Sunflower Feast

So close.  About an hour to go, I just ran out of sunlight for taking good photos (of artwork).  I am getting my first flock of chickens mid-April and have been doing a lot of research so that I can be a good Mama to my new chicks.  One of the websites I visited was www.avianaquamiser.com .  I contacted them to see if I could have permission to paint some of the beautiful photos that they have on their site.  They ever so kindly agreed and this is the inspirational photo I chose.  Chickens eating dried sunflower heads. 16x20.  I can't wait to have some of my very own models!  Thank you www.avianaquamiser.com (Anna)!

Still workin' on this one

I'm getting there. Slowly but surely.  I hope to finish it this week.  I've got Chickens and dried sunflower heads on the easel for tomorrow.  I know it is going to be one of those paintings that makes my grandmother say "What is it? Oh, that's nice."  You'll see.  :)

Sunflower Heads in progress

Yeah.  I'm loving this.  I morphed three different photos together for the composition. It makes it a bit more challenging because now I'm sorting through the appropriate lighting for each sunflower.  Really, really fun though.  And a test for me on so many levels!  24x30

Hollyhocks again and not done.

Whew, not done but getting close.  I actually painted this same exact composition of flowers before.  The lovely people who bought the original some 6 years ago invited my son, husband and I over to dinner last Friday.  I had forgotten about the power of the painting until I saw it again on their wall.  I had painted the background two or three different colors before I settled on  a grayish black.  It made the painting so much more powerful.  The funny thing is that I had painted the background color over my signature and forgot to sign it again afterwards.  They have been patiently waiting for me to come sign their painting ever since they noticed my signature was missing.  So, after dinner, I finally did it.  It's a good feeling to cross that off the list.  Anyway, I decided to paint it again.  This time the background will stay ever so pale, just to be different from theirs.  They bought their painting just before I brought all the paintings to Bar Harbor, so nobody really even saw it, which is why I decided to paint it again, plus... the red!

My blog has been broken!!

Yes.  I figured it out.  It was my Windows Explorer update that made it so that I couldn't do any new posts for the last week!!  It did an automatic update and made updating my blog impossible for some reason.  I switched to Google Chrome and although it is not the same - it works!!  So, here's what I've been doing...

The peonies are done.

The magnolias are done too.

I am working on a large hollyhock (30x40) which I will show you tomorrow.

Aaaaah, I feel so much better now that I'm back to blogging again! 

In progress

I finished the peonies, but didn't get a photo of it for you because I dove right into this one. Sorry for the bad photo. Tomorrow looks like it will be a snow day, so we will see how much I can get done. For now, it is 6:00 pm and I am ready for bed. This painting was a mental workout and I'm pooped.

In Progress

It was time to start on some peonies. I really looooovvve painting the centers of these flowers. There is a lot of room to play with colors and brush strokes in there. If you you use the right values you can't really go wrong either.

Morning Star 20 x 20

The larger version. Last week was school vacation week (in case you were wondering why I was so unproductive). There are peonies on the easel right now and I finished the Magnolias which I'll post for you soon. I hope to get some nice new snow pictures this week too. But now I'm off to bed!

In progress - Magnolias

I was excited to get back to work on this one today so that I could post a finished piece. BUT my son stayed home from school and changed my plan. He had a minor arm injury - that is miraculously better now ... just in time for snowboarding. Until next week, have a great weekend!

Cherry Blossoms in progress

I started the week inspired to do a landscape. But I had forgotten that I am not particularly good at them. So I sketched out these cherry blossoms and I have been working on them for two days. At 3:00 p.m. today I decided to set it aside (It's a little more than half done which is way off pace for me) and sketch out some magnolias. Then I decided to put a little paint down and by 5:30 I had more than half the magnolia painting finished when I really had no intention of painting another painting today.
It was amazing to feel the freedom of the process. Some of you painters understand. When the painting paints itself. Ahh. I feel like an artist again. I won't go too deep down this rabbit hole, but it really is an emotional roller coaster for me.
I'm encouraged. Pictures tomorrow...