Cornflowers

Cornflowers in My Garden

This is a small (8 x 10) oil on a deep-cradle (1 1/2 inch) Ampersand gesso board so it doesn't need to be framed. It was incredibly fun to paint. These are some of the few flowers in my garden that the gophers are not interested in! I was a bit worried about the colors as I was painting, but a bee came into the shed as I was working and hovered over the flowers in the painting. Risky for her, but solid confirmation for me!

Also impressionism is a combination of painting wet into wet paint and not wearing ones glasses. Impatience, color, myopia.

Thus It Was

 Gamblin Artist's Oils blends all their leftover paint together into a conglomeration of colors they call "Torrit Gray." They offer a challenge to artists to paint only in that gray, black and white. I gave it a shot this week. This is an illustration of a poem by Dag Hammarskjöld's poem, "Thus It Was."

If I get up the guts to enter the contest, and if I were to win, it would be a substantial amount of art material. This is 8 x 10 on Ampersand gesso board. 



Thus It Was 

I am being driven forward
Into an unknown land.
The pass grows steeper,
The air colder and sharper.
A wind from my unknown goal
Stirs the strings
Of expectation.

Still the question:
Shall I ever get there?
There where life resounds,
A clear pure note
In the silence.

The Three Graces

It's 8 x 10 water media in a silver frame and the colors are a LOT prettier in real life!

This is actually a painting of a little girl spinning around in the yard on a perfect summer day. I don't know where the idea came from but it was a persistent image so I sketched it some time ago and tried painting it today. I used Ampersand claybord but I am not sure I understand how this surface can be best used. I'll keep playing around with it.

Blood Oranges and Not

Indoor natural light with flash

Oranges, 5 x 7 Watercolor and Aquarelle Pencils on Ampersand Aquabord
Outdoor natural light