Visit The Farm

Farm Animal Friday

Last Friday I introduced you to JumbleBerry Farm,

where my husband and I live.

I showed you lots of the plants, orchards and berries

we raise here and sell at our local farmers market.

Today, I'm going to show you 

cuteness personified.

 We have 6 chicks,

and

with 6 you get. . .

 Eggs.

We have three new Jersey calves.

 

 Told you there was cute overload here?

 These calves are currently being bottle fed.

Some of the sheep we have.

 Baby lambs are so dang cute and fun to paint.

 

 This is Bella.

We had dairy goats and

 my husband has made lots of cheese. 

She is no longer with us,

but I did paint her and it sits on my husbands desk.

She was a very sweet goat.

 

 We also raise rabbits.

Lots of rabbits.

They're about 4 weeks old here.

Love painting rabbits.

 Jim and his miniature horses.

 They are a pair.

 They pull this cart.

We had a crazy fun dog, Bailey who loved to eat our corn.

When the corn got ready, he would pull up a whole stalk and bring it up to the house and eat it on the front porch.

 This is Callie sitting outside my kitchen window.

 Callie is one of several cats we have here on the farm.

 This is the real boss of the farm.

Her name is Misha.

You can't go anywhere on the farm without Misha escorting you around.  She goes everywhere with us.

I'm so glad you took this tour of our farm

and I hope you have found inspiration here

 and in your own home as well. 

Just so you're aware,
I'm releasing a new single subject painting class next week.
I'll be teaching how to paint iris.
The class is more like a project class, but you will learn how to mix color, what paints and brushes I use and then I'll walk you through every step so you can create your own beautiful iris painting.  I'll be teaching you a method, so you can paint them in any color or change the setting up to suit you.

The class will retail for $19.99 but for the very first week it will be on sale at an INSANELY LOW PRICE OF $9.99.
Told you it was insane.
I don't want you to miss out on this opportunity so
click the button below and make sure you're the first to know when it's going online.

       

Click Here To Receive Info on This Class

30 in 30 Challenge Wrap Up.

Looking Back on the Last 30 Days

I really can't believe it's over.

I made it through another 30 paintings in 30 days challenge.

This is the third one and before it began I was sure there was no way I could do it.

And yet, I did.

Need some proof.

They're not all on here.

The template I use for these does not have one with 30 spaces.  

But it has been great

and I learned more this time than the other two challenges I participated in.

I learned to draw or sketch out my painting first.

I changed the composition of several paintings once they were on paper and I could see some of the problems.

I learned a lot about brush strokes in oil,

I learned a lot about shadows in acrylic,

I learned to let go and have some fun.

I can almost look at every painting and point out something I learned.

I even have some I want to explore further and others I want to go large with.

This month has been stressful with the marriage of my daughter,

5 family birthdays, and the final days and death of my sister in law, Ann.

But painting every day actually kept me focused and on track to not waste my time.

Thank you all so much for following me on this journey, for commenting about my art and encouraging me to keep going.  Every single comment lifts me and makes me want to keep working.      

Day 29 Just Kidding

Day 29 Just Kidding

Just Kidding

7" x 5" unframed acrylic on a panel.

$50 + $6 shipping.

This was painted from a photo I took last year when our goats were kidding.

They were popping out all over the place.

This little girl stayed in our house for a few days while Mom got with the program.

She was just an hour or so old when I took the photo for this.

We have some super cute spotted goats

This is Day 29 of the 30 paintings in 30 days challenge.

And I can't believe I'm really going to make it.

I thought before the challenge started "there is no way I can do this, again".

As the challenge started, I got excited yet decided I was sure I would participate, but I didn't think there was a snow balls chance I would complete 30 paintings.

 About half way through the challenge I was having a wonderful time painting things I'd never painted before, such as still lifes of some interesting antique items.

Now as the challenge is coming to an end,

I feel like I'm just hitting my stride.

I have learned so much this time.

I've painted so many things I've never done before,

I've painted:

food,

animals,

kitchen stuff,

sewing stuff,

a basketball,

teddy bears,

a bridal veil,

snow,

hay bales,

and finally

hydrangeas.

Quite a few hydrangeas.

And now it's almost over.

I think you're really gonna like tomorrows final painting.

He was just born yesterday.

Day 14 Bella

Day 14 Bella

Meet Bella, she is one of the sweetest goats on planet earth.

Bella is one of the Nubian goats we raise.

Nubians are dairy goats and she is a great mama and a great milker.

My husband milks our goats and makes many varieties of goat cheese.

We can't sell the cheese because of the USDA and all the regulations involved.

We are a small producer so it would be cost prohibitive to build a cheese house,

install another septic system, 

as well as many other rules and regs,

so we eat some pretty great cheese.

She was named Bella because she has the markings of a Holstein cow

and one of our grandsons wanted to name her Bella after a cow bell.

She is just such a sweet goat but she is not as nosey as other goats.
FYI, goats don't eat tin cans, but they will try to lick out anything in a tin can.
They don't eat every plant, there are plants they don't like, but they will eat the bark right off some, but not all, trees,
They love cedar. 

They all have their own personalities and she's a sweetheart.

I'm really happy with this painting.  

I've been studying other animal paintings, especially the cats done by Diane Hoeptner,

and how she gets her cats to have that velvety look.

I asked her how many variations of gray does she use on her cat Cocoa and she said she starts with three but usually ends up with about five shades.

I studied the photographs I have of our goats and definitely saw a minimum of three shades of black, so I mixed up my black, took half of it and added white, and then took half of that and added more white,

and you can see on my palette where I also mixed some of the shades in varying amounts to get some of the highlights and shadows on all that black.
Naturally I had to do the same thing with white.
Whenever I paint white, I always start with gray and lighten it up in stages.
 

Thank you to Diane for your direction.

Click Here to go to Diane's blog.

Bella

5" x 7" unframed acrylic on a panel.

$50 + $6 shipping.