Hurricane Irma Impacts My World

Hurricane Irma Impacts Kentucky

or

Getting back in the saddle

I have an 87 year-old uncle who lives in Naples, Florida

with his wife Beverly.

They live on a golf course, and he plays golf every single day.

He plays golf all over the world.

He just returned from playing golf in Iceland and Sweden.

He's lived in Florida for 25 years,

and has never evacuated before.

Until IRMA!

They arrived at our house, Thursday before Irma hit.

I think Bud thought he would be here a few days and then head home.

Didn't exactly work out that way.

While his condo was spared any structural damage,

they had no electricity, no water, 

no gasoline or food was in the stores.

Two weeks after they arrived they headed home.

But while they were here,

we had a great time.

We put Bud to work picking green beans.  

That's a lot of bean!!!

We went to the Louisville Slugger Bat Museum.

Had a great tour and it was a super day.

It was cold the first week they were here.

Above, my uncle, yep my 87 year old uncle was in the batting cage at the Louisville slugger museum.  He got off a few hits!  He's amazing.  

The pic on the right is the 4 of us out for dinner one night.

Here his is at our farmer's market.  

This is me and my aunt Beverly being silly!

Lots of fun was had by all!

But,

no painting or blogging took place.

And it's OK!

But now I need to get back in the saddle

and get back to work.

Leave me a comment about how you get yourself back on track.

I'm way behind in everything,

so today I'm in the studio trying to get caught up in something.

I love writing on my blog,

so that's where I headed first.
Although I had so many computer issues, took me about 10 hours to get it ready to publish.
That dang rainbow wheel of death. 

I'll be painting later today,

and we'll see how that goes.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by.

I sell various items on eBay,

and right now I have 2 paintings that have the insane opening bid of $.99.

I told you it was insane!!!

Click HERE to go to one of the two paintings I listed at that ridiculous price.

It's a 12" x 12" acrylic on a panel.

Listed for $100.

I do this once or twice a year so you have a great opportunity for some original art.

Now's a great chance for you to bid on a painting of mine, if you've always wanted one.  
Here's the link for the second painting.
  
Happy bidding!

Doing What I Do - Landscape Painting

Haven't Done This In A While

17 years ago, I started out painting landscapes.

Since then, I've painted lots of other things,

like flowers!

I've gone crazy painting flowers.

I've painted old trucks and tractors.

I've painted baseballs, basketball, footballs, soccer balls

I've worked on figure painting

I've painted still lifts

I've painted indoors and out.

I've painted realistically and abstractly.

but I often come back to my starting point.

Painting Landscapes.

I started out with a 16" x 20" canvas I toned using burnt Sienna and some white and a little ultramarine blue in spots.  

I used a mixture of burnt umber and ultramarine blue

to sketch in the darkest parts of my painting.  

It gives me a place to start and helps keep me on track.

It also reminds me where the darkest parts of the painting will be.

I added sky starting with a mix of Ultramarine blue, dioxazine purple and turquoise deep with some titanium white.

You can see it starts darker at the top and gets lighter as it comes to the horizon line.

That creates depth.

I also took some of the same color as the sky for the water.

Started adding clouds here.

 Working on the clouds getting them more 3D looking.

I'm adding in most distant trees and varying layers of rocks.

I'm working from a photo my son James took in Utah.

So I have my iPad on a stand and this is how I work.

I've added some pine trees and I'm working on a lot of tree trunks that might be dead or might become pine trees.

  

I'm working on the trees and rocks here.

There are always a minimum of three values on the rocks and then sometimes you pull in a few other colors to bring them to life.

 Starting to add more water in deeper tones to add depth later.

I've also refined the rocks.

Notice how the ones in the foreground are warmer and brighter than the ones further back. 

 That also aids in the depth of the painting.

Starting to get movement in the water.

I'm really trying to get the water churning.  

There's lots of shades of white with touches of green, turquoise, and yellow added for more depth.

Here's a closeup of rocks on the left of the painting.

Here's a closeup of the rocks and water on the right side.

I made this short video near the end of the painting as I was adding more debris to the background and bringing out more trunks of the trees.

This was a really fun painting to do

and I hope you enjoyed the process photos.

Here it is.

Done and done,

and signed.

16" x 20" acrylic on stretched canvas - unframed

$200

Thanks for stopping by today and 

I hope you enjoyed seeing this process.

If you haven't signed up to receive my blog in your inbox,

you should.

Scroll back up to the top right and put your email in the box that says "Subscribe to my blog"

I give away a painting every month and I'd like you to win one.

Once you enter your email,

you will receive an email that asks you to click a confirmation link.

Please do that and then drag that email out of your promo folder and into your priority folder and then say yes to the question, do you want to do this for all future emails.

If you don't do the last part,

you won't receive my blog in your email

and 

(here's the sad part)

you won't get in the monthly drawing to win a painting.

Just sayin. . .

Encouragement - Motivation Monday

Encouragement

(ok so it's not really Monday, but we won't split hairs.)

Encouragement is my word of the week!

For my online students I have a private Facebook page where they can post photos of their work, ask questions, and encourage each other.

My students are basically all beginning painters,

so their fear level of "not doing good enough" is pretty high.

That's where encouragement comes in.

There are enough critics in the world,

especially recently,

and I really think we could use with more encouragement.

Encourage:

your friends,

your family,

your classmates,

your co-workers,

your employees,

your spouse,

your children,

and

ESPECIALLY

Yourself!

Enough with the negativity,

the I can't's

the I'm no goods,

 the they are betters,

the I'll never get this',

the I'm pathetics,

and bring on the:

I did so much better on this than the last time,

I like this part of my painting,

I'm excited I learned how to . . .

I've finally gotten that and it makes me feel great. . .

I understand how this works. . .

I am beginning to see things differently. . .

I learned this, so I know I can learn that. . .

There are enough people in the world to bring us down,

don't you add to that by bringing your own self down.

Great art doesn't just exude out of some people 

and not others. 

Artists that we love today, like Van Gogh were not successful in their day, and yet, they kept painting.

Monet struggled financially for years and yet,

he kept painting.

Photo of Monet painting Water Lilies.

Photographed from a book 

Monet  A Retrospective

(That's not exactly how I pictured him)

Let's encourage each other and ourselves

in a world that is nearly taken over with negativity

and watch as our own art improves as will our state of mind.

It's amazing, but one encouraging comment on Instagram or Facebook or a blog can carry someone through for months.

Years ago, Jim and I took our 4 children out to eat.  They were between the ages of 3 months and 7 years.

(I know, what were we thinking???)

I felt like it was a crazy chaotic meal,

and as an older couple got up to leave  

they headed in the direction of our table.

They stopped at our table and said,

"You have the best behaved children I think we've ever seen,"

That one sentence of encouragement brings tears to my eyes just writing about it now.

The 7 year old is now 43 and that sweet sentence

kept me going for years.

When I felt like I was the biggest failure as a mom,

I'd think back to that day and take a big breath

and go on being a mom.

Encouragement 

is something we all need.

You're doing a great job and I hope you know it!

Thank you so much for following my blog.

I so appreciate it!

Continue working hard at whatever it is you love.

Thanks for stopping by today and have a great day!

Hey, I try to give away a painting every month,

but some months are harder than others.

If you receive my blog in your inbox,

you're golden.

You are in the running for the painting

 I give away every month.

If you don't, well we can fix that.

Go to the top right hand side of this blog

and put your email in the box that says

wait for it

Subscribe to My Blog.

Now here's the really important part!!!

You will receive an email with a link to click to confirm you did actually sign up.

You must click that link to confirm,

and then, and only then,

will you start receiving my blog in your inbox

and then, and only then

will you be eligible to win my monthly painting giveaway!

Now you know, 

so go get signed up,

and click the link in the email you'll receive.

I want to give you a painting.

Every month I send out an email with 

No Joke!  YOU Won! 

in the subject line.

Then you have 24 hours to get back to me with your address,

so I can send you the painting.

Nope, I'm not going to come and camp out on your door step.

I just want to send you a free painting.

I promise.

I send out the email to the 1st winner,

and if I don't hear back within 24 hours, 

I move on to the 2nd email address.

If that person doesn't respond,

(which you might not believe it, but it happens)

Then no one wins a painting that month.

(insert sad face here)

Now you know!

Have a great one.