From the Archives

I painted this almost a year ago, mostly just to play with some canvas sheets that I found in a pile of old art supplies.  I called it "I Will Fear No Evil."

Sometimes God asks us to do things that we find daunting, even frightening.  Perhaps impossible.  Maybe horrifying.  Somewhere, on the other side of that mess of brambles and thorns, there's something delightful.  Hope.  Peace.  Eternity.  It suddenly makes the mess of brambles bearable.

Up On The Roof

This is Murphy.  It was a lovely summer day and he wanted a sunny spot to read his extremely fat book.  We lived in Narnia at the time...you know, always winter and never Christmas.  At least that's what it felt like because there were SO many trees.  So finding a sunny spot wasn't always easy.  On this particular day Murphy climbed up on the roof, which made for a fantastic picture!  And, of course that made for a fantastic drawing!

Spider Plant

Every once in awhile I have this overwhelming urge to try something different.  Which is where this piece came from.  I'd been doing watercolors almost exclusively and was BORED!  Time to play with some pastels!

So, I pulled out some craft paper...I have this huge roll of it on a metal rack, complete with cutting edge, that belonged to my grandfather.  It's not meant for fine art.  Really.  But I was just playing around, and it provided an interesting background color.  I think I like it.  Except the paper is all roughed up and pilling in spots, so it's not even close to frame-worthy!  If I want to pursue using pastels, I'll have to buy some real paper and ditch grandpa's big  brown roll!

Fall Storm

I painted this a couple of years ago.  There's this really cool house that I drove by several times a week.  It has an old stone foundation, and a windmill in the yard.  The property goes on and on and on.  Rumor has it that it was once owned by the Maytag family (as in: the washers and dryers).  I have no idea if that's true.

Anyway, out in the "yard" (this place has acres, so "yard" isn't quite right) is a small collection of aspen trees....and in another place there's this wind-break type of fence.  I thought they went great together!

I love the leaves against the dark sky.  I used masking fluid (just like in the columbine that I posted last week), and painted the sky first.  The fence was in perfect shape.  Which I found to be boring.  So I knocked down part of it (not literally, of course)!  Doesn't it make you wonder what creature (animal or human) went tromping through there and broke it down? 

This painting is now in the possession of a very dear friend.  I can't tell you how happy that makes me!

Two More!

I had so much fun last time, I couldn't help myself!  I find that this is an enormous stress reliever.  I've been working on sketches for the murals I told you about, and it tends to consume all of me.  So by doodling, I gain a little bit back.

The Face of a Clock

Some of you know that I have a few watches.  A FEW.  Ok, the last time I counted I think I got up to 16.  None of them are digital.  Seriously, if you need to find out the time, why not have the joy of looking at a beautiful clock face?

For reasons I don't think I understand I have always loved clock faces.  So, it should be no surprise that I not only have a few watches, I also have a few miniature clocks.  Most of them work.  But two are slightly ancient, and have long since quit ticking.  This is one of them.  I was playing around with sketching them, seeing if I could make something actually look symmetrical....tricky.  And could I draw reflections?  Tricky.

Of course, then I had to play with painting it!

BRAND NEW!

One of my hopes for this blog is that it will become a source of motivation and learning for myself.  If I have a sort of self-imposed daily deadline to meet, then the hope is that I will rise to the occasion and PAINT!  And not necessarily paint masterpieces every day, just PAINT!  So a fair amount of what you see on here may just be evidence of my exercising.  Proof of my attempts to learn.

This little painting is just that.  It's all an experiment with colors and layering and backgrounds and brush strokes.  I actually kind of like it, bizarre as it is.  I'm calling it "Forest On A Stump".