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Monday, May 28, 2012

Art in my Garden


Art is beautiful, graceful, colorful, and here, edible.
We live on a small produce farm where we raise lettuce, broccoli, cauliflower, onions, shallots,
asparagus, peas, herbs, fruit, berries and so much more.
The lettuce above was just picked and is ready for market.
The cauliflower and broccoli below are some of the most beautiful we've ever grown.
It is beautiful.
Graceful
Colorful
and Edible!
YEA!!!

Maybe I should try painting these beauties instead of just eating them.

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Thursday, May 24, 2012

Shoes, beautiful shoes


Shoes, Beautiful Shoes
My  daughter Kari is a shoe dog, and these are one of her many favorite pair of shoes.
Sometimes I feel like I'm walking in a hole next to her when she wears some of her really high heels.
This painting is not available, because I gave it to her, but I thought it was a fun painting.

This post is part of a group of blogs that began at Chocolate on my Cranium.
All the posts are about shoes.
I tried to connect mine to theirs, but sometimes things just do go according to plan.


Saturday, May 19, 2012


Inspiration comes in strange places.

I was having a crazy week, make that two weeks, of running from appointment to appointment.
Library show, gallery opening, Aidan here and there, birthday, Mother's Day, painting day.
I have been reading I'd rather be in the studio by Alyson B. Stanfield.
She writes and coaches about art businesses and how to stay focused and be more effective.
I had been reading chapter 3, Living with Routines and how having routines actually frees up your mind and time to do more creative things.
I was at McDonald's getting breakfast on one of my busiest days, getting a glass of water.
I filled it up with ice, and watched as the water filling in all around it inspired or taught me.
The ice, to me, are the important or the must do's.
There are things that must get done, like eating, sleeping, painting, cleaning, and gardening.
There are things that are fun and make life interesting, but not essential, the water.
The water flowed into the cup and filled in every little space the ice did not occupy.
Less ice, more water.
Not really cold refreshing water, but water none the less.

I'm trying to implement many of the ideas taught by Alyson, 
and this is one of them.
The fun interesting non-essential things can take over our life, if we don't stay focused.
We will still get some of the essential things done, but not as many and not as well.

Who knew that along with my breakfast and large glass of water 
I'd receive such visual inspiration.




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Thursday, May 17, 2012

Plein Air Show at Gallery 104
LaGrange, KY
15 plein air paintings were on display and were awarded 1st, 2nd and 3rd places tonight.



Aritists Patricia Hagan and Carole Logan had paintings on display,



Participating artist Gail Bagwell enjoying the art and the food.



George McCracken was awarded 2nd place for his oil painting
"Cherokee Lake"




Gallery Director Kathy Dowling talks things over with Board Member, Terri Miller.



First Place winner Luci Mistratov was not able to attend but her watercolor, "Sunny Street" won.



Artist Marilynn Swan admires the art.


Tom and Mary Kinney admire a vase by Monalisa of Mudlark Pottery.
They eventually bought a beautiful bowl.




Patricia Hagan was awarded Third Place for her oil painting "Old Hotel of Main, LaGrange".  



Some of the food provided for the evening. 
My husband grew the peonies on the table.



More Food Shots.



A Beautiful Things basket was given away as a door prize.
Marilynn Swan won this.


The Sweet Williams and daisies on the table were also grown by my husband.

We also had another door prize, a ceramic replica of the Oldham County Courthouse, a map of Oldham County and a book were given by the Oldham County Historical Center.
Unfortunately, in the downloading of these pictures, that one is now out there in cyberspace.
Gail Bagwell's daughter won the historical center gift bag.

This was a fun evening and I hope everyone enjoyed it.  


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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T36KGeTKXF4&feature=relmfu

While looking at some other classes Dreams Tolle Perry taught I found this video of the workshop I took in Carmel, IN.  I didn't want to lose it so I'm posting it here.  I'm also posting my paintings from that work shop so I have them all together.



This was the first painting we did during the workshop.  
I've done it again since then.  
I really learned a lot about brush work during this workshop.

The red awning was our second painting.  
I painted the one with the green awning, below at the same time.
I used to own a flower shop in Augusta, KY that had a green awning
and this looked a lot like that store front.


This cupcake was from musical easels.
Now that was fun!


This is painting I did for my kids of my store front.
Really enjoyed this.


This was my free style painting.  
It was painted from a photograph I took at Stream Cliff Herb Farm in
Commiskey, IN.
.


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Thursday, May 10, 2012

A sure fire way to hang your art perfectly.


http://www.celebrateeverydaywithme.com/2011/11/best-ever-picture-hanging-tip.html





This is a super link to a great blog and she has a great tutorial for hanging art, mirrors or anything else you want to hang on a wall, perfectly.  This is so clever, I wish I would have thought of it.

This blog is so clever and she has a myriad of ideas for lots of different things.  Very clever lady.

Please enjoy.  


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Thursday, May 3, 2012

Happy Day


Happy Days
is one of my experiments into
water mixable oils.
Due to health problems I can't work in traditional oils
and have always worked in acrylics.
I thought I'd give this a try and have done several paintings
using them.
This is painted from a photo I took of one of my husbands
many gardens last year.
This was so fun and I love the colors.

6" x 6" water mixable oil on canvas panel.
$100 + $10 shipping.
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Walk the Walk








Fifth Street House

I used to live in Carrollton and had the opportunity to take nice walks past some lovely old homes.

There was a home I loved to pass about a block away and in the summer the front porch was covered
in these beautiful hydrangeas.
I snapped a picture of it years ago, and finally got around to painting it.  
I actually put more of the porch in the painting than could be seen from the street.  
I love old homes and hydrangeas 
and hopefully you will enjoy it to.

8" x 10" unframed acrylic on panel.

$100 w/free shipping
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About Me

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Ghent, Kentucky, United States
I'm a nature artist and I love to paint old barns, rivers and lakes, trees and fence rows and flowers. I work almost daily. You can purchase paintings by contacting me at slgraves6@gmail.com and there is also a tab across the top of my blog for available paintings and one for small paintings with buy now buttons. You can also purchase through my Etsy shop using the name of Fine Nature Art. . Thank you so much for stopping by.