PURITY

It's been a long while since my last post!  On my facebook page I posted a painting I had started that was fairly close to finished, and that was a while ago!  Really I looked at it almost every day and thought it shouldn't take me too much longer, but that would be if I gave myself the time to sit and work on it...and there have been more important things for me to do. Here it is...I am quite happy with it.  I debated having a solid black background or painting it a different color.  I decided to make it black but give it texture and interest by using some of my paintable papers with the embossed finish and painting layers over that...I really like the way it turned out. If you look straight on, it looks like a deep black, but when light hits it or you take a step to the side and look, you can see the great texture that the papers gave it.
This is the piece I posted while still in progress...

Here she is completed...

The crooked candle adds to the ambiance....

I think she came out quite nicely...

I added little beads and glitter to her crown...

I took this shot on an angle and with a lot of light coming through the window so you could see all of the texture that is in the background...

A WEEK AT THE BEACH...A WEEK OF INSPIRATION

is Buddy enjoying being off leash, or what?

We went to Pacific Way Cafe every morning for coffee and a croissant...I just love it there...

I love all of the pictures on the walls too.  In fact we modeled hanging the pictures in my studio the same as they do at Pacific Way.  It just seems so homey and gives you so much to look at.

 

I loved what someone made out of driftwood.  It looked like a doorway to the path.  There is usually a big driftwood house that we explore somewhere on the beach, but this was different and very simple.

and here is another...

and of course, there's crabbing. We caught quite a few but all but one were females, so we threw them back.

walking the ridge path that Lewis and Clark walked...

oh, to have a house on the ocean...

this is a house that has been featured in magazines...there is a rock wall on the outside...cool, huh?

here is a great store called Romancing the Home...

and of course with all this nature, I picked up a charcoal pencil and sketched a few shells...

I just LOVE the beach...

BARN SALES AND SECOND HAND STORES...

I went to this sale a bit ago, and thought I'd show you what I saw...it's in Estacada, Oregon and this lady has converted her "barn" into a store of her finds.  Her house is set across from it. She opens it twice a year for the sale and has art classes as well. It's called the Tole Barn...here are a few pics...

looking into a doorway like this makes you want to go in...doesn't it?

and there was even an upstairs area!  That's where she is set up for her art classes too.  My sis-in-law found a silver platter that she loves!  I want a barn!  Really I do!!!

We stumbled on a great second hand store where I scored my find!  To some it would look like a junk shop...but to me, amidst the boxes and boxes of stuff I knew I would find something.  I could have spent hours in there...and I found it!  It was $22 frame and all!

The stitchery was under glass in the frame but without a mat...so I bought and cut a mat board to fit.

Isn't it just beautiful?  I love the real leaves and the angel that they set in there...and the gold metallic in the threads...and the staining from being time worn...I also love finding and giving new love and life to things that others don't find interesting or want anymore.  It is hanging proudly in my studio.

IT'S AUTUMN!

 I finished Autumn!  And here was my inspiration piece that my sister sent me from a magazine...Doesn't she look like fall, with her red hair and warm colors she has on?

and here is my completed interpretation...I shortened her face a bit because I had already painted her without the color and realized after holding it up to Winter, that I wanted to be close in the size of their faces...now if this was a commission, where I was matching a photograph of someone...I would have started over.

and here I show her hanging on a wall at my house to show the depth of her colors.  The shine on her clothes is wet paint.  I am awful with being able to wait until things are dry to take the pictures!

Look at my previous post yesterday to see her progression...