Winter barn

This is a landscape I painted a few months ago. I finally got around to getting it framed. I took a photo of this barn on top of a hill covered with winter grasses on one of our many trips up to the Texas hill country. It's a 30"x40" oil on canvas. I show it with the frame my framer helped me choose for the painting. I put it up on our mantle just to show it's size, that shot is below.

This morning I took this painting over to the space I rent at a local antiques and interiors shop. Hopefully this painting will find a home above someone else's fireplace soon!

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Red Ball notecards

I enjoy making notecards out of my favorite paintings and this recent painting of a dog and red ball is my newest addition. I enjoy getting the image printed and picking up the stack of notecards all wrapped in shrink wrap from the printer and I enjoy picking out just the right ribbon to go with the image. I don't even mind packaging everything up and tying bows, though I usually do that in front of the tv. But the best part is when someone likes them enough to buy a package! Below is a clearer photo of the image on the notecards. The original painting is oil on canvas.

Jesus portrait

click on image to enlarge

Happy New Year everyone! This is a painting I just finished for our church. It is 8"x10" oil on canvas. It'll go on the cover of the Lenten Devotional that the church is getting ready to print.

Our church has a weekly contemporary service, among many others, and the man who plays the drums looks a lot like I imagine Jesus looks. I asked him to come over to my house and sit for me. I painted a study of him in 3 hours and took some photographs. I have a climbing rose bush in the backyard so I employed some of the vines from that for the crown of thorns. It was a fun 3 hours of painting and talking, I always love having a model!

In the past few months my church has asked me to use three different images for various printed material. It finally dawned on me that this is a great way for me to serve so I volunteered to paint something for the next daily devotional. I feel blessed to be able to use my gift for the church.

p.s. Hey . . . . I just noticed someone unjoined my blog. I guess that's what happens when I don't post for a couple of months. And I was almost at 100 followers!

Texas haybales

4"x8" oil on canvas

Hello everyone, it's been a while since I wrote a post. All is well, thank you dear friends for your e-mails and for missing me! I got out of the habit of posting on my blog and well, I guess my new habit became not posting on my blog. But I have been happily painting. Our daughter was home from college for the summer so it was fun to spend time with her. And of course, our son didn't have school so it was great to have him home too. I completed 18 portraits of parishioners at our church for my Body of Christ project. I had a book made out of the portraits and the books arrived last Friday. Very exciting.

Next weekend, Oct. 15th and 16th I'll participate in a group show at our church. I have about 10 little oil paintings for sale. I also have the Body of Christ books (I'll do a post on that soon), notecards and a small poster with all 18 portraits. It's always a fun event and I'm looking forward to it.

I've been focusing on landscapes the last couple of months and I do have a few to post. Besides the group show at our church next weekend I'll also have a solo show at our church starting November 1st. I am going to be very busy between now and then because there is still some wall space that needs to be covered with paintings!

American Impressionist Society

I am thrilled that the painting shown above, "Little Cowboy" 14"x18" o/c, has been accepted into the American Impressionists Society's 12th Annual National Juried Exhibition! Scott Christensen, whose work I admire SO much, is the judge this year. The show will be October 21st through November 15th in Carmel-by-the-Sea, CA.

I don't think I'll go although I do have an American Airlines plane ticket. That's a long story. The rest of my family went to Bolivia on a mission trip with out church. I had a ticket and was all set to go but decided against it. I couldn't get a refund for my ticket but I can use it within one year of purchase to basically go almost anywhere. So I'll be taking a trip somewhere, hopefully a trip where painting is involved. We'll see.

I am so encouraged about getting into this show, it makes me want to go into my studio right this minute and pick up a brush!

Cat drawing

With summer here and the kids home, my mind has been too going in too many directions to paint much. But, yesterday I was sitting on the sofa and our cat was sitting near me, as she always is, so I grabbed my sketch pad. This will be my next painting, which hopefully I'll start today even though the day is quickly disappearing.

Only a couple more days and I'll hear from the American Impressionist Society about the three paintings I entered in their national juried competition. Hopefully I won't be disappointed. I had better plan some kind of "distraction" just in case though.

American Impressionist Society competition

Yesterday I entered three paintings in the American Impressionist Society 2011 National Juried Exhibition. I haven't done any painting in the last few days but after I completed my entry I felt a sense of accomplishment, feeling like I had done something art related at least. Though getting the image files prepared was so complicated, I had to put these black bands on the top and bottom or sides of each image so the finished image was square. I had never done that before and it took me a long time to figure out how to do it. I decided maybe my sense of accomplishment was more like a feeling of relief at having navigated all those instructions!

The first image is "Lady Longhorn" and is 6"x8". The ballerina is "Balance" and is 9"x12". The last one is "Little Cowboy" and is 14"x18". "Little Cowboy" has been rejected by one national juried competition but I'm not giving up yet on him. All paintings are oil on canvas. I'll report back when I hear if any of these paintings got into the competition.