Gala, 2x2 Original Oil Painting on Canvas, Daily Painting of Apple

I discovered that posting these apple paintings on the "small" setting makes them the actual size, two inches by two inches. It's more difficult to find something to say about each one than it is to paint it. I guess I could look up the history of each kind, but that sounds very boring.

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Ambrosia, 2x2 Oil on Canvas, Small Daily Painting of an Apple

Since there are so many varieties of apples available, I decided to do an apple series on teeny tiny little stretched 2x2-inch canvases. When I am finished I will mount them together and post them for sale. Before I started this I wasn't even aware of an apple called "Ambrosia."   

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Spring Bouquet, 6x8 Oil on Canvas Panel, Floral Painting with Yellow and Magenta

Click to Purchase $110

Our painting group, Pieces of 8, ambitiously painted this still life during one of our sessions. It was a lot of fun. I am trying to get it into my head to simplify, along with all the other disciplines in art that I am trying to get into my head. People always ask, "How long did it take you to do that?" They should be asking how many successes and failures, trials and errors, immersing oneself in values, composition, drawing, color, brush strokes, perspective, form, lighting, subtleties--it goes on and on. That's why there are so many aged artists. Doing art is a constant striving for improvement, and if "artist" is something you are, not something you do, you will do it for as long as you can hold a brush.

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Happiness, 10x8 Oil Painting on Canvas Panel, Seascape with Figure

Purchase Here $150

I called this painting "Happiness" because that is what the beach is to a child. What can be more fun than running around in the water, floating in waves with your parents holding you securely, or digging in the sand? There are no computer games, no TV, little noise except the ocean, and none of those things can provide the kind of joy that God gives us at a place where the ocean meets the shore. 

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Carol's Roses, 6x8 Floral Oil Painting, Pink and White Roses

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A rose is a rose is a hard thing to paint. My painting group had two different bouquets to choose from and I started with the entire rose bouquet until I got hold of myself and narrowed it down to these.

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Beach Stroll, 8x6 Original Oil on Canvas, Seascape with Figure

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This is my daughter strolling on Satellite Beach. This is a small 6x6 oil on stretched canvas.

I had a good laugh recently when my grandson told me about riding with a group of other college kids to Houston from Birmingham. It was a long ride and everyone was bored, so my grandson took out my memoir, Crackers and Oranges, and read it aloud to them. He said everyone was cracking up. That makes me one happy Grammy.

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Dunes, 8x6 Oil on Canvas Panel, Seascape

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I just returned from visiting my family in Memphis, a city I really enjoy. I journaled my visit. I have capitulated and used "journal" as a verb. Shame on me.

On the right page, scenes from my son's yard.

We went to Oxford, Mississippi and toured the home of William Faulkner. There is a statue of him downtown on the square, sitting on a bench. I wanted to ask him, "Why did you make your books so hard to read?" Faulkner won the two Pulitzers and the Nobel Prize, and the town of Oxford fairly reeks of literary air. The tiny square has at least three bookstores, and John Grisham lives there.

The second day we went to the new Bass Pro Shop, recently installed in the Memphis pyramid. It's the world's biggest, and was quite an entertaining place. In the center is an elevator to the top of the pyramid, which is 321 feet high.