A Moment To Remember

" Paige And Her New Guitar"

11x14 on Masonite Panel

Home with a cold the past couple of days, I decided to do a sketch of my daughter with her new guitar she got for Christmas. (please ignore my poor photography of this sketch, I just wanted to get it posted quick) I'm currently in between large studio landscape pieces and have been finding it quite freeing to do something completely different between studio pieces. This sketch was done from a photo I took in the corner of our kitchen on Christmas morning. It is SO Paige! She's wearing her favorite old blue t-shirt (that I've tried to throw away with no luck), playing her new guitar, and her hair a great morning mess. (I don't think she ever actually brushed it that day) :) These are all the things I love about my daughter, it's who she is. She's so uniquely spirited and creatively driven. THAT'S what I wanted to get in the painting! Doing this piece was surprisingly interesting with how emotionally connected I felt to her spirit. I felt a huge sense of pride in her just being who she is on her own and the person she is becoming.

I asked her what she thought of the painting and she said "the walls look like they need more paint". I said, "I like the rawness of it!" "Thanks though Paige" :)

"The Journey"

24x30 Oil On Linen

This is the studio piece I did off the study posted below. I had a very clear idea of the mood I wanted to achieve in this painting. That can be a good thing or a bad thing for a painter. . . . I learned a long time ago that each painting tells YOU what it wants to be and sometimes visions get in the way, each painting has to be 'their own' right? - and the study is information and inspiration! I laid this entire painting in, in a day. Felt good about it, came back the next day, thought a lot, painted a little. Got mad at the painting, put it away, came back SEVERAL more days and finally got it. I spent more TIME the last 5% of the painting THINKING than painting.

I knew instantly when seeing the place that this would be a piece I'd like to do larger. This place was like heaven on earth. The trees completely full of personality, the road a possible journey to take you where you wanted to be and the soy beans golden richness along the way. The thing that struck me the most was the texture of these beans. I truly wanted to get their character with paint! That part was really fun!

A New Year!

"Farm Study"

Oil On Linen 8x10

This is my field study I used to do a larger studio piece. I knew instantly when driving up this road along that gorgeous soy bean field that this was the piece I was going to do in a larger scale. I loved the sense of infinity this roads implies. I'm really drawn to places with a little unknown around the corner. This was very moody, wet fall day. The trees seemed very full of mood and personality the way they gracefully drooped with richness. The two days before it rained non stop. As we were packing up to head home after three days of rain, the sun came out.