Poppies!!!!

Adding to my flower collection to welcome spring, is a painting I painted inspired by style of Annelien Beukenkamp . Her watercolors really have a translucent feel. I especially love her flower paintings and yet I love the style of Jean Uhl Spicer (She doesn't have a website ...I only could find her book "Bright & Beautiful Flowers"). If you like painting flowers, it's a great book. I also saw it on Swaptree. Someday, I have to get back east to take a workshop from either artist.

The little ripples at the bottom are a reflection when I took the picture on the glass patio table. I liked it so I left it in... what the heck.

Touch of Spring

Here in my neighborhood, the soil is rock hard. So basically, if you don't enrich the soil, anything you plant will eventually die. Now that the weather's still cool, we've been using a jack hammer to dig bigger holes for bushes in the yard. My husband jackhammers and I dig. Oh, it's been fun.

It's good exercise but I'm getting too old for this!

I'll never forget when we first moved to California , it was March and everything smelled so wonderful with the orange blossoms and jasmine in bloom. Here's a little bouquet to welcome spring.

Cinnamon

Here's my latest dog portrait of Cinnamon, a lovely golden retriever, who recently passed. I think it's nice to remember your beloved animals with a portrait. This will be a present from my friend.

Niece and Nephew

I've been asked if I paint children , too. So I decided to do a practice painting of my niece, Isabelle and godchild, Stevie. It's nice to use 300 lb. paper because it can take alot of abuse.

Although I dared to publish this one, I need to do a better job on the skin and shadows. I once tried a portrait book but she used green for shadows and I just don't like the effect.

And yes, her blue eyes are that big and beautiful in real life. She's a cutie! (and nephew, too.)

Sweetheart Bench

Do you ever wonder what inspires a painting? I find that the hardest ... inspiration and composition. The first painting I did of this bench was very literal. After all that work, it didn't measure up. So, I painted this one for fun. I like it, because I painted it in the Disneyland fashion... none of the houses in Toontown are straight...

Keepin It Loose

In general, my dog paintings are very tight and realistic but I also love painting loose and free. I wanted to experiment with watercolor pencil, so I doodled around with it many times. This is one study I liked.

Alyssa

I borrowed one of my daughter's pictures of her friend to play with this texture technique as used in Mary's blog "In a Soft Light".

Instead of photoshop, I used my favorite program, Picnik.