"First Morning" SOLD

Thank you East Texas Paws!! I painted this little guy this afternoon. He was born this past spring and found in my next door neighbor's yard. We snuck up on him and took his picture. He was perfectly happy and not at all frightened. Somehow, when you see him at this stage he's cute, but you forget that next year he will devour all my yard plants!

"Wildflower Center"

This is a plein air study done at the Lady Bird Wildlife Center. Our group went there to paint a couple weeks ago and I thought I'd share my little work. If you haven't been there, they have a great gift shop and many great trails. I also learned that this is the month to plant your bluebonnet seeds. It may seem early, but it's time to prepare for next spring.

"Autumn Leaves"

Autumn is almost here - yea! This work is a watercolor and gouache mix. One of these days I'm going to visit Colorado at the right time of year to see the Aspens turn golden. Until then, this is my made up version of the fall I've never seen.

"Walled City Residence"

The little town of Monteriggioni is a walled city perched on a high hill with towers all around. The town was definitely built for war and seeing the enemy coming. It's very small and pretty treacherous getting a car up the hill and into the city, however, there are many residences there. I don't know if some or all of them are the shop owners. The public is not allowed to drive in - they must WALK up the hill, but somehow the residents get their little cars up the giant hill and down the very narrow streets. It's so small that it was hard to find a vantage point to paint. This painting was done from a park no larger than a back yard.

"Castillina Church Tower"

Castillina in Chianti has their famous church tower. This was the last on site painting I did before leaving this wonderful land behind. We set up our easels off the side of the road and painted this scene. In between brush strokes and many ankle bites we met people from Austria, Germany and Canada who stopped by to visit and take a peek. Most were serious bike riders and all were enamoured with the whole "en plein air" painting technique. We met so many friendly people and they all just loved painters!!!

"Chianti Italy"

This is a piece of one of our views from the Villa. This was done from the vantage point of our back patio, looking down and then the terrain went up in the distance. Nice trick trying to capture it on canvas. Wonder who lives and farms here.

"The Villa Next Door" - SOLD

This was the villa directly next door to us. Not to drop names or anything, but this is where some very famous people vacation. This is a little plein air done in the morning before leaving for the day. I love the architecture and especially the working shutters. They are all solid wood which open and lock up for privacy/security. Every morning I loved being the first one up and throwing open the shutters to see the new beautiful day.

"Villa Malpensa" Abstract - SOLD

Thank you Jan & Richard for purchasing my painting and giving it a good home. May you enjoy it! This is a abstract I did of the place I stayed in Milan right before coming home. It's a big old grand hotel. I was playing around this weekend and did an abstract from a photo on their business card. I arrived there after 8:00 PM but had wanted to get there much earlier to enjoy the place. It was pretty expensive, so I felt like I pretty much missed my visit there. My painting shows the end of the day slipping away feeling I had.

Photo - Rear View of our Villa

This is the back corner of our villa showing just a piece of one of the gardens and distant views.

"Grapes from the Arbor"

I forgot to post this yesterday. This is another watercolor study of the fresh picked grapes from our patio arbor. They were placed on a strawberry patterned table cloth and I had to throw in some of those fresh cut flowers from the garden. After painting, I ate all the grapes!

"Garden Flowers"

More fresh cut flowers from our Villa gardens. I couldn't get over the endless supply of wonderful blooming plants that were so lovingly tended by our gardeners. Wish I could have brought them home with me! I was so motivated to paint everything in my path while there, that just quiet times on the patio were spent doing little watercolor studies. No, these are not my best works, but they are important moments I wanted to record in paint.

"Bougie on the Arbor"

This is a pen/ink watercolor postcard I did for my Italy journal. I was sitting on the patio and the color of the blooming bougainvillaea growing up the grape arbor support caught my eye. Scribble scribble, wash wash - postcard!

Photo of view from our villa

This is one of the views from our villa in Chianti country. You could see for hundreds of miles. Many crops had just been tilled under, but all the green is grapevines. I wanted to upload several photos at one time, but can't seem to figure out how to do it. Will post other photos later.

"Lilliano Door"

The little town of Lilliano was very close to our villa. There was a large winery there and one day we stopped by and painted on their property. They were harvesting grapes while 3 painters stood on their property painting various scenes - no one said a word or seemed to think it unusual. We just waived to the guy hauling the grapes and enjoyed our afternoon.

"Radda Church Tower"

Every town has a big church and usually a tower. Some are more magnificent than others. This painting was done in the field in the town of Radda in Chianti. We stopped when we had a vantage point and pulled out our paints and went after it. It's a small town close to where we stayed. We went there several times for market days, shopping and wine. This was not one of my favorite paintings, but I received positive feedback from my fellow painters, so I decided to share it with you. My first paintings were done in watercolor because they are so fast and travel friendly. Later during the trip I got out my oils and did a complete set up to paint. Will post them soon.

"Morning Roses"

Well I'm back from 2 glorious weeks in Italy. We had fabulous gardens at our villa and picked fresh flowers for our rooms every day. These little roses were picked the first day we arrived and while we drank our coffee outside I painted a quick watercolor postcard. This was a quickie painted while still in my jammies before our day really started. This trip was so wonderful, that I've decided to post a couple of my photos taken at the villa. Stay tuned!