Playa Bouganvillea

Playa Bouganvillea
plein air oil. 6” x 8”
$100.00 + $10. S/h
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I love the way old Bouganvillea creep and crawl across walls.  Our hotel in Playa del Carmen is filled with bouganvillea of many colors.  These are right near the door to our room.  Certainly made it easy to paint!

Restful Garden

Restful Garden, oil 12" x 16",  is one of two paintings that I have in the upcoming Women Artists of the West Online "Summer  Pleasures" Show.  This is a plein air piece done near downtown Colorado Springs.  I loved these old adirondack chairs.  After walking once through this back yard, I knew immediately what I was going to paint!

Summer Blooms

Summer Blooms
plein air oil  10" x 8:
SOLD

I recently participated in a plein air event hosted by the FOX Garden Group.  FOX is the "Friends Of eXtension", which is a part of the Colorado State University Extension Group.  This group deals state wide with "serving current and future needs of Coloradans by providing educational information and programs that safeguard health, increase livelihood, and enhance well being."  There are Extension offices in many towns in the state.  In Colorado Springs they have volunteers who who can call to ask questions about gardening, plants, etc.

The local FOX group has an annual garden tour.  Last year, my plein air group, Garden Artists, was invited to paint during the 2 day annual event.  That was a big success and this year we were invited once again.  I spent 2 days painting in 4 gardens.  This painting was done in the Saturday afternoon garden.  Not only was the event wonderful for gardeners to see gardens new to them, but for me, being a gardener and artist it was amazing!  (Also, it was in a neighborhood very near to mine and so convenient!)  The FOX group is very organized;  there were several volunteers in each garden to answer questions about flowers & gardening.

It can be challenging plein air painting under any circumstance, but with 100s of people touring the gardens I had to be very focused.  Many of the visitors had never seen a plein air painter and came to talk to me.  It was a great marketing event and overall a win, win situation.  I'm already looking forward to next years' tour!

Garden Wall

Garden Wall
plein air oil  6" x 8"
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$100.00 + $10. s/h
Paintings from Mexico

This wall was at the church across the street from our hotel in Oaxaca.  I love plein air painting.  I love being out of doors.  But, it has its' challenges:  wind, sun, rain, snow, snakes, bears, bugs, heat, cold, etc.  With this painting I had a new encounter, a funeral.  One afternoon I noticed the beautiful shadows on the garden wall of the church and decided to paint there the next day.  However, when I arrived a funeral was just beginning.  I didn't want to be disrespectful, so decided I'd come back the next afternoon.  That day was beautiful, warm and sunny.  No sooner did I get the piece blocked in than clouds appeared from nowhere.  There was no longer light and shadow.  This little piece required a third session!

Here are some of the beautiful garden walls of Oaxaca.  Maybe some of these might be future paintings.

Roof Top Terrace

Roof Top Terrace
plein air oil  6" x 8"
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$100.00 + $10. s/h
Paintings from Mexico

There was a beautiful, sunny roof top terrace on our hotel in Oaxaca, Mexico.  Additionally, there was a covered area with hammocks that was wonderful for afternoon siestas.   Breakfast was eaten at a long, communal table where guests would visit and share stories of their travels and vacations.

Oaxaca is my favorite city in Mexico.  There aren't as many foreigners as in some other towns.  There is still enough old culture that it feels like you're in Mexico.  16 different languages are spoken in the state of Oaxaca.  In the surrounding villages, and often in the city of Oaxaca, you'll hear indigenous people speaking and when you stop and listen, you realize that they're not speaking Spanish.

Garden Table

Garden Table
plein air Oil  8" x 10"
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$195.00 + $10. s/h

This plein air piece was done this summer at my friend, Suzanne's.  I love painting in her back yard.  She is so gracious.  She bakes muffins, makes lemonade, and sets up little vignettes around her yard and garden of things that she thinks might be fun to paint.  I loved this little tea pot on the bright table.  And she's right;  not only was it fun yo paint, but sitting there for a cup of tea would also be fun!

Front Porch

Front Porch
plein air oil  8" x 10"
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This is the 5th of the plein air paintings that I did in the recent PAAC, Plein Air Artists of Colorado, Marathon paint out.  From 12 noon until 2:00 we painted in Manitou Springs, which is a small town touching the west side of Colorado Springs.  It's filled with old houses, charming stores, great B&Bs, mountain views and lots of people on a summer Saturday.

I drove over a few days before the event to scout out a location where I could paint and park....not easy!  I loved the vine of roses growing up the front of the porch and the turquoise couch creating a spot of color.  Luckily, when I pulled up to paint, there was a parking spot right nearby.  It was meant to be.

New Plein Air Video

I created another plein air video. This one is of our trip last May to Sitka, Alaska. I posted these paintings and some of the photos from our trip in my blog in June, so some of this may be familiar. Enjoy!

I just watched this, and when viewed on my blog, about an inch is missing on the right side, ie: the whole front page doesn't show (some of the title is missing), some of the paintings are centered and there should be black on both sides and there isn't. I really don't know how to fix this. Does anybody have any suggestions? I guess if you want to see the whole page you can search for me on YouTube and watch it again there! Anyway, thanks for watching!

Shrimp Pots

Shrimp Pots
Alaskan plein air #6
6" x 8" oil on canvas on board
$100.00 + $10. s/h

I've mentioned the challenges of plein air painting, and have mentioned some additional challenges of plein air painting on a boat, ie:  changing light, changing reflections on the water, high glare.  Another one is boat movement.  As the boat sways and rocks slowly with the water, you aren't always aware of this.  But, when you're painting and look up and the shadow right in front of you is different, you just go with what was there!  You can't keep changing light and shadow.

So, in this case, I painted the shadow in right away and didn't change it!

These are the shrimp pots, and shadow, when I started the piece.

This is just a little while later.  I'm still painting.

And this is the shadow just a little bit later still!  I was just about done at this point.  The movement made for challenging painting, but great sleeping.  Just like a baby must feel in a cradle!