Landslide

Landslide, oil on board, 14x 18"

Rows and rows of uphill vines acting as earths sun catchers.

Long-legged

Long-legged, oil on board, 16x20"

I really need to get a phone with a better camera. I took several photos of this painting, and I feel like it still isn't represented to the best of its ability.  Regardless, I loved these long-legged vines.  I wish I knew what varietal they are.  When I was painting the background, I blurred the photo so I wouldn't get to caught up in the nitty gritty, i.e. the details. The abstraction was fun to do, and still shows the depth of space.

Kansas Farm Lake

Kansas Farm Lake, oil on gessobord, 10x10"

I returned to the subject matter that I love the most for this painting, vast and sweeping farms. The photo reference  was taken last summer while driving to Colorado.  I am an urban girl, through and through, but I am always drawn to expansive amounts of space, a big portion of it untouched in many ways. I guess it's the yin and yang, the push and the pull, the balance. And the never-ending search for a scene to translate into a painting, is in itself, very humbling.

Wheat, path, sky

Wheat, Path, Sky, oil on gessobord, 8x6"

It feels like forever since I picked up a paint brush. I think it has been over a month, so it might as well have been forever. I've been kept away by the preceding's of, the actual event and the post stuff of surgery.  I have not felt well enough or truly had the endurance to sit at the easel, until today. And I am very rusty both in thought and execution...it's amazing how quickly that happens!!  Today I found an older photo that I thought had a strong composition. Unbeknownst to me I was painting in a semi-dark room for the palette  I was using, and when I went outside to photograph it, I received this surprise. Very bright!! Kind of patchwork-ie but overall not a bad re-start.