"queen anne's garden"

"queen anne's garden" 9"x12" pastel on Uart 500  $80

I am a great admirer of Karen Margulis' and Loriann Signori's wild flower paintings. They both really inspire me to paint the wildflowers too! On my recent trip to CT there is a roadside field that is covered with Queen Anne's lace. We drove by it several times and all I could think was that I had to paint it!. One day I stopped and took several photos.

reference photo for this painting

I decided to do a quick 6"x8" study while I was there, so that I could use it for reference to do a larger painting  in my studio. It's hard to resist painting each of the flowers, but I just broke the scene down into the basic shapes and highlighted some of the flowers. More work to do on painting wildflowers, but I am excited.

6"x8" quick study

Since I have been back home , I have been spending a lot of time in my studio and decided today to try my hand at the field photos. I think I will do some more!

Plum Island marshes

12"x12" pastel on Uart  $100

I am finally back home in my studio. I had gone up north for some vacation time to visit my mom and sisters in CT. My sister surprised me with a trip to Newburyport MA and a 2 night stay in a B&B ! For one of our day trips we headed out to Plum Island. I brought along my plein air bag thinking I would have time to paint. Unfortunately, the green head flies had just hatched in the marshes. For those of you who know - they are EVERYWHERE and they BITE! So I ran out of the car and snapped as many photos as I could and somehow managed not to get any bites. 

my reference photos

 When we got back to the B&B, I pulled out my plein air bag and sat outside at the gazebo. I wanted to get some studies done while the images were still fresh in my head.

 2 small studies 5"x5" and 5"x7"

Back home in my studio I used the reference photos and my studies to a larger painting. I had just bought myself a new set of Schmincke watercolors to keep in my plein air bag,so I used them to do an underpainting.

watercolor underpainting on Uart 500

I wanted the underpainting to show through, so I lightly layers on the pastels. I used Terry Ludwig, Girault and Schmincke pastels on Uart 500 paper.

After 2 weeks away, I was very happy to get back to work in my studio.

"a new day"

"a new day" 9"x12" pastel on Uart 500  $80

We have really hot summers in the south and I usually head out early for my morning walks with my Siberian Husky, Kobi. 

Kobi

I am so thankful for each new day and enjoy these morning walks watching the sunrise. The sky was soft and hazy and I caught a photo of the sun just as it was coming up through the trees.

my reference photo

I decided to do a watercolor underpainting to capture the soft colors of the sky.

watercolor underpainting

I really admire Liz Haywood-Sullivan's sky paintings and mostly used her "sky and water" set of Terry Ludwig Pastels for this painting.