Tattoo

This has been a very exciting week. I was accepted into Open Studios, a local exhibition in which artists invite the public into their studios. It all happens in October. Right now, I am constantly submitting my work to shows, both national and local. I submitted this painting to a local show because the juror likes paintings that take risks. This is a portrait of a woman that I worked with on a festival. She told me that she had a tattoo and I asked to see it. I didn't realize until she pulled up her shirt where the tattoo was. She was the one taking the risk, but I liked the contrast of the colors that she was wearing with her skin and the tattoo and the carnival pattern in the background.

Baby Rock

Driving through the Four Corners we drove past this abandoned gas station. The desolate landscape, the lonely road, and the ragged left over gasoline station buildings all came together in the pen and ink drawing. I also loved the soft pastel colors. which I added with watercolor washes. The paper I did this drawing on is sand colored with a speckled texture. The name of the place was Baby Rock.

Flatirons

It is so ironic that I am posting this image today because the Flatirons have been invisible for the past two days. Usually our weather here is clear and sunny. But for the last two days the Front Range has been covered with clouds and it has been foggy and rainy. Tomorrow, the sun should be out again and the Flatirons in their full glory.

Sleeping Ute Mountain

Sleeping Ute Mountain is in the far western part of the state of Colorado. This sunset view is from Mesa Verde National Park. You can stand on the edge of a ridge and see for a hundred miles to the west.

View from Sheep Lakes

A summer storm is coming through the pass in the painting View from Sheep Lakes. Sheep Lakes are in the north-eastern part of Rocky Mountain National Park. They are a little off the main road, Trail Ridge Road, that goes through the park. When I painted this, the sky started out bright blue, but soon the storm clouds gathered and headed towards me.

Quiet Plains

We has a lot of excitement out here in Colorado, a tornado a mile wide made national news. My in-laws called because of the hurricane that came to Boulder County. We had to explain that hurricanes really don't find their way out here. Here is a painting that shows the plains at a quieter time. There were more tornado watches and a tornado today, but thirty miles to the west we only had our usual pleasant weather.

Bowen Gulch

Bowen Gulch is on the west side of Rocky Mountain National Park in the Never Summer Mountains. This painting started as a plein aire pen and ink sketch with watercolor washes. But when I tried to finish it in the studio, it needed something. Since every time I go to the west side of the park I see moose, I stuck a moose cow and calf in the background.

Long's Peak

I teach watercolor painting and this painting is a result of an exercise that I am going to assign my students tomorrow. This painting was done with only two colors, burnt sienna and ultramarine blue. Most paintings fail because of the incorrect use of values. This painting is all values, yet it still has color .. Not as much color as it could, but the lack of color gives the painting it's drama.

The Plains

When we moved out west, we moved to be close to the mountains. My family spent vacations in Switzerland and my mother loved the mountains. I realized many years later that I had also developed this love for the mountains. What I didn't expect however was how much I would react to the plains. I find them fascinating. I have grown to love the wide open views and the ever changing clouds and dramatic skies.

Cherryvale Road

Cherryvale Road is not far from where I live. In fact, I can easily bike there. It is a bit of a walk. Cherryvale Road runs north/south a little further to the east from where I live. I live tucked almost up to the mountains. This painting is looking south/southeast towards Denver. But it is open space so there is no development. The pasture around the old shed is used to graze cattle and last year I watched the cowgboys rounding up the herds and loading them into trucks.

Summer Woods

Today felt like summer. It was 86 degrees and sunny and the clouds gathered and pretended that they wanted to storm. Clouds do that here all the time. These woods are eastern woods and not western. I used a different technique for painting these woods. I poured paint all over the paper to get the glowing effect of the sun shining through the trees. I have several other paintings like this, but so far, this is the best of the bunch.

Stormy Sky

Skies are not easy to paint, so I keep practicing. They have to be painted quickly and spontaneously. I have read that you are lucky to have half of your painted skies look all right. The rest get thrown away. This is one of the ones that works. But, I need something in the foreground. I'll keep trying.

Sandstone Ranch

It was such a beautiful day when I did this painting. Sandstone Ranch is about a 30 minute drive from my home. It is out on the plains with wonderful views of the mountains. As I wandered down the trail looking for a place to paint, I found this wonderful cliff and a view of the mountains to the West. There was also a perfect focal point. I often have trouble with focal points because I just get so taken in by the beautiful scenes and I want to put everything in and everything is important! But here, the composition came together and I had a lovely little painting.

Escalante

Sometimes landscapes are so big that they don't seem to fit on a sheet of paper. This is a painting of a view of Escalante National Monument. Some of the views of this area are so vast that they leave you breathless. Apparently some of the first non-Indian people that stood on the edge of the Grand Canyon, fainted when they saw the sight of the large landscape. I can imagine that could happen looking at the grandeur of Escalante.

Madonna in Chartres

We spent one day in Chartres. We took a train from Paris. It turned out to be a magical visit because filmmakers were shooting in the main apse. They had brought in strong lights and had the entire inside of the cathedral was illuminated. It was amazing to be able to look all the way up into the arches and the ceiling. We spent a long time watching them filming and walking around the cathedral. This Madonna was in a little alcove. I liked her blue robe with the gold decoration. She was also wearing gold shoes and I used gold acrylic paint on her dress and her shoes.

Dried Roses-Two

Yesterday was a wonderful Mother's Day. We actually celebrated the night before by going out for dinner. My son spent the night at a friend's house and my husband and I got up very early and went birding. We came home and, after breakfast, worked in our garden planting rhubarb and raspberries. My studio has big double doors that will eventually open onto a small stone patio. Right now there are only weeds. But at the end of the patio, I am planning a rose garden. So yesterday I pulled weeds, but soon, I will plant roses.

Dried Rose

Today is Mother's Day and my husband and son gave me a beautiful single peach colored rose. The rose in this drawing is an old dried out rose. I have a bunch of them and I am not sure where or when I got them. I have kept them for a long time and love drawing them. I use a steel nib dip pen and sepia colored ink.. This drawing was done on paper prepared with watercolor washes. After I drew my rose and the foliage, I went back in and added watercolor washes. I love drawing with pen and ink.

The Meeting

Back to the Sandhill Cranes. This is an early sketch and although I like the spontaneity of it, I also see all the flaws. The legs on the crane on the left are too short and the knees are in the wrong place. I do like the loose line and the pen and ink work. Usually I use dip pens, but since this was drawn at the museum, I used a felt tip called a Micron. I am hoping to do more drawings at the museum, but have not been able to go these last couple of weeks. May is such a crazy month when you have kids. The schools try to do everything in one month!

Beets

Here is another painting done with pen and ink and watercolor. I saw these beets last year at the farmer's market here in Boulder. They stopped me in my tracks. I had never seen beets that were orange. They had recently been sprayed with water, so they were glowing under the vendor's tent. I decided not to buy them because I knew that I wouldn't have time to paint them. Now I buy bunches of these beets and paint them and then roast them with garlic and olive oil. They are delicious!

Red Fox

Red Fox is a pen and ink with watercolor painting. I was experimenting with an acrylic ink. I have used all kinds of different inks in the past, but I decided to try acrylic inks. It worked very well. I drew with the ink and then softened the linework with a brush. I liked the effect that I got. Then I let the ink dry overnight. This made it waterproof so that I could paint the colors with watercolor. Overall I like the effect.

Frida's Fig Tree

What a busy day. I have been painting, painting, painting. This painting is an homage to Frida Kahlo. I visited her home outside of Mexico City. In her garden was a fig tree and the leaves were backlit with an amazing blue wall behind them. Frida Kahlo decorated her house and garden, so she picked this in incredible blue for the wall. The figs glowed against the wall.

Coyote

Wildlife in our neighborhood has included fox, skunk, coyote, mule deer, bear, and now mountain lion. I have seen all of these except the mountain lion. I have seen coyote several times in the open space surrounding our neighborhood. I know that neighbors have seen them in the neighborhood. They are very dangerous for pets because they prey on dogs and cats, except for Ginger. She is our next door neighbors cat who definitely has nine lives or more.

Havasu Falls

This painting was done because we spent time at the Havasu Falls which are in a side canyon of the Grand Canyon. It is one of the most beautiful places that I have ever been. I am painting today and have started two paintings. I will start a third tomorrow. They are all going well in different ways. I need to finish them by Friday to submit them to a show. I will post them next week.

Fly In

Fly In is a large painting that I did from images that I saw at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge in New Mexico. I watched the Sandhill Cranes flying in to the marshes in the evening to form large flocks. They leave the marshes during the day to feed in the fields, but at night they gather in the marshes. When we were visiting the Refuge, there were 4,000 cranes. Later, 16,000 more join the 4,000 and they spend the winter at the Refuge.

More Sandhill Cranes

You would think that I would get tired of drawing and painting cranes, but they are so fascinating. The Denver Nature and Science Museum has two dioramas of Sandhill Cranes. The cranes in this drawing are in a diorama depicting their breeding grounds way up north near the Arctic Circle. This group of cranes looks different from the cranes in the other diorama showing them at Monte Vista National Wildlife Refuge in Colorado. The cranes here have shorter necks and look smaller than the other cranes. Cranes also dye their feathers with mud when they are nesting. Their feathers are very gray except when they are nesting, they look brown. I am working on a large painting of a crane flying in for a landing. They are such elegant birds that no matter what position they take, they are beautiful.

Clematis

What a great day today. I spent time with friends, spent time with my husband, spent time with my son, and spent time painting. I also cooked dinner for some new friends and had a wonderful conversation with them. It is great making new friends here in Boulder. Tomorrow, I will focus on another love of mine, working in the garden. I was afraid that when we moved out west that there would be so many things that I would miss. I grew clematis in my garden back east, a big beautiful plant that climbed up a trellis at the front of my yard. Well, I am finding that so many of the plants that I loved back east do very well out here. Plus there are all sorts of beautiful plants that I couldn't grow back east that I always wanted to grow such as Russian sage and rhubarb. So, tomorrow, I may start buying and planting, unless it snows, of course. Such is life in Coloorado.

Edge of the Marsh

Wow, I can't believe that it is the first of May. I managed to post every day in April. This is a painting of a dead tree on the edge of a marsh. The marsh in on Assateague Island in Virginia. The sea shifts the sand and salt water moves in where it hasn't been before. This means that the vegetation that only survives near fresh water is killed by the change in the water's salinity. A whole row of trees, or bushes, died because of this. This is one of those trees. It is spring in the painting. The young marsh grasses are starting to come up and flower. Everything is turning spring colors.