Autumn Leaves on a Windy Day Painting

A painting today.

I tend to look down when I walk along the sidewalk, always have. I see such interesting things. It used to embarrass my young sons because one never knew when I'd spy something incredible and have to stop and take a photograph of it ... pieces of gum, shoe imprints, rain ghosts of dusty leaves, odd tickets, candy wrappers. One just never knew. They could never prepare for the moment when their mother would abruptly stop, stoop, and shoot a photograph.

I'm glad they can laugh about it now, and that it has become the family point of pride in their artist mother. Wait! How did I get off on this tangent? Oh yes, I remember now.

Last week I was walking west on Garland and I noticed pretty little yellow and green leaves on branches that had fallen to the sidewalk in the brisk wind. My sister Melba commented they might be from some kind of locust tree. There were other leaves, too. I also went this week to a Japanese garden in Spokane and there were pine needles strewn all over the place along with more windblown leaves. I liked the wild randomness of it.

Working from photographs I--yes--stooped to take, I came up with this painting. The background is red (Alizarin Crimson and Burnt Umber) because the leaves looked so bright and pretty against the red bricks along the sidewalk. I have used windy brush strokes that I hope convey motion and not mish mash.

Windy Day Leaves
8" x 10" Acrylic on Canvas Board

Just another day in the life ...

Nope. No painting today. I did repair and paint a little vintage bookend, but that's for a different blog than this.

However, in downloading my trip photos from my camera for file, I somehow came across a photograph I took in 2012 of a dandelion. Yes, a humble dandelion blossom gone to seed. I then played around with a Film Grain effect and came up with this photograph.

And so, why, you might ask, did I blog about this photograph? I have no reason whatsoever. Other than I've been blogging daily for the month of September, and it's a nice habit to have gotten into.

That being stated, I'm going to see how long I can keep up with the blogging with paintings or with photographs. They won't all be du jour but I hope you'll enjoy seeing them nonetheless.

Last Day of the September 2013 Painting Challenge

Hooray! Today is the final day of my personal challenge to create a painting a day for my birth month of September.

I've wanted to do more three dimensional work, so why not start today? I've white washed a weathered old piece of wood 12" x 12" x 2". I randomly struck black nails at the bottom, although they're all within a pre-determined space ... doesn't look like it, though, does it? I didn't want them to be uniformly spaced. With a broad brush, I painted three vertical white acrylic strokes, added 4 black nails at the corners and wired across the top and the bottom with a thin black wire. I wanted to achieve an off-balanced balance. Hmmm.

In any case, I had fun. The old wood kept sucking up the white paint, but I liked the resulting weathered look. Fun! Done!

Today JKay Borland and I hung a dozen of my paintings, along with her ten paintings at Reflections Kaffee Haus and Eatery on Wall and Riverside in Spokane, Washington.  These paintings in the photograph are on the entry wall. We also displayed on two other walls in the eatery. Our styles seemed to complement the other, and we got it to work in spite of having to use pre-existing nails in the wall--appreciated the opportunity to display even if spacing of the work was a little cattywampus.

These puppies will remain on display for the month of October. My first showing in Spokane!

My small mixed media "Red" in the center
and acrylic "Seaweed" at the upper right.

Reflections Kaffee Haus & Eatery
618 W Riverside Ave, Spokane WA
Open 7:30 a.. to 4:00 p.m.

www.reflectionskaffeehaus.com