SNOWY GREETINGS

If you like your winter nice & frigid, it's that kind of morning...HAPPY NEW YEAR!

SNOWSCAPE

The snow began in the night & it fell steadily all day, wrapping the house in a soft mantle. Aside from making a batch of christmas cookies, while listening to the radio, I got to work up a finish illustration. By adding the reindeer, it tells a better story. Hope this new design gets some license deal for 2013....HAPPY HOLIDAY!

WINTER PINES

Back at ARTISTRETREAT for a nice long break. I never tire of looking at the view from my window.

MY XMAS CARDS

With tons of exquisite christmas card designs in my stores, sending off xmas cards is just a few clicks away. This year, I thought I would spend some time to make some handmade christmas cards. Between printing, applying glitter & decorating envelopes, it took me half the day just to make a few cards. I think I will send out regular xmas cards next year! Always fun to be creative, just wish I have more time for all my projects.

WINTER LIGHTS

This is a pretty time to be going home in the dark. Everyone puts up christmas lights to balance out our very long winter. Nothing like twinkling lights & a bit of snow to make the whole area bright & magical. This sketch is good enough to be a finish. Hope to finish off with more detail on the house.

SNOWY DAY

It's that kind of a wintery weekend. Yup, raw & bleak outside my window. It's time to get out the christmas lights!

FROSTY MORNING

At 7 am, the whole valley was wrap in a deep frost, amazingly beautiful!

TOP SELLER

This started out as a quick sketch. The beagle is long gone, but his image lives on. This is a good selling card for me.

EQUESTRIAN

When my rep request for horse designs, I know better than to ignore it. Definately need to spend more time working on equestrian designs. The snowy background came from an old winter sketch. The xmas tree came from another sketchbook.

a new card, from a corner of my studio...the custom photo makes  it a unique card, it's all about personalizing these days!

HEAVY CLOUDS

Another wet country weekend, the sky still looks very stormy. Good time to play with pastel & oil turpentine. I lay down the page with pastel, rub it in with tinted turpentine. More back & forth with pastel pigments & turpentine wash. A touch of zinc white in oil for highlight. This is my favorite way to paint clouds.

ARTISTIC MUSE

 I mention often that nature offers me endless inspiration, right outside my window. Artistic muse can also come in the form of a new sketchbook. New paper, new experiments=many new sketches!

MY LATEST SKETCHBOOK

Artist tend to be collectors. It took much effort, but I try to keep my life clutter free these days. One of the few things I still collect is handmade sketchbooks. I have a nice collection from all over the world. What luck to find a talented book binder setting up shop in my town of Hobart, middle of nowhere!

FALL VIEWS

The passing clouds, along with the wind make for many quick studies from my deck.

FALL WEEKEND

After the rain, the sun is giving the wet foliage a fantastic glow...

FROM SKETCH TO FINISH

Did you know that Oct 17 in MOTHER IN LAW day? You can send out this pretty card from my store...

TEATIME

Another weekend came & went. Not very creative, except for alot of time in the kitchen. I adjusted this apple tart recipe a little bit...makes for a more interesting illustration.

CLASSIC COMPOSITION

This is a classic CLAUDIAN composition: a body of water in the middle, flanking trees on either side, & gentle mountains beyond to convey a calm & pleasing view of the Catskill Mountain.

FALL-LAKE

Started this sketch in Cooperstown last weekend... spending time in a secret garden. I got to define the boat on the lake today. I'm sure alot of the foliage are gone by this weekend.

NATURE

By being outdoor, that's where I get the stimulation and the fun of the unexpected. Nature does not come to your studio, you have to go to her... in my case, nature is right outside my window.

KITCHEN PANEL

Not from my sketchbook, but I consider this kitchen panel as a sketch, cause it really did not take that much time to decorate these panels.

SUMMER GREEN

Leaves are turning fast from the cool evenings. This might be the last time I can use my green paints. This Provence Lavender was added on when I was back in my studio. Which seems to contrast pretty good with the warm greens. This watercolor technique I use with my oils, works nicely on this texture paper. The wet medium sinks into the texture of the paper, which gives an impressionistic effect. I love happy accidents.

SUMMER BIRD

With the cooler days, hummingbirds &  other birds are gone from my garden. This might be the last time I see Robins in my garden till next spring.

HARVEST

It never fails, as soon as Labor day rolls around, there's the chill in the air. It also means the start of fall harvesting season. Such a wide variety of beautiful vegetables at the farmer's market!

HAY FIELDS

Because of the draught, the hay season is off by 50%. Still plenty of hayfields in the area for me to paint. I like the graphic quality of this simple composition.

CORN FIELDS

These summer cornfields are so lush & very scenic. With the graphic lines, rows of cornfields are pretty easy to paint. If I squint, I can pretend that I'm in CA, among the vineyards.

PEAR ILLUSTRATION

All this summer bounty, hard to decide what to paint when I come back from the farmer's market.

WINTER DESIGN

Not so easy to focus on my new winter collection with summer luring me into spending as much time in the garden as possible. Stop by my FACEBOOK,  to see how far I get to a finish design?

FROM THE GARDEN

Love these generous hours of summer....it's hard to draw a distinct line between my studio time & my time in the garden.

HOLLYHOCK

Hollyhock remains one of my favorite summer flower, for growing & painting.

NANTUCKET STATE OF MIND

Time spend on the island is always way too short. One week is just enough for me to be in the same state of mind to get started on...something new for a FUN SITE...we shall see?

NANTUCKET, MA

How could one resist the charm of Nantucket, MA...especially in the middle of a glorious summer week!

SUMMER EVENING

The wind off the pond, cool & crisp, charms the night. Perfect sleeping weather.

CHOCOLATE

Had a craving for a chocolate cake. Took some time off from my garden & got busy in my kitchen. Baking a mocha cake is easier than painting something brown. Experimented with different ways to draw chocolate. My kneaded eraser over brown pastel gave me just the right highlight...unapologetically luxurious chocolate FIX! All in all, a very good day!

SUMMER LIGHTS

This sketch started out at sunset. I dont usually sit down with paints till I can abstract a scene. It got dark, & the delightful fire flies came out with the sky full of stars. I layered on  some pastel to break up the dark shape. The last stage of using my imagination is usually the most fun. I've always prefer to study sketches for the more unfinished look, more exciting for the viewer??

FROM MY GARDEN

While flipping thru some old sketchbooks, I came upon this one from my garden. I just did a little editing to my old sketch to reflect my more mature garden.

NEW COLLECTION

After getting hot & sweaty in my garden, it's nice to just spend some time on my SWIRLS & GLITTER collection. It's not messy, & it's always fun to just play.

GLITTER & SWIRLS

Whether I'm sitting down or standing up, ideas for new projects & new collections can come out of thin air. I've always enjoy spending time with my correspondence. I'm too busy these days to just doodle. Addressing my envelope gives me an excuse to just doodle. Well, adding the glitter dots was just a thought...viola, my new line: SWIRLS & GLITTER is up & running on ETSY.

SUMMER HAZE

Taking a break from my gardening...yes, it's been this nice & glorious in the mountain for many days. One can see why there are so many June brides. Just love these long hazy days of summer.

CUSTOM POSTAGE STAMP

 Fooling around with some old pansy sketches this week. Found a little time to update my COTTAGEWEDDING collection. With my new pansy line, I included some custom postage stamp. Would a bride pay double to personalize their wedding suit?? Maybe I'm on the right track. This morning, I came upon an article on Envelopments new line. Even a big company is using zazzle.com to coordinate with their line of paper products.

OLD ILLUSTRATION

"Jump, and you will find out how to unfold your wings as you fall." Came across this quote from Ray Bradbury, on this new FAIRY blog. Illustration is 30 years old, I just added new wings with the help of photoshop.

BERRY SEASON

Yay, berry season once again, what better way to spend the day than to cruise along the backroads & stop at a BERRY FARM. The best part about picking strawberry is eating the ripe fresh berries. BLISS... with a finish sketch, it almost feels like a productive creative day.