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!

On the Battery

This painting is from a photo I took while on the battery of Charleston, South Carolina. It's just another example of paintings I did while in South Carolina in the summer.

South Beach

When my husband and I went to South Beach, Florida, a few years ago, I enjoyed the art decco architecture there. In an art gallery there, I discovered an artist by the name of Mark Rutkowski, who had done many watercolor paintings of the art decco architecture from South Beach. In many of his pieces, he featured not only a historic building, but a historic car. This painting is a copy of a postcard I bought while in South Beach, but not until I bought the book of Mark Rutkowski's work did I even consider doing such a painting.

House by the Sea

I started this painting in the summer of 2007 when I was reading Nita Engle's book, "How to Make a Watercolor Painting Paint Itself". The house is from Sullivan's Island, South Carolina, and all the rest is made up.

Sunporch

This is a scene of the screened-in porch of the beach house we stay at in Charleston, South Carolina. Every afternoon I was attracted to the shadows on the furniture.

I decided to put the shadows in first using a mixture of ultramarine blue and violet, which worked well for this composition.