My Favorite Painting

I'm not crazy about a lot of my paintings after they've been hanging around for awhile. I start to see "amateur" which means I can't put my finger on what it is that I don't like, but I don't find it appealing to me. When the painting is fresh, I am blessed in that I always seem to like it. At this point when I'm in the painting "zone" I'm blinded by to the reality of my work and I am happy and joyful just to be in the process of doing the work, especially plein air. Then later sometimes soon after I get home and other times years later, I look and ask myself...."what were you thinking??? That's terrible!!!!"
..hahhahah and it's a joke. Oh well. How lucky for me to be able to enjoy it and not know it's bad and then when I realize that it IS bad, the love has worn off and I don't feel bad about it, only that it's time to do some cleaning and laughing!
I get to drive along this road twice a day and it always provides something interesting for me to enjoy looking at.
This pastel that I did on Wallis paper is one of my paintings that I STILL like, and I have it hanging in my bedroom so I can look at it every day. it's warm and bright and sunny -just what I wainted. And I love the stripe. It's truthful and graphic and it contrasts against the fluffy soft elements in the rest of the landscape. I just like it. This picture pleases ME and I painted it for me. It MEANS things to me which is part of why I still love it and haven't gotten bored with it....YET!

Long Mountain

This little sketch was an experiment using colored pencils on black paper.

Corn Pitcher Still Life

Finished my little still life.

Thomas Kincaid Morning

I looked out the window this morning and what I saw reminded me of a Thomas Kincaid painting. All except for the light in the window of the shack! It was much prettier than this in real life. By the time I got the camera the mountain in the distance was less visible through the mist. I just love this time of year.

Pencil Sketch...and Pens...and Paintbrushes....

I like to collect these funky corn pitchers. They've become a fun way to store art pencils and pens, keeping them handy in an interesting way. With these I'll always have a still life handy.

LOTS to paint

I go through periods of finding nothing at all that I would be interested in to paint. Then somtimes I get a rush if ideas and I want to paint all of them, several different ways. I'm starting a landscape of a curvy country road. I'm going to try to establish some very strong values in black and white and then go over the value study in color using Pastels. Just an experiment. I'd like to try other approaches but I think it best to choose one and see how it turns out. Then maybe I can force myself to do another, but in a different tecnique. That will either be fun, or boring and I won't finish it. I'm going to try and wish it to be FUN! Ok, now you get to see the pictures.

Which one is best?

I'm finally painting again. I'm doing this Hummingbird for the second time because in the first painting, the background was dark, and the bird sort of got "lost". He's not finished yet 'cause I ran out of daylight to paint in, but I like him better than the first one already.

It's getting to be that time of year again. So beautiful and invigorating. This was one of the very first paintings that I did in pastel.

HelloImDonna

HelloImDonna
I don't know how this works.