French Table Cloth

French Table Cloth
Oil  12" x 12"
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$295.00 + $10. s/h

Now that the weather is warm, I want to head outside to paint.  Tomorrow starts the "season" of my plein air group, Garden Artists.  We paint every Tuesday and Thursday morning in different parks, gardens, museums, over looks in the Pikes Peak region.  If you live nearby and want to paint with us, just let me know.  Any one is welcome.  Additionally, I'm going to be the Colorado Springs coordinator for local PAAC (Plein Air Artists of Colorado) paint outs.  Those are every Thursday morning.  Again, all are welcome!

So, as I get my back pack ready for tomorrow's paint out I thought I'd post a studio still life from earlier this year.   The table cloth is French, the plate is Mexican, the tea pot is probably made in China.

Rattlesnake Ridge

Rattlesnake Ridge

plein air oil  8" x 10"

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$100.00 + $10. s/h

This is another plein air painting from our recent trip to California.  It was painted at Cabrillo National Monument in San Diego.  One of my biggest challenges here was to simplify the cliff.  I was parked in the furthest parking lot by the tide pools.  I had a great view of the whole cliff and in my first sketch I included a lot of the cliff.  I realized that was too big of an area to cover quickly in a plein air pieces.  My next sketch focused in on a small section.  An additional challenge is to paint moving waves.  I tried to get them in pretty quickly and just left them alone.  I like how the water motion turned out.  I wish I'd been there longer...I would have gone back to the same spot again.

Here is my set up and great view.  Below you can see the rattlesnake that crawled nearby.  

A bicyclist got a park ranger who loaded him up in a bucket and drove him away.   He said that two people had recently been bitten by rattlers.  In my mind, he was a little bit too close for comfort.

Sunset Cliffs

Sunset Cliffs
Oil  8" x 10"
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$100.00 + $10. s/h

My husband and I recently got back from a great road trip to California.  We drove from Colorado Springs to Santa Rosa, CA;  then to San Francisco and on down the coastal highway to San Diego.   From there we drove across Arizona off and on the old Route 66, then through New Mexico and back home.   It was a great three weeks.  I did a bit of painting, took lots of reference photos, saw incredible sights and could do it all over again!

These cliffs are in San Diego.  Not only is it a great place to paint, but obviously a beautiful place to watch the sunset.  It was fun to sit and watch all of the people climbing up and down the precarious trails to get to the water.

The first photo shows the cliffs at sunset.  The 2nd photo

 is of the cliffs the next morning when I went out to paint.  

Amazing difference in the light!

Crab Apple

Crab Apple
Oil  6" x 6"
SOLD
$75.00 + $10. s/h

Colorado Springs is beautiful right now.  There are blossoms on fruit trees all over town.  We're lucky this year that the recent snow didn't freeze them all.  We have a great crab apple tree in our backyard, over looking the deck, that is in full bloom.  I set this up in my studio to get a shadow in the background.  There might be more!