Blog

"Quiet the Chatter" 12x12, oil on canvas, $360 I wanted to try yesterday’s image on a larger canvas. Today’s painting is 12x12 as compared to yesterday’s 6x6. Double the size, I painted it in about half the time.  The strokes are looser and there are fewer of them. I...

  "Consider" 6x6, oil on canvas $135.00  I did a little series of figure paintings not too long ago and wanted to do a few more this month. I got some advice once about painting and about writing-- paint the painting you’d want to own; write the book you want to...

"The Other Side" 16x20, oil on canvas $540.00 For each day so far, I've started with two canvases on my easel. Usually I flip the image for the second canvas. This time, I didn't flip the same image, but rather continued it onto the second canvas. This tree is further...

"Heading Home Again" 16x20, oil on canvas $540.00 A while ago, I wrote about a teacher I had in junior high who required us to memorize poems-- it was one of the greatest and most long-lasting gifts. At the end of that post, I reflected that, given how much it had...

"In the Stillness" 6x6, oil on canvas, $135.00    After yesterday’s “no” painting, I wanted to consider my “yes’s”. What do my “no’s” open me up to?  I started today’s painting with a canvas full of yes. The “yes’s” are fewer and more deliberate than the “no’s.”...

"Space Between" 6x6, oil on canvas I try to stay at least one day ahead with my paintings and my blog posts. That way, when life inevitably throws a curve ball, I'm prepared and can still get all 31 paintings in during the month. I wrote the post below before the...

  "Out of Darkness" 16x16, oil on canvas Yesterday’s painting was loosely sketched with a brush and some thinned out burnt sienna. Today’s, the one that sat next to yesterday’s on the easel and borrowed some of its colors from time to time, had no sketch to...

"Stop and Smell" 16x16, oil on canvas  We watched Pixar’s Soul last night. My favorite part was the little ordinary objects 22 stores in Joe’s pocket-- a spool of thread, a pizza crust. How delighted she was by the ordinary. How frustrated I have been lately with the...

"Time to Linger" 12x12, oil on canvas Still working in pairs and loving what has transpired. I like flipping the image on the second canvas and working the composition from the other direction. I used two more wooden  stretcher keys in this one-- still not sure if...

"How the Light Gets in"  12x12, oil on canvas When you buy canvas, it sometimes comes with these little pieces of wood-- stretcher keys. They are there to strengthen the canvas if it begins to sag. Never having had a need for them before, I typically throw them away. ...

 "Break Free" 16x20, oil on canvas I decided to start working in pairs of paintings-- two on the easel at the same time. And even if one of the two was my primary focus, I’d let the knife run over into the other on occasion just to get the second started. There’s...

"Slow Down" 16x20, oil on canvas For someone who slings paint around just to enjoy the drips, blobs and imperfections, I am often hopelessly neurotic. I take our puppy out every ten minutes for fear she will have an accident. As for my human children, I am not the...

Recently, I woke up from a nightmare-- the calendar said January 16, and I had yet to start my annual 31 in 31 daily painting challenge.  In the dream I was in a panic-- was it too late to start? What about everyone else who joins with me each year? Had they been...

"Piece of the Continent, Part of the Main" 24x30, oil on canvas I got the title for this painting from something I learned when I was thirteen. My seventh grade reading teacher had a couch in her classroom-- a throne individual students got to spend class in as a...

I’m reading this book called “Think Like a Monk” by Jay Shetty. He describes an encounter I keep thinking about: One day at the Ashram, Shetty sees a child no more than ten years old teaching a group of five year olds. When he asks the child what he’s doing, the child...

  About a month ago I painted live at a gala for St. Tammany Parish Hospital Foundation. They had asked me to do an abstract-- something I love but had not done in quite some time. The morning of the event, I took to my easel to try to work out what kind of painting I...

  "Maybe our world will grow kinder eventually Maybe the desire to make something beautiful      is the piece of God that is inside each of us" --"Franz Marc's Blue Horses" by Mary Oliver     My first art lesson was in a small second...

I’m sitting on a row of raised seats in a small hallway looking through a large, glassless window at a group of kids kicking and punching into the air.  “Repeat after me!” a booming voice demands.  “Failure!” it says. A chorus follows: “Failure!” “Is my friend!” and...

Since I’ve been painting less and less at weddings and events, I’ve changed the model for my at-home painting. This marks the third month in a row that I’ve put out a small series of paintings on my website. It’s a change and sometimes a challenge, but I firmly...

I used to spend nearly every weekend celebrating someone’s wedding. I’d paint, and they’d dance. I’d mix colors, and they’d clink glasses. I’d watch happy couples dance and relatives tilt their heads to the side as they looked on and smiled.  Most of the weddings I...

I heard some commotion on the screen porch the other day and went out to investigate. Apparently I’d left the door propped open the last time I was photographing my paintings, and a bright red cardinal had gotten inside. What I heard was the sound of him throwing...

I have been working hard on a particular batch of paintings-- a triptych for a nursery for a very dear friend. My paintings have been less than inspired lately. The strokes feel labored, my subjects tired (gee, I wonder whose energy they could be reflecting?) so when...

"From Shadows" 20x20, oil on canvas I’ve been MIA on my blog. On May 28th, surrounded by family in a small ceremony, I got married to the love of my life on the steps on St. Rose de Lima church in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. The next day, we jumped in the car and...

Coronavirus time reminds me of when my son was really little and I would sneak in painting sessions when he napped. I never knew exactly how long I would have. I just knew the time was small and precious. I gave little efforts that somehow, miraculously, added up. ...

"Muddy Waters" 10x10, oil on canvas, $300.00 Today’s painting is of the Tchefuncte River-- that special place where cypress trees reach their long trunks into the muddy waters that hold a mirror up to them. Form and reflection touching where land meets water. It is a...

"Magnolia Melodies" 10x10, oil on canvas, $300.00 I typically like to paint flowers with less specificity-- roses and ranunculus in particular. Flowers whose petals all kind of blend together, and I freely apply the palette knife to the canvas to create bumps...

Today’s painting is the second part of a small commission I shared on day 48. The setting is the Mandeville lakefront, a place I’ve spent my fair share of days.  Looking forward to more of these kind of days-- footloose and fancy free.

"Celebration" 16x16, oil on canvas I used to see a lot of arrangements like these at the weddings I would attend almost every weekend. My weekends now are slower-paced and with fewer flowers.  We got the go ahead yesterday to have our "micro-wedding" (just...

"Rest Here Awhile" 4x4, oil on canvas, $80.00 My mother's day was so good yesterday I decided to give myself the day off from both painting and posting. Now that we're up into the 50s, the little breaks are becoming more and more essential. We spent the day at the...

"Uplifted" 6x6, oil on canvas What's that saying? The only things we can be certain of are death and taxes? I'll add one to the list-- children interrupting you.  I can't keep track of the days anymore. Edit: I don't care to keep track anymore. At my house, we are...