Yellow Lab

11 x 10" original oil

sold

Art Access Gallery in Salt Lake City holds a 300 Plates Show each year. You need to have a ticket to get in, and registration is online through May 11. Click here to go to the page with all of the information. The gallery can also help you if you want to call them. Registration is limited to the number of "certified occupancy" and I've heard the fire department checks. It's Art Access's biggest show of the year. 

The two holes you see in this painting are there so that Art Access can hang each of the 300 pieces of artwork uniformly from ceiling to floor all over their walls. There is a picture on their website if you click any of the above links. The buyer of this painting can frame it to cover the holes if they choose, or leave it as is. 

Good luck getting a ticket for this show, and good luck getting this painting! 

Mother

10 x 10" original oil

sold

This painting sold as soon as it was finished! I love those. It's going to my Park City gallery director and she's gifting it to a loved one. She does so much for my career and spent a lot of time today matching up some of my available paintings to a searching client, and it was the icing on the cake for her to take this one as well. Thanks M, you're the best. 

I've recently been in St. George at a show. I wish I had taken more pictures! During the two-day show I painted a 10 x 10" piece of the poppies that grow along 600 South in downtown Salt Lake. It sold during the event to a new collector who bid on it over the phone! I wish I could have met her to thank her in person. Maybe some day. Thank you JBM for letting me be a part of your wonderful gallery and this past show. I really enjoyed getting to meet many of the artists that also participated in this show whom I look up to greatly. 

Currently, I am out photographing the tulips during daylight hours and working on finishing a few new pieces for my May 16th show in Provo. It's Spring, and that means I'm in overdrive. I love the fresh color after a long winter that tulips bring!

Beginnings

12 x 16" original oil

sold

When I was little, I remember watching the news when Yellowstone National Park was on fire in 1988. I lived in Missouri and I don't remember if I had been there just before or a few years after, but even on our little television screen, it was a horrible sight. 

My husband and I have since been to Yellowstone National Park many, many times. The burned areas are growing again, and there are signs posted here and there that say how long the new trees have been growing to give park-goers a sense of how the park can regenerate itself after a fire. 

I guess that is the idea behind this painting. It reminds me of fire, and the lesson I learned watching Yellowstone National Park burn is that fire is sometimes the only way for nature to begin again (insert metaphor for life here). New beginnings are good. 

My method of painting is alla prima. That's just fancy art-talk for "wet on wet all at once." That's why you see white areas where a tulip blossom will go. I paint the whole shape at once instead of in layers where each layer dries before the next layer. It takes some planning to paint the whole shape at once because you have to know where darks and lights are going to go, but this way of painting translucent petals comes most naturally to me. 

 I worked on this painting in a few places at various events, but here are photos from when I brought it along on a recent "Painting in the Plaza" event at Illume Gallery of Fine Art in City Creek. If you have never been to Illume, you are missing out. There is art there to feed your soul! Illume can help you acquire any of my available paintings. 

That Was Fun!

24 x 24" original oil

sold

Buttercup and I had been playing ball for a while when I snapped this shot. She was worn out and her whole face was smiling. Even her ear is back, which she does when she's really happy. In the studio yesterday as I was painting, I asked my husband if it was weird that her tongue was hanging to the side, and he said no, that this was his favorite part. I'm still unsure - people are either going to love it or hate it. I personally love it because she's my dog and I think it's hilarious the way labs will play until their tongues hang out, so hopefully the right collector finds this piece - someone who finds joy in this crazy face that is my dog. 

Come to St. George on Thursday, April 17th to Ancestor Square Courtyard for the New Visions Show. I will be there with this painting and you will have a chance to meet me and see (and buy!) much more of my artwork at Authentique Gallery. Click the link for more info. See you there!