Horizon 1, The Deep Blue Sea

This small study is of a common theme when you live on a coast. Here in the Pacific Northwest the sea is greener...and the sky is more grey...day after day, after day...but it is still February (well, for another hour or so). Truthfully, I don't complain about the weather too often, except on the rare occasions that it gets too hot. I plan to do a couple more ocean horizons, and then some landlocked ones.

Chick-chick-chickadee

Birds are simply amazing creatures. I've been lucky enough to have had chickadees, and others, in the garden all winter. Lately my little, scrappy, super-dog dog, Cooper, has spent most of his spare time chasing them around the trees. If he could climb, he would. This painting is for sale on Daily Paintworks.

Summer Balcony

This is an apt painting to post after spending the last three days with a non-functioning furnace. My indoor temperature has hovered between 51 and 54 F...(last night it was -3C outside)...I can't do the math. After almost $900 (!!!) my furnace has a new blower, and I have heat. I'm sure I will feel that it was worth it after my stomach settles down. The 'plus' side is that I have a small home studio which it is the only room equipped with electric baseboard heaters, and it has gotten a lot of tidying in the past two days!

The Blue Barn

There are a surprising number of blue accents in the countryside in France. Blue shutters, blue delphiniums, blue doors, and, occasionally, a blue barn. It makes me look forward even more to my nearly annual trip to France coming up in a couple of months. A couple of days in Paris visiting the museums and galleries...and eating wickedly good food, and then a week or so in the south with my cousin and her husband who kindly invite me to stay in their converted 'piggery', which is sooo lovely I could live there all year.

Valentine Tulips

This is a small version of another painting I completed this year. (It is 20 x 16 and for a local show in May). I love tulips and have pots of them flowering in my house right now.

Hollyhocks 2012 2

I simply love hollyhocks and used to grow them, but the fungal rust that they get in our climate was just too ugly to bear. Still, I always stop to look and photograph them whenever I see them. They grow quite beautifully in southern France. I'll be painting more as they are quite fun, but they will be from photos. Old seed packets are great for illustration, when you can find them.

Flying Solo

Well, that's what this little guy looks like he's doing. I've been having some fun in the studio the past few days, playing with colour and other stuff. One of the most liberating things is to take some of those paintings that did not sell and that don't move me anymore and rework them. Keeping the 'fat over lean' principle and re-energizing the oils and working the canvas. Lots of fun and quite freeing.