Apricots

oil 9x12 inches For a closer look and purchase info click here. Apricots from a gigantic old tree. The blue bowl's influence on the fruit and shadows made this plein air still life especially interesting to me.

The Tractor In Back

oil 9x12 inches For a closer look and purchase info, click here. I guess I'm drawn to tractors. One day I drove around the Wilder area taking pictures of tractors. There were plenty and they were loved. They were on display in the front yards. One even had Christmas lights. This tractor was just a few steps from where I was staying on the river. Of the four paintings I did in Idaho, this is my favorite.

Snake River

oil 9x12 inches For a closer look and purchase info, click here. I painted this on location, but reworked it quite a bit in the studio when I got home. Thankfully, TSA left my paints alone in my suitcase, but this painting arrived home with a scrape down the center. Maybe they stuck something down into my panel carrier between the wet paintings or pulled the paintings out. There's no way to know. In any case, fortunately I had planned to finish this one at home anyway. It was a hot day on the river, and hopefully you get that feeling from the painting.

Turquoise Truck

oil 9x12 inches For a closer look and purchase info, click here. Painted in Wilder, Idaho along the Snake River.

Windows, Idaho City -sold

watercolor & gouache approx 11x8 inches magnify/purchase Reading about John Singer Sargent this weekend got me in the mood for some watercolor. Not surprisingly, he produced about 900 oils. But did you know he did about 2000 watercolors? And he had no problem using some opaque paint here and there. I had fun with this, then even more fun playing with some gouache on top.

Window Box

oil 8x6 inches click for purchase information and zoom A few years back my husband and I took a walk through an older neighborhood in Meridian, Idaho. The little old houses were beautifully cared for. When I saw this scene, my first thought was of course, "what beautiful gardening." No, it's more than that. It's love. Someone had poured their love into that yard, and here I was enjoying the beauty of it. I'm thinking about how important it is to do our work with love, whatever that work may be.

Old Idaho Winter

watercolor 11x14 1/2 inches
click here to bid

Driving around in Meridian my daughter-in-law was kind enough to circle back and pull over so I could take some shots of this scene. While I was trudging along the side of the road, she worried that somebody would come out of the house with a rifle. I'm told Idaho has more guns per person than any other state. In fact, I shot a few of them while I was there. Oh yeah...back to the painting. Everything looked so cold, but the afternoon light gave the sky a glow that I thought would make a nice painting. Bare trees mean a lot of calligraphy, and they can end up looking spooky. I think the trick is to notice that in general the branches reach up and out, not down. I hope I captured the feel of winter.