted this old cowboy coffee pot last summer but at that time it wasn't for sale;  I had it set aside for a show.  I didn't put it in the show, so now it is available.

This was a plein air piece that I did last summer at the Medano Zapata Ranch Artist's Gathering.  

Baby Dress

Baby Dress

20" x 16"  Oil

$695.00 + $20. s/h

Please contact me if interested

This dress used to belonged to my older sister and me.  I guess it still does belong to me.  My sister and I must have worn this dress.  Obviously we didn't wear it often as it's still in great shape.  I wanted to continue with my recent Sargent white and gray study.  Using a similar palette to the one a few posts ago I used the following painting by Sargent as my influence for this piece:

I have always loved this painting.  His whites are incredible;  they are beautiful and ochery.  So, I figured I must have a white dress somewhere.    

This is a wall in my daughter's room.  And there it was...a white dress.  My set up ended up making my whites more yellow than those in Sargent's painting.  But, influences start somewhere.   I would love to paint all these little dresses.  One of these still has the price tag:  $2.47.  Obviously we never wore that one!   My mom probably didn't want to hand wash and iron it!  These were wrapped in tissue paper in an old trunk of mine.  It's interesting how some things get kept through the years, the moves, the family changes.  I guess nostalgia caused my mom to keep them.  And, after my mom died when we were still kids and we moved to another house, my dad must have had a moment of emotion during packing and kept them.   Not sure where the booties and bibs came from (they look really old) and now there's no one to ask.  

Richeson 75 Small Works

I'm so pleased that these two paintings, Old San Juan Shadow and South Platte Valley, both received Meritorious Entry in the juried Richeson 75 International Small Works Show at Richeson 75 Gallery in Kimberley, WI.

Blue Bovine

Blue Bovine

Oil  12" x 12"

$295.00 + $10. s/h

This cow lives up in the mountains near Antero Reservoir in South Park.  He let me get pretty close and just seemed to be a interested in me as I was in him!

The Strutter

The Strutter
Oil 12" x 12"
$295.00 + $10. s/h
SOLD

I have painted this rooster several times before.  He lives at the Rock Ledge Ranch.  I love how roosters strut around and think they're the king of it all!

Bottled Poetry

Bottled Poetry
Oil  6" x 6"
$100.00 + $10. s/h

This was the last of my 30 in 31 and also painted for the wine tasting on February 7th at G44 Gallery 1785 South 8th Street, Colorado Springs.

Again for this piece, as I've done in the past, I googled "sayings about wine" and found these words.  

Chief

Chief
29 of 30
Oil  16" x 20"
Commission

I posted several days of steps of this painting during the past month.  Once he was just about done I looked at him for several days and then fixed a few things on his body.  Now he is all done and ready to be mailed off to his owner.  As I said, I loved painting him.  I had pictures of him all over my studio and it's been fun to hang out with him!

After my first posting with just Chief and a loose background, I got an email from an author inquiring about using him on the cover of her next, 8th, book.  And while it's not going to happen (he's too western and light) I was thrilled to be asked.  You just never know who sees your art, who likes your art.  That's a great thing about the internet.  If not for the internet I wouldn't have received this commission, received an inquiry, met the people with whom I blog.  We do live in a great time!

Balcony In Barga

Balcony In Barga
28 of 30
Oil 11" x 14"
$345.00 + $10.00 s/h

This is now completed.  I knew that the shadows didn't work together, and that they were too dark and cool for such a hot, sunny day.  Again, one of the problems when painting from a photo.  I made the shadows all in the same color key, but with different values.  It now works much better, although the shadows here are a little more lavender than the ones in the actual painting.  They're a bit more earthy red from the terra rosa in the mix.  I still am not getting completely accurate colors with my new camera, but I'll get that, too.  

Barga is a town in northern Tuscany that we visited last May.  It is so far north in Tuscany that it's practically in the Alps, maybe just outside of Tuscany.  It was picturesque, built on the side of a steep hill, beautiful, uncrowded and a wonderful place to visit.  We stayed in a large, older home that had been the owner's grandmother's.  I think we found it on VRBO or B&B.com.  We had the whole upstairs to ourselves, the owner and her mother lived on the first floor.  Every morning we'd go downstairs to an amazing breakfast made just for us! 

More Color Studies

25 of 30

I've done quite a few color studies recently (not all as detailed, neat, and with as many colors and values as the most recent one based on Sargent.)  This was the one I did before the Painted Desert piece.  

26 of 30

These colors are based on the warms in many of Sorolla's paintings.

27 of 30

These are based on a snow painting by Frank LaLumia (he used to live in Santa Fe, but now lives in southern Colorado.)

I'll be using all of these color charts in upcoming paintings.  Maybe it's stretching it to be using these in the 30 in 30 challenge.  But, as I've said, I decided to make the challenge fun and to work for me.  

Faded Door

Faded Door
25 of 30
Oil  6"x 6"
$100.00 + $10. s/h

I'm still pondering the shadows of my last post.  In the meantime here's another architectural rendering of a portal.  I love painting doors and windows.  You never know what's behind them!