Serendipity

30 x 45" original oil

sold

Last spring, I set out to photograph tulips at my favorite place: Thanksgiving Point Gardens. It's quite an ordeal - I sacrifice a day in the studio and all of that production to traipse around a man-made wonder, hoping to find subject material fit for a painting and worth the studio-time sacrifice. I pack a bag with my big camera and battery, I pack snacks, I pack an ice pack for my sore back (for the ride home), I put on sunscreen, I put on my comfy shoes, I double-check that I have my garden pass, and I get in the car. If I didn't stop to photograph, it would take me an hour just to walk the loop of the gardens. They are huge. There is no quick in and out. 

On this day that I headed out to Thanksgiving Point Gardens, the sun was playing peekaboo with the clouds and it was so windy. Like blow-your-hat-off windy. Usually it will be sunny at my house and cloudy at the gardens. They are situated in a low valley at the point of a mountain and seem to create their own weather. However, I can't waste a sunny day in spring so again, on this day I headed to the gardens hoping to be in the right place at the right time with sunlight and a great patch of flowers. I knew it was a bust about twenty minutes into my route. The tulips were fast asleep in their tight buds and at least a week away from being good subject material. There is a spot in the gardens that gets early sun and is unusually warm, but like running into Wal-Mart for just milk, this place in the gardens was in the very back. Nothing. All of the tulips were totally dormant. 

I came around a cold corner high with mature pine trees, and bam, daffodil land. There on a hill with east sun, daffodils waved and nodded in the freezing wind. My numb fingers snapped a few photos and I called it a day, retreating to the warm shelter of my studio and hoping the day wasn't a total waste. 

I looked through my shots later that night and saw this reference. I immediately fell in love. It had back lighting, balance, strength, and depth. I knew I'd paint it large, and I've been waiting for the right time. My first spring show, Art & Soup, seemed like a good time to debut this sunny beauty and usher in the Spring. 

Sometimes you get a little lucky and have something wonderful in your path that you were not expecting, and I call this painting Serendipity to honor the situation that brought it to me. 

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Silly Goose & Meander

Silly Goose

6 x 6" original oil

sold

Meander

6 x 6" original oil

sold

These two paintings of my lab, Buttercup, will be available in my February show Art & Soup.

Silly Goose is so Buttercup. She is hilarious and loves to play. Meander is Buttercup when she is more pensive and walks slowly around the yard. I like to think that this is the time she contemplates life and is able to reset. Dogs are great examples of playing and being still.  

Emerald & Rest

Emerald

5 x 7" original oil

sold

Rest

5 x 7" original oil

sold

These two seascapes were my final paintings of 2014, numbers ninety-nine and one hundred! I cannot get enough of the ocean and how beautiful it is in all parts of the world and at all times of day. The top painting, Emerald, is of a foggy beach that was burning off and turning sunny on the coast of Alabama. The bottom painting, Rest, is a sunset in Cabo. Cabo San Perfecto as I like to call it...

These originals will be for sale in my February show Art & Soup. 

Merry & Bright

12x12" original oil

sold

This painting will be included in my February show of Art & Soup. I love love love the row of magenta shapes across the top. They are like little ornaments on a snowy tree. 

Bird Hunt

24 x 24" original mixed media

sold

Buttercup loves to hunt birds - pheasants and chuckers mostly. It's pretty much the greatest thing in the whole wide world to take your lab bird hunting. 

There is a great place to hunt about half an hour west of where we live. The grass is tall and dry and the foothills are nearby. There are some old washes filled with rabbit brush, but this painting shows one of my favorite open fields. You'd be surprised how many pheasants will hide in this stuff. Your view of the Wasatch Front is spectacular and unobstructed, but the best part though is getting to watch your lab flush out birds and run around like she's at Disneyland. 

This painting is one of my favorites I've ever done of my dog, and it'll be hard to let it go! I know someone will fall in love with it at the gallery and take it home, and if it brings them joy, then I am happy too. 

I used acrylics and oils in this piece. The acrylic base layers were added quickly and with a lot of texture. The final oil layers added value gradation and final grass blades. 

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