Night time in a Louisiana Marsh

About a week ago, while at the Lafayette Art Association and Ty and Sara shared with me a magazine from 2010 that had a few articles on Plein Air.  When I opened the magazine, there were several pictures cut out and placed in there as an added bonus.  I took one and did my interpretation of what I saw there.  There were some very interesting articles which I will try to share in upcoming posts.

Meanwhile, I am going to physical therapy 3x a week.  I have good days and bad days, but I feel things are getting better with my knee.  Hopefully, knee surgery is not in my future.

Lucy had her first haircut this week and she looks like a completely new puppy...all grown up.



Before















After

Here she is trying to convince Mama Cat to play with her.  Mama Cat never runs away, just watches her and knows she is just a baby.

Mother's Day Flowers

These beautiful flowers were a Mother's Day gift from Jason, Kristen, Jackson and Mattie.  This was a vase filled with Alstroemerias and Lillies.  White flowers are such a challenge for me to paint, so I set this up in my studio and I was pretty happy of how it turned out.

"Mother's Day Flowers"

14 x 18 - oils on canvas panel

Paintings Reworked

So what do you do with paintings you don't like?

Some days I just can't get my painting going in the right direction.  When those days happen I usually take the day off from painting because it usually will not get better.  I had these two awful paintings I quit right in the middle of because they were not working.    I didn't throw them away and was not sure what I would do with them.  I noticed them sitting, long forgotten,  in the corner of my studio and decided to rework and change them up, try something different.  I have been on a "Paint Poppies" over and over again thing.

This first painting is a 6 x 6 that I had started a still life with a bottle, a little dish and some brushes in it.  The only thing I liked about the painting was how the bottle was coming out, so I kept it in and painted my poppies around it.

The second one was a still life painting I started on a 9 x 12 with a vase, green onions and some lemons...nothing was working for me. The only thing I felt salvageable was the vase, so I painted in poppies around it.  Some of the background from the previous painting shows through and I thought that was kind of cool.  This one has a lot of green, maybe a little too much.  I may tone that down a bit at some later date.