Beach Walk

Keeping with the theme of painting people, here is one I did of my sister and niece, Gail and Tracy, rolling a cart down to the beach near Gail's home in Virginia Beach.

I evidently like the challenge of doing an impressionistic painting of someone and actually having folks recognize the subject. This particular painting captures memories of a wonderful family beach vacation we had this past summer. It was a gray day, with just enough sun light to bounce off the clothes and cast a bit of a shadow. I ended up doing two paintings (8"x10" and 16"x20") of this scene -Christmas gifts for Gail and Tracy.

Enjoying life with people you love, does it get much better than that?

Soldier Boy

Meet Charlie, my oldest grandson. This past Halloween he decided he wanted to dress like a soldier. Ansley, my daughter-in-law, captured him standing in the doorway, gazing out with such a pensive look. The photograph spoke to my heart and I just had to try and capture it on canvas. This painting is the result.

I enjoy painting children, but I am not a portrait artist. I usually try and get a photograph of them doing something active - walking into the ocean, playing in the sand, on a mission in the great outdoors. Usually the faces aren't even showing. But, this time, I mustered up my courage to try to paint Charlie's face -just to give the impression of him, not to paint a portrait.

I was pleased with the result, and got the ultimate affirmation when Charlie saw it and said, "That's me!"

Blogging Here I Go!

 I'm thrilled to be entering the world of blogging. It is my great desire to be able to share my artistic journey with you through this blog, in hopes that as you get to know me and my art better, that it will speak to you in the magical language of visual art.

In this first blog post, I thought I'd tell you a little about myself. My artistic journey started 6 years ago when I took my first oil painting workshop from JoAnn Williams Walker and a new world was opened up to me! I immediately was pulled into the colors and feel of the paint and was amazed that I could actually paint the still life setup placed before me. Of course, JoAnn walked us through it step by step, holding our hands all the way. What a wonderful first art instructor she was! I continued studying under her and also went to workshops given by Perry Austin, Guido Frick, Bill Davidson, Nancy Franke, and Morgan Samuel Price, and Jim Richards.

For 5 years I attended several workshops a year and painted when I could –which wasn't all that often since my sweet husband, Doug, and I were busy cruising on our trawler, Interlude, for a lot of that time. We spent wonderful times cruising the Bahamas, the Florida Keys, and the Eastern seaboard from Brunswick, Georgia to Portland, Maine. In 2010 we took our last voyage on Interlude -a final trip to the Bahamas with our good friends Bill and Pippa Larson.

Once I got back on dry land,  I started spending more time painting. Two wonderful opportunities arose for me this year which artistically spurred me on. In February, I became a partner at Artists in Residence (Artists in Residence - Sandy Cox) in my hometown of LaGrange, GA. Then in April, I was selected to be in Jim Richards’ (Jim Richards) charter mentoring class. What a wonderful opportunity this is for me and my fellow mentoring friends. This is one of the most exciting times in my artistic life and I am happy to be sharing it with you through my blog.