Working with a photo I took in Monet's garden in Giverny (France), creating this painting reminded me of what an amazing place it was to visit! As an avid gardener, I loved the plantings, colors and landscape design (not to mention seeing the iconic vistas). In my painting, I wanted to "push" the colors to emphasize the lushness of the scene, so I started with a bright watercolor underpainting and kept building the palette by layering the luscious hues of my soft pastels.

I hope my love of this incredible place comes through in the finished painting!

While painting "Ballet" I met a lovely lady who invited me to paint the scene from her deck. When I finished, we had a glass of wine and visited for two hours - turns out we share an entrepreneurial background and had lots to talk about. Another side benefit of being an artist - the wonderful people you meet! So the name of this pastel painting (8"H x 10"W) is "Good Company".

I just finished a commission for a client who loves this photo I took of the view from my studio where my horse, Sweet Pea, plays a starring role.

Just for fun (and with her approval), I thought I would change the time of day to evening, when the sun slants across the pasture and highlights the trees while turning the rolling hills and Mt. St. Helens a glowing pink.

I started with a watercolor underpainting, then worked from the foreground back and finishing with the sky, which glows at this time of day. 

This was a fun and challenging painting and my client is looking forward to adding it to her collection!

We had a wonderful time exhibiting at the "Arts of the Mountain" exhibit June 28th and 29th. Great live music, wonderful original art and dedicated art lovers who braved misty weather to enjoy the art.

I laid out my pastels and let people play with the colors and paint their own masterpieces. I was even brave enough to start a new painting there with all the visitors watching. I was shooting for reflections that invited you to dive in...

In September, 2007, I took my sister and two 82 year old friends (who had been sorority sisters in college and were great fun) on a week sailing trip complete with a skipper who cooked our meals. We sailed through the San Juan Islands and Gulf Islands off of Washington and British Columbia.

We anchored in this pristine cove and I fell in love with its quiet serenity.

I played with the photo for awhile and finally felt the composition worked best in a narrower format that would draw your attention to the dramatic light on the rocks.

Starting the painting with a watercolor underpainting, I enjoyed playing with the serendipitous drips and runs. Then I blocked in the colors in pastel, working at setting the values (lights and darks) since it is all about dramatic contrast.

I struggled with the rocks, redoing them several times because they kept wanting to look like gray hotdogs! It is tricky to get the rock overhang to feel like it is coming out of the page towards you. I hope you like it!

This is a larger format painting (12"H x 16"W) from a photo I took while at a painting workshop in the Skagit Valley; a gorgeous farming community in Washington State,  crisscrossed with sloughs and dotted with classic old barns.

I started with a sepia India ink underpainting with a colorful watercolor underpainting laid on top. Then I added pastel and hit a wall harder than a crash dummy!

What went wrong? Is this a trash bin candidate? Will I ever paint another landscape again? Oh the insecurities of the artist!

Several wise artist friends kindly said, "When a painting is not working, it is usually a composition problem." So I set it aside and took another look at it several months later. Being a wee bit stubborn and loving the feel of this scene, I scrubbed off the pastel and started again.

This was feeling better but the composition is still off. My eye would go to the water spot and "fall in a hole", staying there rather than moving around the painting. And if my eye did move off the water, the composition led me zipping off the page to the left. Poopers!

Luckily, adding the tall grass, flowers and a dramatic sky did the trick! Sometimes, stubbornness pays off!

I love to garden. It is like painting but you get to play in the dirt. I never know what is going to come up from year to year (I am a very random gardener!) just like I never know where my paintings will lead me.

I sketched this scene in late summer when the hydrangeas were the stars of my garden. I loved how they framed the fountain and climbed up through the tree limbs. The late afternoon sun lit up the maple tree while the rest of the garden was in cool shadow - sort of a spotlight on mystery.

I did a quick sketch  to create a composition I liked, laid in some darker values with a pastel pencil and fixed the drawing so that adding the watercolor underpainting would not make the drawing run down the page. Then I went a little crazy with the watercolor, letting the colors drip and run together to see what would happen (just like the way I garden!).

Allowing the underpainting to lead me to the pastel colors needed, I started filling in general areas, working on all parts of the painting. With my butterfly personality (oh no, another garden metaphor!) moving around the painting keeps me from getting bored or too focused in one spot.

The best part is filling in the detail and watching the painting emerge. The hardest part is knowing when to stop!

Several years ago I planted peonies around the fountain in my garden. When they were in riotous bloom for the first time, I took a photo to remind me how amazing the colors were. How could I capture that? How could I make it feel like you wanted to crawl into the bloom, like a honeybee?

Looking closely at the picture, I sketched in the flowers on sanded paper. I often use sanded paper (yep, feels like sandpaper!) which grabs the pastel pigment and allows multiple layers of color to be added.

I then used soft pastels to create an underpainting, which helps set the tone of the painting and establishes the basic values (light and dark) that give it a sense of depth.

Then the fun part - playing with each petal, how to make the colors jump off the page, how to make the negative space (the dark behind the flower) become an element in its own right - which involved music and (I admit) some dancing in my studio. I hope you enjoy the results!