I had a visitor to the studio yesterday for the Second Saturday Open House as part of the Northern Neck Artisan Trail. Turns out Jenny and I had met at the Mid-Atlantic Pastel Society and she has been following me on Facebook. She is also in the yoga class that I started taking this past… Continue reading A Studio Visitor
When My husband gets an idea in his head, it can be very hard to dislodge it. This morning he had the opportunity to look at the Indigo Bunting painting on line and immediately called me over to say in his usually blunt way, “Why would you do this? It looks like crap!” Well, he… Continue reading Bunting the Bunting
I’ll be demonstrating how I take my bird photos and then doctor them up using Photoshop all day this coming Saturday as part of the Northern Neck Artisan Trail’s Second Saturday Program. Professional artists who work from photos use photos they have taken themselves. Sometimes those photos need a little help with cropping, fixing camera… Continue reading Second Saturday Demonstration: Reference Photos
My husband and I visited with his brother, Bob, at Rockaway Beach in Oregon last year and every morning and evening I took a short walk to the beach where I took a bunch of photos. While looking back through all my painting reference photos the other day, I realized that an Oregon sunset at… Continue reading A Beach Visit
There are several kinds of woodpeckers who reside in our neck of the woods and we have learned that two are very similar. In fact, it seems the main difference is in the length of their beak and their willingness to visit feeders provided by humans. The Downy woodpecker is small (about 6 inches) and… Continue reading A Downy
Took advantage of a snowy day with no one coming over and me going nowhere, to start two paintings today. One, if it comes out the way I envision it, will be submitted for consideration to the “Shades of Green” exhibit coming up at the Stewart Gallery. The second is another bird painting: It is… Continue reading Started Two…
My sister lives in Colorado and came East visiting the family this week. That, of course, got me reminiscing about the trip my hubby and I took out to visit her about four years ago. I took about a million pictures I think. Colorado is one of those rare places where you just gasp in… Continue reading Colorado
I learned some cool stuff yesterday at the Mid-Atlantic Pastel Society Meeting. We had a program about the importance of making notans as part of the preparation needed to create successful paintings (in any media). And our instructor, Robin Caspari, gave us some really neat tricks to use on our electronic devises. I’ve known about… Continue reading Notan and Electronics
Earlier this summer, one of my friends from the RAL Art Center asked if I ever painted hummingbirds. I had to tell her I did not mainly because I could never get a decent photo. For some reason my brain wants to work from a clear photo and catch the movement frozen in time. I… Continue reading Female in Flight
We drove all the way to Skyline Drive last week looking for beautiful foliage. The mountain scenery was very nice and getting away together was even nicer. But we didn’t see a lot of color. But this week here at home! Wow! It’s just busting out all over. Check out these photos from this morning… Continue reading Distractions Out My Windows
COVID 19 has thrown a lot of folks for a loop. Staying home, food shortages, boredom, and generally questioning how we live our lives has caused a lot of folks to start looking at how to become more self-sustaining. This site will include a wide variety of things including how to cook from scratch (really, really scratch) and create a garden in hot & humid Virginia, our adventures in turning a shed into a chicken coop, and working with an old orchard that produces an abundance of ugly but perfectly edible fruit. And how to do all this with just two of us old geezers (I'll be 61 in June 2020 and my husband is older).
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