Who Drank My Tea!?

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I have really enjoyed painting still life this week, after a long break from it. Tomorrow I am off to California to hike and catch up with a good friend, and then to a whole new painting adventure. This one combines 3 elements that I have done separately, but never together: pastel, plein air and camping. I'll be taking a workshop from Bill Cone in the Sierra Nevada's, and I'm thrilled! And terrified. In equal parts. I hope to be able to post one more time before I head up into the mountains.

Plum Plate

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For this set of plums I decided to use bigger brush strokes and paint (sort of like) caricatures of the fruit, rather than shooting for realism. I think it turned out pretty cool-like.

Tranquil Plums

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Simple. More plums. That's it.

Chuck Mate - #2000

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And here is (drum roll please) my 2,000th daily painting! I have a very good friend who wears these sorts of shoes often (when she wears shoes). Her daughter is just going into college, and due to some pretty huge issues that have come up for their family, I can imagine the funds are a bit tight for them right now. And so the proceeds from this painting are going a tiny way towards getting the sweet little gal through college.

Marching on the Red Square

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I haven't painted plums in a long time. They called out to me at the grocery store as I was casually walking by, minding my own business. "Paint us!," they cried. And what could I do but comply with such a passionate request?!

Loitering Lemons

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This summer is going by at an alarming rate! Before I forget, here are two big things that are coming up for me:

1. This is daily painting number 1,998. I'm planning something special for #2,000, fyi.

2. The on-sale date for my book has been formally set for November 4th! It's called Daily Painting: Paint Small and Often To Become a More Creative, Productive, and Successful Artist, and you can pre-order it on Amazon, here. : )

Triangle Tea

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I've been gone the last few days, painting at the coast with friends. I had a great time (despite one particular dreary morning, painting in the rain) but have nothing to show for it, sorry. Hopefully these funky thrift store cups will make up for it.

Red Chucks

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I was very happy to find these shoes the other day at Goodwill. I had some pink ones when I was a kid. They were awesome. As for painting them, the laces were especially fun/challenging!

I have been painting less the last few days because we've had a visit from our granddaughter (Nina) and family - unfortunately leaving in the morning. : (

Wood in a Jar

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I brought all of these wooden implements back with me from Germany. I had them sitting in my studio in this jar, waiting to be fit into the kitchen somewhere, when somehow they made their way into my painting. Sneaky buggers.

Light and Cups

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I was lying on the couch in my studio yesterday, staring up at my still life shelves with abandon. Suddenly I had an inspiration and raced to put this together! I love it when that happens. I think I'll take to lying on the couch more often.

Lunch in Germany

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Above is a painting I did from a reference photo I took in Germany. Honestly, I forget the name of the town. All I remember is that it was really hard to pronounce!

To the right are a few pictures from our backpacking trip this last weekend. My husband and I joined Leigh and Terry Sparks for 2 wonderful days in the Cascades! We found the most ridiculously beautiful spot to set up camp, right on Crescent Lake. You can see both the sun-rise and -set, as well as a photo of the boys cooking our dinner (while Leigh and I sat with our feet in the water, drinking wine!). Today Terry is back to hiking the entire PCT (from Mexico to Canada), where he averages 35 miles a day! He was really slumming it with us and our meager 25 miles over 2 days. Because of that, I am quite embarrassed to say we are still sore from the hiking. Oh.

Cow Crowd

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My workshop last week went really well. Besides being periodically covered in paint, my kids behaved themselves quite well, and painted even better. I completely forgot to take pictures until the last day, and only got a few.

Being that it was an advanced workshop, we tackled some difficult subjects: white, flowers, reflections on a glass surface, flowers and metal. They also spent one day working on a larger still life painting.

Right after the workshop I had a little adventure in backpacking, which I will post about soon. Meanwhile, here is my group of cute kiddies from this last workshop, below. Y'all were great!

ps. The cow painting above is another from Germany...

Art Lovers

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It was always just a matter of time before I painted this subject (people looking at art)! I know everyone does it, but really it's pretty perfect. The photo for this one was taken at the MFA in Boston earlier this year.

Tomorrow is the first day of my 5-day advanced workshop here in Oregon, so I probably won't post until that's done. I'm looking forward to this batch of kids!

Curious Cows

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As promised, here are a few of the cows I photographed and painted in Germany. These gals were so curious about me. Whenever I walked into their field they rushed over to see what I was about. Then, when they were about 10 feet away, they stopped and stared. After a while they got bored and started looking for things to eat again.

Little House

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We have survived another international flight! Yes, we are home from Germany and catching up with our lives. It's always nice coming home.

This is another little painting I did while in Germany, though the photo reference was from here in Eugene. At home now I'm doing still life again in preparation for my advanced workshop coming up next week.

Three Trees

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This is another plein air landscape from here in Germany that I'm happy with. I've been working on trees, and the whole tree/sky transition. The thing that is SO different about plein air from still life is - with still life I do all the editing in real life (move the apple here, turn it around, etc. until it looks good) but outside I must make up a better scene out of my head ... but then I have nothing to refer back to. Does that make sense? Ugh.

Tomorrow we head to Stuttgart for a couple of days, and then fly home on Tuesday. I don't know what kind of wifi we'll have for the rest of the trip, so even though I am ahead with my paintings, I may not post again until Wednesday.

The Top Spot

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I took the photo for this one at the Eugene Saturday Market. The background was super busy so I played around with the photo in Photoshop before I painted it, trying out different colors and values. I'm pretty happy with the result.

Blue Blue

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I've had the photo for this one for a while. I took it in Eugene, OR, a few blocks down from my son's school. I pass by this house often and (when the sun shines) am always enchanted by the slant of the porch shadow and the shades of blue and more blue.

Horse Path

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I've decided to only post my very favorite landscapes. Even though I've done a bit of plein air work before, it's always been few and far between, so really, in the end, not much. I still consider myself a beginner. And most of the time they don't work out (I've done quite a few bad ones this trip!). And, this is stupid, but if I consider my time "valuable" or whatever (ha!), then I feel really terrible every time I make the effort to go outside and the result is fairly bad or worse. So in order to keep going with this, I have to think of it this way - I must do my 500 bad paintings before I get to the real ones, in this particular subject. I've probably done - what - about 100 so far, in my life? So I've got 400 left to go. Probably there will be some ok ones along the way, and I'll post those. This is one of them. I like it. This is all fyi.

So ok, about this painting. It was the first day we've had here in Germany without any clouds. I zoomed out to the field behind the house right after breakfast. My mother-in-law was nice enough to put the horses in the bottom field so they wouldn't come and bother me. I loved the shadow being cast by the trees behind me, the yellow flower patches on the hill, and the distant hill poking through the trees.

Billy Goat

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This is another from one of Bren's photos. Every year she takes a bunch of photos of animals at a place in Maine, and recently she let me "borrow" a few. Someday soon I hope to take some myself in Oregon. Meanwhile, here in Germany, I have taken ... oh ... about 800 photos of cows, and will have a few paintings from them soon.