My "Don't Tell Mom!" painting series

It has been more than crazy at the studio! How can so much happen in 4 weeks?
So rushing through chores mid June, I tripped on a loop of bailing twine (that I had note and was going to do something about it!) went down like a ton of bricks and broke my elbow. Elbow! Who breaks their elbow?

My jeweler friend Ginger cuts off my wedding ring :-)

To top it off I was leaving for a facilitator conference the next day in the NC mountains...boy was I ticked! Wrapped up in a half cast, I went anyway and had a fabulous if not slightly awkward time :-)

SO I return in time to get ready for my 4 day summer art camp...this time I had help! I'll add the photos as soon as I find the folder :-(
Anyway in between all of that I have kept busy creating my non-commissioned art...just because! And just because is as good a reason as any so I have spent days just painting large happy canvases!
One of them, an acrylic on 30 x 30 canvas was selected to go on a catalog cover for the Blowing Rock Charity Horse Show...very cool! Steve putting in the graphics.

 

30 x 30 acrylic on canvas "Blowing Rock Horse Show"

 Yes-sort of Grandma Moses but people are loving it!

 Then I decided to go further-thinking of the years my twin and I rode like Indians on our New York farm, I decided to do my "Don't Tell Mom" series...they're big-30 x 40 canvases but oh what fun to create! 

We tried all sorts of tricks on our mares and somehow they yolerated our clumsy trick maneuvers.
One summer, our mares were off being bred at a farm in HIllsdale, NY and that summer we rode a little 13 hh pony called "Bobby." Conniving, tricky and ready to dump us in a moment, we kept him tuned for his younger owners who had been unable to stay on him :-)

#2 in my "Don't Tell Mom" series is "School's Out!" 30 x 40 acrylic on canvas

#1 in my "Don't Tell Mom" series, "Acrobats"

 So if these don't make you smile today, nothing will...
Enjoy the content and the colors and I'll be posting new ones shortly!

Inspirations and art!

So nothing like going to pick up paintings from a group show and find that one has been replaced with a nice check :-) Seems my "Tobacco Barn" sold at the month long regional art show at the Mims Gallery at Wesleyan College (NC). Very cool!

Tobacco Barn- A 16 x 20 pastel by M Theresa Brown 

So where do artists find inspiration? I took this photo frpm my photo after a huge thunderstorm had wreaked havoc on the area. I pulled by car over as to my right was the golden light of the sunset, and to my left was the dark, ominous gray of a storm loving east. But oh what it left behind! The bright arch of a half moon rainbow (which I could not capture with my phone camera) and the tops of these trees touched with gold. 

And finally, we returned from 2 weeks of shows in the NC mountains near the towns of  Blowing Rock and Boone. Who has not traveled the Blue Ridge Parkway and savored it's coolness and breathtaking views? Sometimes I think the mountains are in my DNA. I know they are in my ancestral past as well as my past (The Catskill,  Berkshire and Adirondack mountains of NY) The sea also calls to me but it is different. With the ocean it is the sounds and rhythms of waves and seagulls. Mesmerizing.  With the ancient Blue Ridge mountains, there is more-the winds, cool breezes, wildflowers and above all else, the stunning vistas where I stand and gaze at every detail of range after range of mountains. It is easy to get lost in them.  

I love being inspired!

Grabbing inspiration from the mountains!

Watauga River near Boone NC

For landlubbers there is nothing more inspirational than mountains!

Coming from the northern reaches of the Appalachian, Berkshire and Catskill mountain ranges, I find a little of them all along the Blue Ridge mountains in NC. 

We explored the trails along the parkway, rode horses on top of a mountain with views to the heavens and tubed down the rocky river of the Watauga!

Standing on one of the many boulders strewn around the river!

The incredible views from the mountain top riding ring!

Life is good!

Now I am refreshed and ready to paint!

Blowing Rock NC Charity horse show

Hooray! I have completed the second of two pastels which will be sold at the two Blowing Rock NC Charity Horse shows this July. The images used on T-shirts . The first represented the Saddlebred show and the second is the Hunter Jumper show.

We LOVE this show. Held just off the Blue Ridge Parkwayin the NC mountains, it is wonderfully cooler than the Piedmont. There is something in everyone's DNA where some ancient connection to mountains manifests itself. Looking out over the incredible vews, we tend to drift into a time warp and we become our ancestors for a short period of time!

It just doesn't get better than that!