Vacation Inspiration

I am SO excited! We just booked a spring vacation in Yosemite. I estimate that it has probably been at least 15 years since we've visited the most awesome national park in California. Even better, we will be accompanied by a close friend whose never been there.

We have some fond memories of YNP over the years but this time I am looking forward to gathering inspiration for paintings. The first time we went was when our daughter Karin was about two. We camped just below El Capitan and that night Karin accidentally touched the top shade of the propane lantern and burned her tiny hand. I say accidentally but two-year olds are curious so obviously it was our fault for not being more cautious. Bad parenting! The park was dead quiet but for the howling of a toddler. We took her to the "hospital" in the park and they told us all we could do was put ice water on it. So all night we held her tiny hand in a stainless sierra cup filled with cold water. In the morning she was fine and acted as if nothing had happened. Crises averted!

That same morning we woke to voices of camp neighbors preparing to climb El Capitan which for those unfamiliar is a sheer vertical rock face rising to a majestic 3,000 feet above the valley floor. The acoustics in the valley are such that you can occasionally hear people on the rock but when you look all you see are tiny specs moving up or down or swinging from their sleeping apparatus stuck to the side of the granite monolith.

I can't wait to see everything again and feel that sense of awe when we come out of the tunnel at Inspiration Point and the whole valley is spread out before your eyes. It is going to be awesome!

Hurry end of April!

Well, I finally did it...

Started this blog that is. It took me all day to set this thing up (I am a noodler). I look forward to sharing my artistic inspiration as well as news of my Etsy shop. You will find out about upcoming sales events (such as the 20% off Black Friday/Cyber Monday sale) here too. 

Bear with me while I get the hang of this though...blogging is new to this girl. ;)

Without further ado here are three of my latest paintings:

"Golden Gate"

(16x20 on watercolor canvas)

This is my first attempt at using watercolor canvas. It is very strange stuff. It is both horrible and wonderful at the same time. The horrible aspect is that while painting on the surface I find myself wanting to pitch it through a window. It doesn't behave in the same way as the Arches watercolor paper I have used for a gazillion years. However, it is forgiving in that you can virtually wash off any "uh ohs" and start again. I have found that I should not judge it until it is dry because like all watercolor painting, it has a mind of its own and sometimes knows what is best. I'm not abandoning Arches though it is fun to try something new now and then.

"Bonding at Bellows"

(9x14 Watercolor on 140# Arches)

This painting and the one below were commissions. I don't normally like doing commissions because I have to love the subject matter or I can't do it justice, but in this case I did love the images. The client is giving these to his wife for Christmas. This one is the beach where they were married hence the title.

"Poipu Perks"

(9x14 Watercolor on 140# Arches)

Snowy Egret Sentinel —my next painting or...?

Today I fully intended to go to the shores to get some exercise in and see if my egret friends were there again at the "falls" just north of the pier  and below SIO. Somehow that didn't happen. It was too cold and gloomy to go and I knew but the time I got there the tide would be high.

I'm convinced that the bird in the pictures above is the same one I have seen on several occasions. He/she is almost always in the same general location and is extremely tame in that I can get within about six feet before he flies off briefly and then returns when he/she sees I mean no harm. Sometimes there are other snowy egrets there as well. In fact the first time I discovered them it looked like a party was going on under the little waterfall that empties onto the beach there. In the space of about 45 minutes 13 showed up. I took these pics intending to do a new watercolor with this beautiful creature as the subject. But sitting in my "thinking chair" talking on the phone with my daughter and staring at the beginnings of a project I started long ago I came up with another idea. Stay tuned and you will see another side of my art. Art Quilts.