Mountain Mama

I painted this yesterday from a photo I took last weekend. My mother and I rented a log cabin for the weekend in the North Georgia Mountains in the Blue Ridge area. I was upstairs in the loft and took this photo of Mom having her morning coffee on the back deck. I loved the halo of light surrounding her hair.

I was worried that the photo was a bit confusing because you couldn't tell that there was a door on the left. I figured that might get lost even further in a painting. To my surprise it actually "reads" better in the painting. I think because I made the wall darker and the door a bit lighter so you can tell the difference.

Larger Return to Rome

I decided to paint a larger version of my ACEO titled "Return to Rome". I'm hoping to enter it in some Atlanta competitions coming up soon. It is 18x22".

Tallahassee Jr Museum

I painted this painting and loved it so decided to paint a larger one to enter it in a show. This is a painting from a photo at the Tallahassee Jr Museum. (They changed the name but I grew up with the old one so reserve the right to continue to use it:)

I've struggled with painting cypress swamps before and they haven't worked. I love how this one turned out. The blue color is my favorite.

Painting a larger version was hard because the white tailed deer in the photo was really small. Here is the larger painting which I titled "Bucks in the Cypress". I'm hoping it will bring big bucks!!:)

Fishing In Helen,GA

Last weekend I visited Helen, GA and painted from the top of a hill. It was a very hot day and the town was crowded. My painting was only so-so but I took a great photo of two fishermen in the creek. They were having a great time tucked away in a cool spot away from the crowds. I painted this little ACEO on Thursday night very late and love their white caps and pink arms.

Trevi Fountain

I was looking through my Splash watercolor book that I got for Christmas (and just now unpacked). I loved a painting someone did of Bernini's "Triumph".

I was inspired to paint something similar. Luckily my mother had some photos of the Trevi fountain from a trip she took years ago. I painted a small portion of her photo. Mine looks nothing like the inspiration but I am happy with how it turned out.

The photo had a pink cast in the background and an almost neon green color to the water below. I decided to use those colors and play them up. The Splash painting used yellow ochre for the stone color so I decided to use that also. These colors seemed to work!!

I'm selling this on ebay and have predicted that whoever buys this will return to Rome:)

Marian

(ebay id=meoshaugh)

Botanical Gardens - Lily Pond

I painted this at the end of the day. The pink and yellow glow in the right catches everyone's eye. I used a background wash instead of painting the ugly fence behind the pond. The focal point was SUPPOSED to be the left pink floating lily but the background draws your eye. Sometimes these paintings take on a life of their own!!

The Yellow Door

While driving around the Historical Center, I took some photos of some houses in the neighborhood. I was struck by the yellow door on this house and liked the droopy tree on the left. I really like how the limited pallette worked in this painting. Pretty much just yellows and greens.

It is an ACEO that I will put up for sale on my ebay site soon. I have to keep it for awhile though because I don't want to part with it just yet. The yellow makes me happy:)

Atlanta Botanical Gardens

The next weekend I visited the Botanical Gardens in Atlanta. It is a wonderful place to paint so I got a yearly membership. My favorite painting is a miniature (ACEO) paintings from there.

It is of the Frog Man or Frog Boy (not sure which) pond. The statue of the boy is holding two frogs. The pond actually had frogs on lily pads. It was so neat!

Atlanta Swan House

I am new to Atlanta and decided to paint at the Historical Society first. Unfortunately, the walk from the parking lot to the area we wanted to paint seemed pretty far for my mother -- especially with all our equipment. Also, the entrance fee seemed steep just to paint. So we drove around looking for other things to paint and happenned upon the Swan House, which was what we wanted to paint in the first place.

The Swan house can be seen from a side road -- behind an ornate gate. For painting, the view was perfect. The side road was quiet and no tourists bothered us while painting.

Here is the painting I did on-site. It is 1/4 sheet (11 x 14")