Little girl in white oil painting

This 16 x 20 oil was quite a challenge! Photographers all deal with photoshop and a large number of artists do as well now. Sometimes I think that a little more sketching would bring the brain back as "photoshop" is something an artist always did....long before the computer! This little girl came from 2 photos. I created a pastel of her sister 6 years ago and they had an "oil photograph" made. So I had a photo of the little blond headed sister-full body and a head and shoulder photo of the other dark haired sister...basically combining them together and then deciding to add the arm to the right as the original photo showed (vaguely, in parts) her little arms pulled up to her body. But after painting that, it looked awkward, so I rubbed out the arm (with a crowd watching) and sketched it back onto the canvas and then painted it. Fun with a crowd around! Anyway the client was THRILLED with the results.
The very cool thing is that the dress in the oil was detailed (more so than the photograph) and it had been made by the grandmother. Both little girls wore it for their portraits (6 years apart!) Grandma's Dress is an heirloom as is now this portrait!

Teen Art Boot Camp

What a great week with working with a group of teens! We worked in acrylics, oils, graphite, charcoal and conte. They learned Art presentation, Art journaling and Art Marketing!

Still lifes, landscapes and portraits, all in the traditional mode helped expand their vision and stretch a bit more from them. We also taled about what to look for when selecting an art schoo for college-a very necessary topic to save tens of thousands of dollars for the parents!

Next camp is July 6-10 and the final is August 3-7. They run from 10-2 pm.

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!

A breathing, living portrait

A fine art portrait is more than a likeness of the subject. A portrait should virtually breathe on it's own!
This 24 x 30 oil is a good example of that concept. By intertwining the likenesses of the subject with a visual example of their long term relationship and devotion to each other the portrait took on a life of it's own.

In other words, it went far beyond "looking like the subject" or what a photo is required to do. A fine art portrait creates a perpetual record of a subject on that day, in time and the interaction to the environment around them. A moment in time. A forever reminder that life is good!

Dressage Horse for the CDI show

I created this 18 x 24 oil of a dressage horse from photos that we took while down in Southern Pines, NC.
I used a 2 inch Gallery Wrap canvas and had fun pulling the painting around the sides! Take a look!

Saddlebred Horse show at Blowing Rock NC

It's been fun creating a collage for the both the Hunter Jumper and Saddlebred portions of the Blowing Rock Charity Horse Show held each year in the incredibly beautiful location in the NC mountains of...Blowing Rock! The show has been an annual event for many, many years and we enjoy being there for the activities. OK, maybe the climate has something to do with that too!
I have completed the Saddlebred collage which will be auctioned off at this year's event and also used for the T-shirts. The Hunter Jumper collage that I am creating will be for next year's show. They are held in the same location but on different days. This pastel is 18 x 24 in size.

Wild Roses and Artist inspiration

I am not, by nature, a landscape painter. Odd, huh? You would think that an artist would paint pretty much anything and in one respect, I do. But my artistic heart is on subjects...people and animals especially. Or a tree. Now THAT I can get a grasp on-a big, impressive or gnarled subject! But a landscape? No. To look at a beautiful landscape has always held a wonder for me. The oceans, the the pastoral farm settings, a pasture with cows, the mountains of the Blue Ridge. But to paint those scenes? Actually.....no. Sometimes I look at all the green in all its variations and think "No, I don't wish to paint each leaf." But of course I miss the point don't I? In memory, one remembers with a softness, not with clarity and that is probably why the Impressionist movement has such a following. I am quite fond of my husband's work as he loves his landscapes and perhaps has the essence of what I just said-light, color and generalities to combine into a beautiful coherent scene. But having said all that, maybe, just maybe, after wandering through my yard yesterday and looking at the once a year amazing burst of colors from the wold and heirloom roses that surround the house, studio and pastures, I might be persuaded to pick up a brush and boldly go where I usually don't go! Into a landscape!