Small Winter Party

I recently hosted a small party and wanted to share some of the desserts I made. The round cake is a chocolate cake with chocolate icing. There is a small pear dipped in sugar for decoration at the top. I also made apricots dipped in white chocolate, which were very good.

The cake above is a pound cake with chocolate frosting and again with sugared fruit and leaves as decoration.

I loved sugaring the fruit and the leaves so that it looked like frost had fallen on them. All of the fruit was miniature as well which added to the charm.

A Squid

"A Squid" is finished! I decided to add a very subtle background of white oil paint. I think it adds a pretty texture to the piece, while not overwhelming it. You can hardly notice the white oil when looking strait on as in the first picture. However as you go to the side:

It becomes much more obvious.

I'm so excited to add this to the "Oil and Water" series.

Title: A Squid

Medium: Watercolor and Oil

Size: 20"x24"

Small sections of a Painting

I love looking at small sections of my paintings and seeing what I have done, or in this case what is left to do. The above is an oil painting of the fall woods at Ridley Creek state park (one of my favorite places to hike). It still needs a bit more work but never the less I love how the colors are coming together. They are vibrant and full of deep blues and oranges. I think it really captures the breathless excitement of fall.

With this particular painting I took the advice of Mitchell Albala and played with the reference photo's colors to make it more evocative of the place, rather than just dully copying the photo which I always try to avoid. I enjoyed his "Gallery Talk" series very much, and found it very educational.

Color Play

I recently found a great blog called Color Collective, it a great place to get inspired and to help train your eyes to pull color from landscapes, paintings, fabric or really anything. Its good practice, I have found it helpful when trying to think of new color combinations that are perhaps outside of my comfort zone.

.....

This is my attempt at it!

Getting Ready

After lots of testing and playing around, I have decided on a background color. It took a lot of little paint swatches to finally find the perfect one. How do you decide on the next color to use, either with painting or anything else really?

(Don't worry this is just a picture of my messy pallet, not the background)

I'll hold off telling you which color I chose so that it can be a surprise!

Sleepy

My cat, the princess of pillows.

On my desk

1) My new Favorite lamp 2) My little cloud of geranium leaves

Background

Testing a few different options for the Squid background color, of course I may just leave it white.

Squid: An Update

Now to finish up the details and decide on a background.

Journal Making: 1st Attempt

I made my first hardback book yesterday. This is really just a trial run, but I am really happy with it and I learned a lot from the process. The book is cloth bound and the pages are sewn in.

I even put in a bookplate! Check out this amazing resource for vintage images.

I really like the texture of the cloth, and it was so simple to put together. My reference was this tutorial. If anyone has any questions I would be happy to give my input.

In Bloom

Its a lovely Saturday morning and I am puttering around my studio. My lovely Lady Slipper is in bloom again, which may inspire more paintings; for now it has the effect of making me feel as though I live in victorian greenhouse.

The "Oil and Water" series is coming along and I cannot wait to share more of it with all of you.

Wishing all of you a nice weekend!

New Prints!

The new prints of my "Green Cabbage in Oil" painting have arrived. I just picked them up from the printer yesterday, and they are stunning! The sizing is as follows:

22"x28"

16"x 20"

11"x14"

All are available through my Etsy shop. As always my prints are all numbered and signed. If you would like a larger or smaller custom version please feel free to contact me.

Squid: Progress

Lots of progress made, still a lot to do.

Squid - Work in Progress

I thought I would take a moment and post a quick update on the "Oil and Water" series. The next painting is going to be of a squid and much larger than "A Shrimp". As you can see its still a work in progress but I'm really excited about how its turning out!

A Shrimp

I'm so excited to show you the first part in my new series called "Oil and Water". The piece above is done with both watercolor and oil paints, hence the name of the series. This idea comes from people asking me what medium I use and when I reply that I use watercolor and oil, they usually (jokingly) ask if I do it at the same time. Well now I can say yes.

The rich texture of the oil alongside the smoothness of the watercolor is a stunning as well as an unusual combination. Along with this strange pairing of mediums, I've also been recently fascinated with sea creatures; so you can expect to see more of them within this particular series. I'm very excited to play with this concept and will be showing you more work as the pieces are developed and finished. Of course I should be careful with taking up suggestions from playful comments that people make in passing or you may find me painting houses and who knows where that would lead.

Title: A Shrimp

Series: Oil and Water

Size: 8.5"x9.5"

Medium: Watercolor and Oil

Sunny Winter

This winter has been so mild, no real snow has fallen here in Pennsylvania. So these pretty little snow flakes decorating a school are even more welcome. I'm told that there are close to 200 of them in total, scattered throughout the building. Now I want to try my hand at them!

I love how the light streams in and plays with the patterns.

Sketches and Succulents

Today is a nice overcast day perfect for drinking tea and sketching. I was admiring the collection of succulents on the window sills which has grown steadily through the years (they are so easy to root). So I decided to share one particularly unusual one (you may remember it from this painting).

It was sort of languishing in my north facing apartment so it had to be moved, look how happy it is now! I just love the pretty pink flowers.

I was playing around last night with my sketch book and for some reason became enamored with the idea of drawing shrimp. Above are my first few goes at it. I like them so far and am excited to add some color.

Happy Twelfth Night !

Quiet

Enjoying some quiet moments in the studio before I begin work for the day.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

I hope everyone is having a great start to 2012! My Christmas was great and New Years was also wonderful, I'm eager to begin a new year with lots of painting and new ideas.

Above is a piece I have been working on intermittently of the Pennsylvania woods in the fall. It is an oil on canvas and I hope to have it done fairly soon.