I discovered a new artist teacher/friend on Facebook of all places!   Deborah Hanes Nelson - check her out!  She has been such an enormous help to me in working with grapes and colors!  I just can't thank her enough.  Here is my new painting after taking her advice:

This was done on 140 lb Arches hot press paper and Schmenke paints.  I like this paint and paper for florals....I'm struggling with another one of peaches using the same paper, paint and process and am going to do another one of the same using  140 lb. Artistico Fabriano cold press paper and a different process.  If I am brave I will post the difference - the peaches are flat as pancakes.  Maybe they are peach pancakes?  :-)  For now, here are the flowers!

We headed up north to visit family again.  The weather was perfect - very little humidity and mild temperatures - yay!  The food was fabulous and we ate way too much of it.  Mostly we were surrounded by love and laughter and enjoyed every second!  I took thousands of pictures - trying to capture the perfect wave on the ocean!  I'm just posting a couple of them.  Grab a cup of coffee and sit back a spell....

I love this little art group I belong to!  We switch out paintings twice a year, and when they sell, we gladly bring a replacement.  We have so much talent and these ladies are such fun to be with and so easy to hang with - literally!  :-)  The folks at the winery could not be better to us, either!  Anyway, here are some pictures of our latest show - about 80 pieces all total - each centered on 64" height and the width of each wall.  It's not easy - but it turns out really nice!

Artistically I don't believe I do a good job on painting people and am always striving to get better.  I love our 4th of July Parade, and loved capturing these people eating ice cream in front of "The Cottage Barn", where they bought it!  We love to see our streets full of people shopping and enjoying themselves!!!

since I've painted "still life" settings.  I've been inspired by Karen Shelton's show at the Prizery.  I bought this bowl at the auction at the Virginia Avenue Mall and love how the light hits it!  I like this one so much that I did another set up with the same bowl, same scarf and this time peaches!  I will post when I finish!!!

A dear friend asked me to paint an abstract in muted earth tones for an anniversary gift for her daughter and son-in-law.  I created these two.  The first one I did second layer in green, third layer in orange, and then went nuts on the background with rusty brown and black "webbing spray".  The second one I used an off-white on all layers.  I like the depth of the second one, but the colors of the first one.  I'll let you know which one she chooses!

Next to Christmas, Lakefest is my most favorite day - and apparently 80,000 others feel the same way!  Here are some photos from today's BIG event here in Clarksville, VA:

We had SO MUCH FUN!!!!  We went to Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge, and on the way home we stopped at The Biltmore Estate!  We loved every minute of every day and every night.  Grab a beverage and sit back and enjoy....this is going to take awhile!!!

The nicest part about my decision to not do big solo artshows anymore, is that I have the time to just play once in awhile - try some new ideas floating around in my head - and not have the pressure to produce quality work for a show!  (I still sell art at The Galleria on the Lake, am one of the artists at Rosemont Winery and participate in local art crawls) 

Anyway, this first painting I tore small pieces of masking tape and made an "S" curve with them and then painted black acrylic over them with the thought of the darkest dark next to the lightest light!  Then I poured red, yellow and blue paint over it and laid down every texture creating tool I could think of - surgical webbing, saran wrap, wax paper, bubble wrap, salt, and I think that was all!  After it dried I lived up the masking tape and it was a little two stark as pure white, so I used some rice paper painted with the ROYGBV colors!   I felt I needed to break it up further, so I did some white lines with acrylic paint.  I love the texture in this:

In this second painting, I tore some old paintings and glued them on trying to create a stream with a rocky cliff, some trees at the top and a sky!  I then laid down one of my big stencils I bought from Karlyn Holman and sanded in lots of colors with water color pencils.  It's fun, but not a keeper:

Beautiful friends, beautiful flowers, what more could a girl want!  Excellent day!!!!

Ready!  Set!!  Go!!!  My first art show with this group as an official member!  I'm so very pleased to be apart of this amazing group.  Great diversity of artistic styles, mediums - and the people themselves are delightful!  It took us awhile to hang these paintings as there are many and the 2 floors are quite large!  It was really, really fun and I look forward to getting to know everyone better! 

I've been painting a lot lately!  Mostly to get ready for 2 shows so I can get out in the yard and do some Spring cleaning, mulching....tweak the Fairy homes....plant some moss....try making some glass flowers (out of old glass dishes)....Aiming for April 2nd!!!  Anyway, grateful for the time, and any time spent painting is the best way to spend my time as far as I'm concerned!!!  Here are the latest creations:

I'm so tickled to be the newest member of the Rosemont Winery Artists Group!  We hang new artwork in March and August, have a reception or two - I can do this!!!  This is my first go at it - 6 are 16 x 20 and one is 22 x 30 and counts as two paintings.  I had so much fun painting the wine abstracts - I wanted to have 4 for the Chamber to choose one for the Wine Festival - and the other 3 will be just fine at the Winery! 

I fought painting abstracts for many, many years - a small part of me thinking it wasn't really art, for whatever silly reason.  I can tell you it's really, really, fun to do and really breaks some barriers into creativity.  And makes you remember the basic rules of composition such as color, shape, movement, texture, line and value!  I'm pulling out books and DVDs I've had for a long time - have watched and read them before, but wasn't ready for the lesson!  So here I am - and having a ball!  These are the latest 3:

I like the way these come out, but I honestly don't like the time it takes to do them - and they could use several more layers but I am done!  Patience never was my strong suit.  I'm going to play with abstracts and flowers w/abstract backgrounds and have fun painting this year!!

I have 5 paintings of realistic flowers in the works in various stages of underpainting and the beginnings of the flowers, leaves and backgrounds.  Working on Arches 140 lb hot press paper and using Susan's very slow, but very effective process!  So then my heart skips a beat and I jump over to some 140 lb cold press Fabriano Artistico paper just waiting for me to play with it and off I go playing with some more abstract ideas!   I am having so much fun!!   Here are the next 2:

I've been totally enjoying 2016 so far - just been playing with art rather than feeling the pressure to produce for a show!  These two are made from old paintings with splashes of color on paper behind them.  What do you think???

I've just been playing and enjoying my free time before the anticipation of being accepted as an featured artist at the Kirby Gallery in Roxboro, NC.  The "before" paintings are done on Fabriana Artistico 140 lb cold press paper.  The "after" paintings are done on Arches 140 lb hot press.  The advantage of the cold press is that I can mask off the flowers with tape and masking fluid and just go wild with the background.  The advantage of hot press is that it allows many, many layers which is wonderful for flowers, but not crazy about having to be so careful with the background and making sure I don't go into the flowers! 

Today was the Open House of this wonderful club - my first visit - and I enjoyed it very much!!!  The attention to detail is amazing - can't imagine the amount of time it has taken to put these various exhibits together!  Each of the Club Members I spoke with had such joy in their eyes as they talked about their passion!  I look forward to visiting often and enjoying the progress of their labor of love!

This is our third Christmas Parade and each one is unique and very special!  This year Santa's sleigh driver was injured in a horse/buggy accident, so the Chamber had to scramble to find a driver - they came up with putting Santa's and his sleigh on a huge flatbed truck that was led by 8 reindeer, including our Executive Director of the Chamber!  Love the parade, the floats, all the bands - it's the most wonderful time of the year!

Auntie Di moved to Raleigh from San Diego 1272014!  I've been promising her a painting for housewarming gift since then.  She understood that I was painting for the show at the Prizery and under the wire to get lots of paintings done for the show!  I finally had time to do it and did it on Archers 140# hot press paper using Susan Harrison-Tustain's techniques.  It's a very long, slow process, but worth it in the end!  I sure hope she likes it!!!

What a perfect outing for us gals!  The food was really good, the company was divine....the fashion show was perfect!  Jennifer Orendorff, owner of The Wild Petunia did a great job of selecting the clothes AND the models to represent her beautiful boutique!  And our friend Tina McClellan was one of her models and she was the best one of the show!  And I believe she had the most fun!!!  After the show we viewed all the lovely Christmas trees - most had sold tags on them from their very successful cocktail party last night!  And to cap it off, we took Betty downstairs to see my art show! 

The smallest city we have ever lived in (pop 1200) with a heart the size of Texas!  Christmas is proudly spoken and written everywhere you go!  The merchants go ALL OUT and decorate so beautifully!  Here is our little town with decked halls!

I'm so happy with the turnout of friends for my Artist Reception and official opening of my art exhibit at The Prizery!  Feedback was wonderful and we all had such a great time!  Truly a highlight of my career as an artist!  Here are some pics for you to enjoy!  If you were unable to attend, you can view the art gallery anytime between now and 12/18 - just ask to see it at the front desk and they will gladly take you downstairs and open it all up!  There are many events at the Prizery in this time frame and the art gallery will always be open and available during the shows!