Owen County has some beautiful scenes

An artist friend and I spent a couple of mornings early in the month traveling the backroads of Owen and Morgan counties.  We came across this creek scene and I felt I had to try to get it on canvas.

Nancy Franke workshop

I was absolutely delighted to be able to attend Nancy Franke's workshop in Chattanooga in March.  It was held in Lisa Seago's wonderful studio--Artworks.  Nancy is so much fun and inspired me to come home and paint the two paintings that I've posted.  Nancy uses very large brushes even on small a small canvas--encouraging the artist to capture only the essentials of the set up.   I have been a fan of Nancy's work for a long time and if you want to see her work she has a website. 

painting with friends

I have had wonderful houseguests for the past couple of days--two artist friends and their husbands.  We painted, laughed a lot, and painted some more.  Karen and Barb created, I'm sure, a masterpiece.  This is all I could muster--just having too much fun!  What a welcome visit during the month of February.  Spring is coming!!

Quiet Confidence

My granddaughter is a gymnast and she has taken 1st place in her division at the last 2 competitions.  It is so much fun to watch her compete.  She appears to so assured and confident.  She is only 10.  I tried to capture the moment before the awards were announced.

winter blues

I have so much trouble getting excited about painting.  Perhaps it's because I love to paint flowers and there just aren't any.  Had to work from fake flowers to do this painting and it's not the same--it lacks passion.  Oh, well, it is an attempt at gearing up for spring!

Back to painting

I have not been painting for the last 2 or 3 weeks and it is difficult to get started.  I picked the last of my roses from the garden and arranged them.  I loosely based these two knife paintings on the arrangement.  I wanted to just have fun and "ice" the canvas (like icing a cake).  I really like the loose, sort of abstract look of a knife painting.  I did notice that when I took the photo of each, I cropped the painting a little too much.  Things don't quite hug the edges as they appear in the photos.

The Shard Pile

I had two wonderful houseguests last week.  We talked art, visited a studio and art museums and painted.  How good can it get!  One of my guests shared a photo she had taken in Italy.  It seemed to be very busy but was very interesting to me.  After all, I am a gardener and have a collection of unused pots and shards.  It was a challenge to paint and there was a lot of problem solving to be done.  This is my attempt.