Rose of Sharon

These Rose of Sharon grow in our backyard. I took the Nikon and snapped photos of them one afternoon. I wanted to do a painting with a lot of shadow and contrast.

This is the second painting done using Arleta Pech's glazing technique. It was a bit of a challenge because the depth of the flowers is emphasized by its natural magenta star, but I didn't want to depend on this color to make the flowers look 3-dimensional. I worked at making the flowers 3-D without the star and when I was satisfied with the depth of the petals, I painted in the stars.

Clemats

These clematis grow in my sister-in-law's garden. My husband had just bought a new Nikon D90 and I used it to take several photos of this flower vine.

This is my first attempt to do florals with Arleta Pech's pure-color glazing technique. I also borrowed technique from Susan Harrison-Tustain for the leaves.

Caracoles at Natasha's

Caracoles Performance

Autumn Harvest

My husband and I decided to celebrate our wedding anniversary this year by picking a spot in Kentucky we wanted to go see. We chose to go visit a covered bridge. On the way there, my husband saw a sign for an orchard. I was reluctant to stop since it wasn't on our "itinerary", but in the spirit of the day, I agreed. The orchard was on a long road off the main highway and I was beginning to doubt we would find it. We did, and it was this little white garage-like building. The garage door was open, but nobody was there. All around us were baskets and baskets of apples. I spied a sign to ring the doorbell for service. Eventually an older gentleman came out and helped us. Bill picked the fruit and I took photos of the baskets of apples. When we came home, I reviewed the photos from the trip and realized the best ones of the day were from the orchard, though there are many to choose from the different towns we visited that day. I was glad that I had been flexible enough to change our "itinerary" since it ultimately yielded a painting that otherwise never would have been.

Dewees Island Boardwalk

This is the first woods sceen I tried based on a technique I learned from a book by Nita Engle. I really debated about posting this one because I am not completely satisfied with it. I struggled with certain portions of the painting and used a Fritch scrubber for the first time to redo some areas only to find out that a Fritch scrubber peels the paper! I was pretty horrified, but still determined to finish the painting. So here it is with its good parts and bad.

Palm on Dewees Island

I took this photo on Dewees Island, South Carolina and always wanted to paint it but just didn't feel I had the skills. Then I saw in one of my watercolor how-to books a painting of a palm close-up like this one, so I tried it and it worked out first try!