Animal Wednesday: Does a starfish count?

This is what I've been busy doing this past week. It's a birthday surprise for my friend Barb while she's away on vacation in Arizona! She said to do whatever I wanted, but trust me I had some limits here.

Barb is ultra traditional and her kitchen has been the same for the past twenty-two years! I did the last theme as well, black cats and red/white gingham touches.

I took all of the kitty pictures out of the frames and replaced them with four lovely poppy paintings, one of course by Georgia O'Keefe. Then I went to work on this wall, all free-form with very little pre-drawing. (I hate to have to erase lines after!)

This is a very small wall so I kept the design light and flowing. This wall is to the left of the step up into her kitchen. The starfish, sand dollar, beach glass and shells were added because of all the time Barb has spent on Cape Cod at her family's treasured cottage.

(Here's a bit of detail. I hope they enlarge.)

I had a hard time with the shadowing because the wall kept resisting the glaze. Shadowing is my favorite part! That, and detail. Oh well, it will have to do.

And YES, this is what I was painting when I fell backwards and hit my head.

I can't believe I didn't drag my red paintbrush down the wall.

 

So, Happy Animal Wednesday from me and Grady, my helper ;)

Animal Wednesday: Nesting

I went looking through my archives to see if I had an appropriate image to use for today.

I did this painting five years ago when I rented a musty old room in someone's house as my first studio. I wanted to paint a nest, but then I thought about a little sparrow bringing an 'offering' to my painting because he thought the nest was real! Talk about self-flattery!

Anyway, five years later I see a lot wrong with the painting. Still, someone in Southern California is enjoying it as part of their bird art collection.

Apologies to those of you who may have already seen this. I haven't had a whole lot of time to do new stuff lately. I'm working on changing that though ;)

Happy Animal and nesting Wednesday!

Animal Wednesday : Hey, who's that?

I found another image to use for this week while I was looking at my website. I'm often asked to paint client's pets on their walls in life size. Crazy, huh? So this is a Corgi named Tessa I painted in a little girl's room. She was my biggest critic but nodded her approval once it was complete. Woof!

(Please go to my other entry below.)

Happy Animal Wednesday!

Animal Wednesday : Nesting

This is a painting I did a couple of years ago in my very first studio. It was a musty old place with too many spiders in the back of someone's home. But it was my space and I came to love it. One spring I watched a little sparrow carry pieces of straw and other things to help build his nest. I was doing a lot of trompe l'oeil in those days, so I thought how wonderful it would be to paint a bird making an offering to a painted nest because he thought it was real! This is how it turned out. That's also the brush and paint cloth I used that I added to the picture. One of my husband's co-workers bought it for his wife who collects bird paintings. I kind of miss this one because it was a little personal, but it sure makes me happy to share my art. Happy Animal Wednesday...and yay spring!!