Florida Skies

 

My husband and I spent a good part of this winter exploring the Gulf coast of Florida.  

I had been to Florida several times, but never on the west coast or in the Panhandle...we loved it!

As I always do when we travel I took my paints.  I have several travel set ups:  one very compact for flights, and one for car trips.  They are both great.  The smaller set up requires me to think through everything I take.  The larger, which I use for most of my plein air outings, gives me much more room on my palette.  Additionally, in the car there was room to just throw in a lot! 

These are the 15 Florida skies that I painted.  I am now working on one large Florida sky.  

For availability, please check my Daily Paintworks Gallery. 

 

Soothing Sound

Soothing Sound
Oil  20" x 16"
NFS
Day 4 0f 30

Once again I'm participating in the 30 in 30 painting challenge i.e.:  paint 30 paintings in 30 days.  I'm not able to paint every day for 30 days in January, but I'm going to paint as much as I can.  My theme for this challenge is "Paintings From Mexico."  My husband and I love Mexico, we've been there many times and we'll be there much of this winter (we are so lucky to have the most wonderful house sitter), thus, my theme.  I'll post as often as I can.  When I don't have new paintings from Mexico I'm going to throw in some oldies but goodies on my blog.  But, to stick with the challenge I'll only post the new ones on the challenge blog.  Enjoy!

All paintings sold will be mailed in April.  I apologize for the big delay and inconvenience.

This is another piece done from our trip to Holbox Island, off the coast of the northern Yucatan.  I loved the peacefulness of the water this day.  Oceans aren't always this calm, this colorful, this turquoise.  But, when they are, you can sit for hours and just look at them.

There Is A Magic About The Sea

There Is A Magic About The Sea
Oil  20" x 16"
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$595.00 + $10. s/h
Day 3 of 30

Once again I'm participating in the 30 in 30 painting challenge i.e.:  paint 30 paintings in 30 days.  I'm not able to paint every day for 30 days in January, but I'm going to paint as much as I can.  My theme for this challenge is "Paintings From Mexico."  My husband and I love Mexico, we've been there many times and we'll be there much of this winter (we are so lucky to have the most wonderful house sitter), thus, my theme.  I'll post as often as I can.  When I don't have new paintings from Mexico I'm going to throw in some oldies but goodies on my blog.  But, to stick with the challenge I'll only post the new ones on the challenge blog.  Enjoy!

All paintings sold will be mailed in April.  I apologize for the big delay and inconvenience.
This painting was done from a photo that I took on Holbox Island.  This island is about 7 miles of the northern coast of the Yucatan.  We spent a week on Holbox and had rain, clouds, and sun.  The ocean was different in everyone of those conditions.  I love how the ocean changes.

Swaying Palm

Swaying Palm
Oil  12" x 12"
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$295.00 + $10. s/h

I'm loving painting these palm trees.  This one is on the beach in Mahahual, Mexico...almost to the Belize border.  I walked by this palm several times a day.  I took dozens of pictures of it.  To me, it's the perfect palm: full fronds, curved trunk, beautiful location.

Ocean Breeze

Ocean Breeze
Oil  12" x 12"
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$295.00 + $10. s/h

Some of the days that we were on the Mexican beaches were really windy and it made it almost impossible to paint.  But, it was still so beautiful!  I love the beach no matter the weather.  These recent palm tree paintings are studio work done when I got home.  What a great way to extend a trip!

Thinking Heaven

Thinking Heaven
Oil  12" x 12"
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$295.00 + $10. s/h

I'm not sure what heaven looks like.  I'm not sure that anyone does.  But, when ever I'm in the tropics and walking on a beach I feel like I've gone to heaven.  It's beautiful, colorful, exotic (at least to someone from Colorado), warm.  I could go on and on.  I thought I'd share a little bit of heaven!  And, a little bit of our trip to Mexico last month.

Rhythm Of Waves

Rhythm Of Waves
Oil  8" x 6"
$100.00 + $10. s/h

And one more from my water/sea series.  I've loved painting these and know I'll paint more later, or sooner.  And, I'm already looking forward to our next tropical trip!  But, on to something different.

Sea Symphony

Sea Symphony
Oil  8" x 6"
$100.00 + $10. s/h

As you can see (sea), I am continuing with my water series from our recent trip to Holbox Island, Yucatan, Mexico.  One day we had a powerful rain.  The streets (of sand) were filled with huge puddles for several days.  Afterwards the water was dark and turbulent, which makes for more paintings!

The Song Of Water

The Song Of Water
Oil  8" x 6"
$100.00 + $10. s/h

I continue with my water series from our trip to Holbox Island, Yucatan, Mexico.  One day we had a very heavy rain.  That evening and the whole next day there were huge puddles on all of the sand streets.  This made for a challenging walk back to the hotel in the semi-dark after dinner!  I mentioned in a previous post that there are no cars on the island and that the streets are sand.  I would have thought that the water would just seep right trough the sand, but the drainage seemed to be an issue.  Anyway, the rain also created incredible color and wave changes in the water, of course during the storm, but the next day as well. 

Light and Life

Light and Life
Oil  8" x 6"
$100.00 + $10. s/h

As I said yesterday, I loved all of the changing colors and light in the ocean.  I realize that if you lived by water like this, you would have a never ending, constantly changing visual display right in front of you!

This title is complements of fellow blogger Steven Dunn.  He commented on a palm tree that I posted last week that the piece had such "light and life."  That got me to thinking that isn't that really what we paint, the light and life in front of us.  Thank you Steven.  If you don't know him, he has such an interesting blog!

Tropical Sea

Tropical Sea
Oil  8" x 6"
$100.00 + $10. s/h

One of the things that's fun, but time consuming, after a trip is the photo editing.  I take a lot of pictures when we travel.  Some are specifically for future studio reference and some are vacation pleasure shots.  As I was editing I was amazed at how many pictures I'd taken of just the water, different times of day, different weather conditions.  I loved the plein air piece I posted a few days ago, Down By The Seaside, and thought that all of those photos could become a series.  So, the next few posts will be the water that I fell in love with and couldn't stop photoing and now painting!!

Down By The Seaside

Down by The Seaside
plein air Oil  8" x 6"
$100.00 + $10. s/h

So, as you've seen, I just enjoyed my time on the beach looking at the palm trees, which became a painting.  I looked at the colors of the frond shadows, that became a painting.  I loved the constantly changing colors of the water...so, that, too, became a plein air painting!

Because there were so many fishermen on the beach, the birds were also a constant 

source of entertainment!

Just After Dawn

Just After Dawn

Oil  20" x 20" on stretched canvas ready to hang

$495.00 + $20. s/h

This is another painting done from photos I took on our fall trip to Maine.  We left our motel at about 6:25 and just made the sunrise.  This is just outside of Rockland.  

I love the way this sunrise piece turned out.  I started with a canvas toned in a bold pink.  Then there are several layers of color scumbled on after each layer dried.  I've got to go through my photos and see if I have anymore sunrise shots over water!  I have lots of mountain and plains sunrises, but I love the colors in the water reflections.

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.