Bodie Lighthouse

One more lighthouse memory and I'm off to the mountains to see my dear friend Peggy. I know the mountains will provide lots of visual inspiration. Now the question remains - What will I do with that inspiration?

Cape Lookout

With my extended summer about to come to an end (back to work August 18th), I ran across this watercolor painting I did when my students studied North Carolina lighthouses. I think working with the kids keeps me from overworking my paintings because you have to work fast and instruct at the same time. I added a link above (click on my title "Cape Lookout") for you to see some of my 4th graders watercolor paintings from the past. These kids amaze me!

Looking at it made me long for "sand between my toes" and the friends I left at the beach. I don't see them nearly often enough.

I am about to remedy half of that tomorrow when I go in the other direction (the beautiful mountains of North Carolina) to see my wonderful friend Peggy.

Oops! Too!

This morning I copied and painted the broken geranium stem from last night. The stem actually survived the night. It seems to make the painting easier to start if I have a pencil value image for reference. Wait! Isn't that what all those art teachers told me all those years. I seem to be a little slow catching on! Good point...Listen to your teacher :~) !

I tried using artist tape for the edges of the image but for whatever reason the tape really stuck this time. I've used this tape before and never had a problem. ??? No idea.

This painting actually completed a journal. I got really excited because I seem to start lots of journals and never finish any of them. Well this makes #9. YEA!

Oops!

Every afternoon I try to walk around my yard and check on my flowers and plants. One of the things I always try to do is "deadhead" my geraniums. Today I accidentally broke off a flower in my struggle to deadhead a particularly stubborn dead stem. Maybe it wasn't that dead after all! Anyway - oops!

Backyard Goldfinch

The goldfinch in my backyard are numerous this year. I have seen as many as six feeding or waiting ( in pairs) and they are beautiful. Between picture references and bird books, this was as close as I could come to what I was seeing...