Blog

These little parakeets turned out a little rough around the edges, but given I was working from four separate and slightly blurry cell phone photos its not too bad ^_^

About half way through the one on the left really began regretting doing two…

 

My husband and I were lucky enough to go to England this summer. While normally I didn’t associate London with carnivorous plants, their botanical gardens are full of them. Darwin apparently studied them extensively as well. After the trip I had to go purchase a small pitcher plant of our kitchen! This painting is of a large pitcher plant at Kew Gardens.

 

 

You may have noticed that I paint a lot of orange, yellow and pink things, but not a lot of red. For the cardinal that has been out in the yard this summer, I had little choice! I really struggle with red pigments looking overdone, esp with shadow. I am fairly happy with his face, and chest, but this tail was a  mess.

It has been a few weeks since touching my paints . It has been a combination of factors, including work bleeding into my days off >.< Hoping things will settle down by fall. Today’s small cholla flower is not my favorite, but my brushes were getting dusty.

Doves are fairly notorious around Tucson for building their nest in less than ideal places. This one actually did pretty good, picking a curiosity cactus. I’m not sure I’m finished, however taking a break before I over do it with the dark shadows.

Celebrating this orchids re-bloom with a small portrait. Things got a little messy with the second flower, but overall turned out ok

I think red poppies will always remind my of summer in Italy, I was lucky enough to get to spend some time an Equine practice outside of Verona and poppies were everywhere. This little painting I did this morning however was from a poppy that sprung up in our backyard this year ^_^

Having a puppy around often means some early mornings, which does allow more time for painting. However this hedgehog ended up being a struggle for me .Parts of it are definitely overworked. I also broke my rule of going back and trying to fix it after signing the piece as evidenced from the photos below.

We have lucky enough to have a pair of hooded orioles make their nest in our yard this spring. They love the flowers on the agave plants, and have been on them nearly every afternoon this last week. Below you can see the trial of trying to watch our new puppy and paint ^_^