Ain't Nobody Here But Us Chickens, 6x8 Oil on Canvas Board

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What is it about chickens? We all paint them, and many kitchens are decorated with them. They do have personalities, just look at their confident walks. There was a very funny record years ago with chickens singing "In the Mood." Cluck cluck cluck cluck cluck cluck cluck cluck cluck cluck cluck CLUCKKKK...

I know my friend the musical genius Bobby Braddock counted every one of those clucks to be sure I got it right.

Hobbitat, 9x12 Oil Painting

I call this Hobbitat because it looks like Hobbits would live there. It is a cool, lush forest and that road leads to some interesting places. No Hobbit sightings, though. Yet.

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Cathedral Rock, 20x20 Oil

After what I went through to get this scene, I thought it deserved a bigger painting, so this one is 20x20 on stretched canvas. My husband and I went to a park, looking for this view of beautiful Cathedral Rock. We turned the wrong way and hiked and hiked, but that was a treat, because it was a beautiful path along the river. We came upon a forest of cairns that people had built of stacked stones--hundreds of them. We finally found the above scene 100 yards from our car after we hiked back. This is a much-photographed Sedona spot, and you can see why.

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Cairns

Black Swan, 6x6 Oil on Canvas

I was so lucky to catch this swan in this light. It turned and made a nice swirl in the water, and gave me such a nice composition. Sometimes all you have to do is paint what you see.

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Sunrise in the Heartland, 8 x 8 Oil on Canvas

This was painted from a windshield photo of the stark fields along Highway 30 in Illinois. There are many Hopper-esque farmhouses in the middle of huge bare fields, and there was still a bit of snow on the edges of the road. Even barren, lonely cornfields have a melancholic sort of beauty.

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Mystery Bird, 6x6 Oil on Canvas

I am not sure what this bird is, and if anyone knows, please let me know. He was hanging out in the Everglades looking so cute, I just had to paint him. I donated him to the Lagoon Fest to be held in October 2014 to benefit Oyster Restoration for the Indian River Lagoon.

I read in the paper that a large number of pelicans and manatees have died here on the Space Coast, and it's likely because of the sorry condition of our waterways. The Banana River and Indian River are polluted by runoff from pesticides and fertilizers, and this is good for no one. Our river used to be full of clammers and I never see them any more. I don't think a green lawn is the priority here. I think I should have pride in the sorry-looking lawn we're sporting these days. I'm looking at it in a whole new way.

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Chikins, 5x7 Oil

Chickens are fun to paint. There is something comical about the way they strut around, not unlike the way some people walk. It's nice that the one in back buried its head in the straw so that our attention is drawn to the more colorful lady in front. I'm very pleased with the way this one turned out.

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Wetlands, 8x8 Oil on Canvas

This is a typical scene in the Florida wetlands, an area that is a big draw for birdwatchers, or as they say nowadays, birders, from the verb to bird (ha ha).  Sometimes nouns changed to verbs sound pretty funny to me; however, birders don't just watch these days. They record, report, photograph, study, and have conventions, and Florida has lots of interesting birds for them to bird.

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Zentangle® Woodland, 8x10 Pen and Ink

Inspired by the Zentangle® method of pattern drawing.

Off I go, into my own little world of Zentangle, and what a delightful place it is. Reality is highly overrated.

Oil painting is my daytime work; this is my nighttime work. I usually have about five games of online Scrabble and Words With Friends going, and in between, I draw Zentangles. I listen to TV, except when Downton Abbey is on, at which time I throw everything down and watch with rapt attention. I do the same when Big Bang Theory is on. I don't like to miss a word of Maggie Smith's or Sheldon Cooper's dialogue.

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Leap of Faith, 8x10 Oil on Canvas

This painting just returned from my exhibit and I am now putting it "out there." I find this painting exhilarating, capturing the spirit of childhood and fun. I paint so much that I am forgetting to have other kinds of fun. I need to correct that. I could go jump off a big rock into a river, but Florida doesn't have big rocks. We are as flat as a flitter (whatever that is).

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Tree Frog Collage, 10x10

 This is the collage version of my previous tree frog. This way is much harder. It is more tedious, and strains my brain. Still, I enjoy it.

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And God Set a Bow in the Sky, 20x20 Oil on Canvas

A few weeks ago I posted the photo of this scene. I was so excited when the rainbow made an appearance, although it's risky to paint rainbows. They can look fake; sunrises are the same way. Some sunrises are so spectacular here that no one would find a painting of them believable. I tried to faithfully reproduce the rainbow in an understated way. The photo is below; you can see that I made a few changes in my painting.

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Sea Change, 6x6 Oil on Canvas

The more I paint water, the more I enjoy painting water. Maybe it's because I grew up in a town where there was one form of entertainment only, a nice clear lake for swimming. Sure, it had alligators in it, but the locals were not stupid enough to feed them and they were not overpopulated, so we never had gator attacks. Wonder how it is around Lake Marie nowadays?

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The Everglades, 8x10 Oil on Canvas Panel

The Everglades is a wild and wonderful place, constantly threatened by damage caused by human greed or carelessness. The latest problem is pythons, and they are consuming huge amounts of small game, which leaves large game without food. A recent python hunt got rid of some of them, but they reproduce in large numbers, so this is an ongoing battle. I try to look at the beauty and hope for the best for this important ecosystem.

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Zentangle, 3/12 x 4 Watercolor

I haven't done a Dailypaintworks.com Challenge in a long time, but since I was stuck on the couch with a sinus infection, I thought it was a good time to respond to the one called The Something New Challenge, to do something I'd never done before. I did a zentangle, which is a kind of freeform doodle. Very relaxing.

Morning Sea, 4x5 Oil on Canvas

I went small on this one. I love the colors of the sky and ocean in the morning. Sometimes they don't even look real.

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The Pieces of 8 had a wonderful luncheon this week and exchanged our very creative gifts. Here's the happy group:

Sealight, 10x10 Oil on Canvas

This wave posed nicely for me the other day, and I enjoyed painting it. I noticed the sky was doing interesting things and I could hear the waves from my house, so I rushed over to the beach and got some very nice shots. This will be displayed in my exhibit next month at the Art and Antique Gallery in  the Eau Gallie Art District in Melbourne, Florida. My exhibit is called "From Highland to Island," and I will have paintings of subjects from the mountains to the sea.

Halie and Bunny, 16x20 Oil on Canvas

This was done many years ago. Halie is now seventeen but I'll bet that bunny is in a drawer somewhere.

I mentioned in an earlier post that our political sign was stolen from our yard. Now we know there was an eyewitness, who said a man and his small children came into our yard and took the sign. They went around the corner, where the boys jumped up and down with the sign while dad took their picture. In one fell swoop, he taught them trespassing, stealing, violating others' free speech rights, and gloating about the crimes. What a dad.

Yesterday someone left at our door a "Hate DVD" with a swastika on it and the word "Reds" in reference to our President. I thought that word went out with the Cold War. Also yesterday, a woman stole an Obama sign, came back, holding the sign, to taunt the resident, then ran over her leg with a scooter. What has happened to our wholesome little town?

Fuzzy Bear, 8x8 Oil on Canvas

Aren't bears both cute and terrifying? Since there was a fence between the bear and me, "cute" applied. If no fence, "terrifying." I did meet a bear across a stream in the Smokies once. I was trying to take a picture of some rhododendrons, and he ambled out of the bushes on the opposite side of the stream. I did not stick around to get the bear picture, as we were in a convertible and a quick getaway was in our best interest. He didn't look at me in any threatening manner; in fact, he appeared rather bored with my appearance and just strolled into the stream as I was skedaddling away. "Skedaddle" is such as useful word for that sort of situation, isn't it?

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Pool Bird, 10x10 Oil on Stretched Canvas

This bird looks like he's standing his ground, no matter what comes along. He's actually doing what all birds of his sort do, looking for fish. This is gallery wrap canvas, and all sides are painted.

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