A Great Afternoon With Rachel

We were preparing for our family Thanksgiving festivities this afternoon.  Our granddaughter, Rachel, came by to help us set up.  We are having dinner in my basement studio and had to move out my drawing table and move around many brushes, etc.  Rachel set the tables and wrote out place cards for each person.  We are expecting 19 people for dinner.

Now, before you start getting sorry for me having to cook for all these people,  I'm not!!!  All the kids are cooking - my son Rick will stuff and roast the turkey (as he does every year), mash the potatoes and bake the old-fashioned cream pies,  and everyone else is bringing side dishes.  I am making the cranberry relish, the scalloped oysters and the Brussel's sprouts.  Beth is bringing mac and cheese and stewed tomatoes, and rolls; granddaughter Jenny is making sweet potatoes; Marilyn is making the ever-popular green bean casserole and corn pudding.  My brother and sister-in-law are bringing the pumpkin pie!  So - I doubt that we will go hungry.

The best part of the day was spending time with Rachel!  A Thanksgiving tradition now for 3 years!

This, my latest painting, was done from a photo from Darren Fisher, The Photography Guy, who has a great page on Facebook.  I am so grateful that he has given me permission to use his pictures as source pictures for my paintings.  Because of a spinal condition (spinal stenosis), I am unable to travel, hike, climb, etc. to take my own pictures.  If it weren't for people like Darren, I would be "up a crick!"

This Kentucky cabin is 10" x 10" and is painted on my new watercolor paper, Acquarello 140 lb., cold-pressed watercolor paper.  I love it.  It takes a lot of abuse and I can get wonderful washes on it.

Pumpkins Galore

Pumpkins Galore:  This is my latest painting, finished last evening.  This is an image from Country Living.com which I found on Google Images.  I do not plan to sell this for profit, so thought it would be okay to use it and it would be great practice for painting pumpkins.  This is 12" x 9" - painted on 140 lb. Acquerello  cold-pressed watercolor paper.     I thought the subject fits in well with the spirit of the Thanksgiving season.

Color My World

This colorful sunflower painting was finished this evening.  It will be a lesson for the class I teach at Riverside Art Center in Wapakoneta, Ohio.   This painting is painted on Acquerello 140 lb. cold-pressed watercolor paper - a new paper for me which I am trying out.  I purchased it from Dick Blick and it is made in Italy.  So far, I like it real well.  I used about 4 photos to compose this painting and it is 11" x 11".  I tried some new watercolor paint - I particularly like the sap green from Maimeri Blu and the Indian Yellow from Dick Blick.

Darren's Kentucky Farm

I finished this yesterday as one of the lessons for the Monday night watercolor class at Riverside Art Center In Wapakoneta, Ohio.  This is another painting from a photograph by The Photography Guy Photos by Darren Fisher.  You can find him on Facebook - his work is awesome.  Thank you, Darren!

This painting is approximately 9" x 12" and is painted on Aquarello 140 lb. cold-pressed watercolor paper, another new paper I have been trying out.  In some ways, I love it, and in others it is giving me some grief!  The paint lies on the top sometimes and then, when I don't expect it, it soaks into the paper and can't be lifted at all...go figure.  I bought 10 sheets, have 9 left, so I had better get used to it quickly!

Darren's Red Grapes

I finished this painting late this afternoon.  I plan to use it as my lesson for my watercolor class at Riverside Arts Center in Wapakoneta, Ohio on Monday night.  I did the work in the bottom picture yesterday, and finished it today.

This is from a beautiful photo by The Photo Guy Photography by Darren Fisher- many thanks to Darren for graciously allowing me to use his work as source photos.  Darren works out of Bardstown, Kentucky and you should check out his wonderful Facebook page.

The painting is 11 1/2 x 7" and is painted on Acquarello 140 lb. cold-pressed watercolor paper.