St. Nicholas

Tonight is St. Nicholas Eve.  A night of small gifts and kindness.  To learn more about St. Nicholas go to www.stnicholascenter.org. 

Celebrate Five

Today I am celebrating how fortunate I am to work in my raised garden boxes, year round.  Even when most parts of the USA are too dry or are covered with snow, here in Florida, I am planting and harvesting fruit and vegetables in the late fall and winter.  Today I will be planting my turnip seeds.  Exciting! 

Celebrate Four

Next Thursday is Thanksgiving and we have so much to be thankful for here at our home.  We are counting our blessings, what about you?  Celebrate, for life is good!

Celebrate Three

Hello from Florida,

I know, this doesn't look like a painting of Florida does it?  You would be right!  I painted this in Northern Wisconsin on a painting trip in late October.  I was with two great outdoor painting buddies, Lynn Rix and Lori Beringer.  It was cool and breezy but the day was warmed by our friendship and love of painting.  So today I am celebrating painting the beauty of autumn with dear friends.

Celebrate Two

Hi, Everyone,                                                                                 

It is official we are no longer Snow Birds from Wisconsin.  We have sold our cottage in Northern Wisconsin and our moving van will arrive here in Florida soon.  Today's temperature here will be 75 degrees, the temperature there (our previous home) is 30 degrees and 12 inches of snow on the ground with snow continuing to fall.
We are celebrating being 'home' in this year round warm climate.  Today our grapefruit tree is giving us grapefruit.  Amazing, grapefruit growing 'here' while it snows 'there.'

Yours in art,
Pamela

Summer Garden

This stork visited my cottage by the St. John's River and I had a chance to paint him while he/she posed.  (It was a long pose for a bird.)  I was so happy that my art materials were close by and ready to be used when I realized the stork had landed by the raised bed gardens.

It is a good thing I have put away my childish ideas about storks bringing newborn babies to your doorstep.  If storks really brought babies we wouldn't be prepared anymore.  Our sons are grown and we are empty nesters now.  My current babies are my gardens (growing vegetables, fruit and flowers), my artwork, and volunteering.  

Rainy Beach Run

My husband loves to run early in the morning.  Especially, on the beach where he can feel the fresh salt air and hear the waves lapping on the shore.  He runs in all weather conditions.  This day he had the beach all to himself.  No one else was around, not even the birds joined him. 

BEACH BUDDIES

After my sister's visit it was time to return to the beach.  These seagulls acted like best buddies as they flew together, found food treasures together, skirted people and obstacles on the beach together, and hopped up and down together.  What a joy it was to paint them and watch them move about - together. 

Copper Kettle

Yesterday, we ordered the Thanksgiving Turkey and I am certainly thinking about that up coming celebration of thankfulness.
I entered this painting, "Copper Kettle" into the current painting challenge to paint a painting about texture at www.dailypaintworks.com.
Yours in art,
Pamela

Ten Pounds

I love to paint but my other passion is gardening.  Not only do I enjoy being in the garden and eating the results, but I am always reading about new ways to increase my harvest.
While looking at an article about cabbages, I learned that the worlds largest cabbage weighed in at 138 LBS.  This heavyweight broke to 2009 record by 10 LBS.

Ornamental Gourds

Being able to paint on a farmers property is really a privilege and I try to keep my easel out of their way, as they go about their very busy day completing their many chores.  Barb had just picked these ornamental gourds from the field and placed them by the outbuilding, when I asked her if I could paint them right where they were.  I set to work; but painting the gourds was a lot easier then planting, weeding, watering and picking that Barb had done before putting the gourds in the baskets.  

A Place of Her Own

My neighbor's outbuildings have always fascinated me.  Each one is used for something special.  One is a potting shed with a storage area for handmade holiday decorations, a garage for the car, woodshed (filled with wood for cozy fires in winter), a storage shed and my favorite, her workshop.  Even though the outside of the workshop is filled with flowering trees, vines, and blooms galore; inside the workshop are her well worn tools for the hard, but rewarding work of gardening, woodworking, carving and repairing.

Free to Be

My neighbors yard is filled with flowers.  One whole flower bed is filled with Tiger Lilies that have been allowed to self seed and the bees and hummingbirds are benefiting.  I am so lucky to be able to paint the beauty that is right next door.  

On Thursday Give Thanks

My sunflowers have flowered and the heads are starting to have sunflower seeds. The sunflowers have  bloomed just in time for me to create this oil painting for the Daily Paint Works Sunflower(s) Challenge.  

On Sunday Smell the Roses

This painting is entered into the DPW Challenge on Composition.  It was fun to use two (I have a whole collection of women's needlecraft) of my tea towels and the red climbing roses, from the arbor outside the studio, in this still life set-up.  

NASTURTIUM

These nasturtium were a riot of color in my window box and it was an exciting challenge to capture their colors in paint for this still life.  Not only were these colorful flowers beautiful cascading down the window box, but as an added bonus, the flowers and leaves are edible. 

Baby Rubber Duckie Dancing

After painting this little (5" x 7") gouache painting I decided to donate it to the Oklahoma Tornado Fundraiser auction through my sales site at www.dailypaintworks.com.  100% of all of the proceeds from the sale of this painting will go to the Red Cross to help the victims of the Oklahoma Tornado.  

Diva Duckie

This weeks Daily Paint Works challenge was to paint a composition that was mostly warm or mostly cool with the remaining portion the opposite of the majority temperature.  This sounded very interesting to me and I started gathering my still life items to paint for the challenge.  As you can see I have created a mostly warm painting with a smaller portion of cool temperature pigments completing the painting.

Diamonds may be a girls best friend but it appears that rubber duckies (at least Diva Duckies) prefer pearls. 

Spring Bouquet

My good friend, Lori, sent me this lovely vase from Wisconsin.  The vase has been here for several weeks and I have been wanting to paint the dainty vase, but didn't have the right flowers to fill it.  Today I discovered wildflowers growing beside our road and knew they belonged in the peach glass vase.
Wisconsin has had a long winter so I painted a 'Spring Bouquet' for Lori and all who are still waiting for spring to arrive.  

Good News

What could possibly be good news after the Marathon Bombing in Boston and the Fertilizer Plant explosion in Texas this week?  I wondered that myself as I painted in my studio.  Then I heard this quote from "Mr. Rogers" (a children's television host and Presbyterian Pastor), "When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say,"Look for the helpers.  You will always find people who are helping."  To this day, especially in times of 'disaster', I remember my mother's words, and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helping - so many caring people in the world."   It is always good news to remember that there are many more good people in our world that evil ones.