Escape, abstract, palette knife painting

"Escape"

9 x 12 inches

Acrylic on hardboard
$950.00

ready to frame

Lots of thoughts going through my mind. Wanted to create the feeling of a struggle or battle.

Life seems to come crashing down on us so easily, and we feel like we are going to drown in the sorrow and negative forces. But God promises a way of escape, and always makes a way for us, especially when it seems like there is no way out.

The horse symbolizes us in the storms we face. He is determined to overcome the trials, and so he does!

The light on the other side is where God made a way for us to find rest from our struggles. Jesus made that way for us.

This painting was done alla prima, or all at once. It has thick swirls of paint, applied with a painting knife instead of a brush. This technique makes some interesting and cool effects.

No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man, God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your strength, but with the temptation will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it. (First Corinthians 10:13)

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Little Neighbor, colt, equine art

"Little Neighbor"

8 x 10 inches

Acrylic on canvas

ready to frame
$775.00

This young colt just moved in next door. He is quite friendly and I was delighted to get a few nice pictures of him before he got so close I couldn't get him in the view finder! His little nose is so soft, and he seems to have no fear. I finished painting him this afternoon.

Thanks for looking!

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Still Standing, study of an old tree

"Still Standing"

9 x 12 inches

acrylic on hardboard

ready to frame

I like all the intricate growth patterns at the base of this old tree. Looks like a strangler lost the battle and merged with it. It had been raining most of the day, and all the shadows were strong from the soggy bark.

Enjoy!

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On the Rise, Lake sunset with birds

"On the Rise"

8 x 10 inches

acrylic on hardboard

ready to frame
$750.00

Went down to the lake yesterday. For the first time in over two years you can see water under the pier! Boat ramps are working and the locks are open too! The best part is that birds are everywhere by the hundreds.

I did this painting from memory, it is one of my favorite spots. The patchy area used to be under water a few years ago, and now it looks like the water is trying to cover all the weeds again.

It did my heart good to see the water level on the rise again, so I just wanted to share it.

Enjoy!

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2 Egrets, wildlife, impressionism

"2 Egrets"

8 x 10 inches

Acrylic on hardboard

ready to frame

With all the flooding and and rising streams, the birds are in heaven! It is migratory season anyway, and we get a steady stream of birds this time of year. But the amount of egrets is unbelievable! hundreds at a time! I painted just two of them here, but hope to do a flock of them soon.

By the way, Lake Okeechobee is up to it's average depth now for the first time in over two years! The pier actually has water under it now. Such a lovely site. I hope to paint it soon too.

Thanks for looking!

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Quenching the Darts, palette knife painting

Quenching the Darts"

10 x 10 inches

Acrylic on hardboard

framing is optional, sides are painted

There is a lot of back ground and life stories that go with this, so I will try to keep it short.

Life has always thrown hardships my way: The death of my father as a young child, abuse from step fathers, moving every year, running away as a teenager, and foster homes for three years. I thought as an adult I could make life good, be a good person, and live a "normal life"-- whatever that is. But life continued to throw more hardships my way: a husband that lied and cheated and ran off with another woman after thirteen years of giving it my all (leaving me with two sons to raise), a second husband that abused me (whom I divorced after a year and a half) and now in the midst of finally living my dreams and being a professional artist -- I find my self in a world of doubt, strife and unbelief. My husband is very old school, and I have to fight for my rights on a regular basis. he has been ill lately, and taking his frustration out on me verbally. Sometimes I just want to give up altogether and run away. (Which helps me understand my mother and her frequent moves to a new state or even to an island in the pacific!)

Anyway, back to the painting, this started as a release of pent up anger at my husband, whose quick temper is hard for me to deal with sometimes. Next I saw an angel begin to form, but the wings began to look like a dove, the symbol of peace, and I knew it was me in agony on my knees, again. "How do I stay positive when all the world is so negative?" Sometimes I just can't stop the tears. So this painting poured out of my wounded soul. I have always found hope on my knees.

In the Bible it says to put on God's armor:

His peace, His helmet of salvation, His righteousness . . . so you can quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one, for our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against the powers of darkness in high places.

(Ephesians 6)

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Thanks for stopping by!

Celestial Shores 2, mountain landscape, knife painting

"Celestial Shores 2"

Just made this one up with a palette knife. It is alla prima, all at once, fast loose and simply for the fun of it. Love the thick paint and the texture it creates.

Enjoy!

Media: acrylic on hardboard

Size: 12 in X 9 in (30.5 cm X 22.9 cm)

Sorry this painting is no longer available

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Dreams of Lavender 2

"Dreams of Lavender, 2"

14 x 18 inches

Acrylic on canvas

Sold

This is another commissioned piece. They were ordered as a set. This painting is from the same idea as "Lavender Dreams Again"

Click here to see the smaller version of this painting.
This one is larger and I flipped the composition. I also added more flowers and more detail to the mountain.
I love working on a larger scale.

Enjoy!

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Dreams of Lavender

"Dreams of Lavender"

14 x 18 inches

Acrylic on canvas

Sold

This is a larger format of an early painting I did called "Lavender dreams." It is a commissioned piece. I reversed the image and changed the field's angle to show the rows more. I really like the lighting and the depth.

If you see a painting you would like that is already sold, this is a good example of how I can create an original for you that is similar, but is changed in size and rearranged somewhat.

Click here to see the original

Thanks for looking!

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Drought's End, After Fay

"Drought's End"

9 x 12 inches

Acrylic on hardboard

Tropical Storm Fay is still sending strong winds and rain to us. This is the third day the storm has been hanging around. This is just one of the many fields that have not had standing water in over two years! Now everywhere you go you see flooded fields! We sure did need the rain!

Had some limbs down and the power went out the first day. The winds were their strongest as the storm slowed down near Lake Okeechobee. The last half of the storm was worse than the front of it. Now our lake is up a foot, which is great. about two more feet to go and we will be back to the average depth. But I hope we don't have any more tropical storms or hurricanes.

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Thanks for stopping by

Along the Path, Wildlife art by Fawn

"Along the Path"

8 x 10 inches

Acrylic on hardboard

Ready to frame

I felt like moving on to new ideas. I love the blue series and may do a few more, but for now I want to work on brighter colors and create higher, lighter values in my compositions. So I used lots of white in the sky and contrasted it with the tall pines. I may touch up a couple of spots yet, but I really like the overall effect.

This is a path at the A and D ranch, only I made it wider and added a shadow near the bottom to frame it in. The doe is one that I took pictures of up in Gainesville last year.

Enjoy!

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Life Line, palette knife painting

"Life Line"
8 x 10 inches
Acrylic on hardboard

This is an abstract palette knife painting with two hues of blue.

This painting has been reworked, see May 2010 for the updated version.

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TCAA

Here is a picture of me with a blue ribbon on "High Tide." What a nice surprise!!!! This is at the Treasure Coast Art Association, in Fort Pierce. I just joined the group last month.

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Rainy Day Angel, palette knife painting

"Rainy Day Angel"

#5 in the blue series. I used a composition of split compliments. Blue-green, blue-violet, orange, black and white. Orange is a true compliment to blue, so by using the hues on each side of blue I have split the compliment. I could have done it the other way: with Blue and Yellow-Orange or Red-Orange.

This is a palette knife painting, which gives it that almost abstract look, which I love for angels.

When we are down, we can be sure God is still with us. His messengers are all around. We can find comfort even when times are tough.

8 x 10 inches

Acrylic on hardboard

Original: SOLD 

Thanks for looking!

Healing Waters, Waterfall, blues #4

"Healing Waters"

8 x 10 inches

Acrylic on hardboard

Not Available

I used the analogous blues moving from green to blue-green to blue, and then added black and white for value changes. I added a touch of contrast with the complimentary color (orange). I mixed my own orange so you can see some yellow-orange and some red-orange also. I like getting variations by mixing my own colors.

I kept thinking about the song "Healing Waters" which refers to the living water of Jesus Christ. By his Spirit we have strength and healing for our soul.

Enjoy!

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King of the Hill, winter sunset, compliment to blue

"King of the Hill"

8 x 10 inches

Acrylic on hardboard

ready to frame
$450.00

This is the third limited palette in the blue series. I only used Ultramarine Blue, Orange (compliment to blue), and White. The white and orange make a nice peach glow, and the light blues set it off. No black this time, because compliments can be mixed together to get a blackish color. For grays I added white. It is amazing the amount of hues created just by mixing varying amounts of each color.

Enjoy!

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Lavender Sway 4, Alla prima

"Lavender Sway 4"

8 x 10 inches

acrylic on hardboard

SOLD

This is my second painting in this new blue series. I just finished up a limited palette challenge in greens, so now I want to play around with blues. In this analogous painting I have used Blue-violet, Blue, and Blue-green with black and white for varying the values. This is similar to one I did called "Lavender Sway 3" It had more red-violets and some butterflies.

This is alla prima: fast and fun, lots of thick paint all applied in one session, so the colors mix wet-in-wet. It has a painterly, loose look to it.

I really like the abstract quality of the shapes and rhythm in this painting, as well as the cool temperature of the blue tones.

Enjoy!

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Great Bear Wilderness, Montana winter

"Great Bear Wilderness"

8 x 10 inches

Acrylic on hardboard

ready to frame

This monochrome study is the first of a blue series I have started. I did it alla prima, or all at once. I used one hue of blue, Phthalo Blue, along with black and white to create the many changes in values. It gives the painting unity and balance.

I used a photo that my sister-in-law (Annette) took. Her and my brother go out snowcatting and skiing often.

Sure is good to think about the cold weather when it is 98 degrees and 100% humidity! Florida is just miserable in July and August! But that's the price to have nice weather the rest of the year!

Enjoy!

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Green Sulphers, Butterflies

"Green Sulphurs"

8 x 10 inches

Acrylic on hardboard

ready to frame

This is a split compliment. I used yellow-green and blue-green and their split compliment of red. Black and white are used for highlights and shadows too. The white and red made lovely pinks.

This is #7 in my green tribute to our beautiful earth. I think I am done using a limited palette of green. I am ready to move on! We'll see.

Thanks for looking!

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Salt Air, Palette knife seascape

"Salt Air"

8 x 10 inches

acrylic on hardboard

SOLD

I am taking a break from the green series. Hope to get a couple more of them, then I may start a blue series. I love this little palette knife painting, so fun to do! Lots of texture. It reminds me of when you first go over the dune and can smell the salt water in the air as you get closer to the beach.

Enjoy!

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Green Stream, Warm and cool greens, wood stork

"Green Stream"

8 x 10 inches

Acrylic on hardboard

ready to frame
$475.00

I saw this wood stork fish along this shallow creek for a couple of hours, so I took some pictures of him. I was really attracted to the background trees and the play of the warm sunlit green against the cool bluish shaded greens. I painted this alla prima, or all in one session. (The photo really doesn't do justice to the subtle changes in color in the painting.)

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Green 1, first in a series of green paintings

"Green Leaves"

8 x 8 inches

Acrylic on gallery wrap canvas
$450.00

Sides are painted  framing is optional

This is the first of a series I am doing on using a limited palette. It is part of our daily painters challenge and tribute this month. See yesterdays post for the tribute. I am starting with green to tie in with conservation and still do studies on color.

This is a monochrome. I only used one color of green and then used black for shades of green and white for tints of green. The emphasis becomes the value changes instead of colors, which makes it harder to bring out the brightness of the leaves.

The lilies leaves had such an interesting twist to them, I wanted to use that repitition to make the composition stronger. I added depth by using more black on the leaves that I wanted to recede. I may tweek this one still a little, but over all I like the way it turned out.

Thanks for looking!

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The Forth Day, abstract palette knife painting

"The Forth Day"

9 x 12 inches

Acrylic on hardboard

$550.00  ready to frame

The Daily Painters group is kicking off a tribute to our beautiful earth this month, so I thought I would start with how it all started, and pay tribute to the Almighty Creator of our beautiful earth!

Whether it took an actual 24 hour day, or whether days were long time periods, who knows? But it is so much harder to believe that every thing happened by accident than by an intelligent design. Just look at how amazing life is!

I wanted to capture that feeling of land and sea separating and the movement of the wind that may have stirred at God's voice!

Enjoy it all, even in the hard times.

And God said, "Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear." And it was so. God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good.

Genesis 1:9

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Sail Away, palette knife painting

"Sail Away"

8 x 10 inches

Acrylic on hardboard

This is just a simple composition. I am practicing my palette knife paintings. Getting more comfortable with it. Still need a brush for little details. It is exciting to see how the colors all work together, especially when I put a thin layer of one color under the thick layers. It makes nice value changes. I sprayed the painting with a mist of water this time, and it helped me to be able to slow down some.

Thanks for looking!

SOLD

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Sun Up, Palette knife painting

"Sun Up"

8 x 10 inches

Acrylic on hardboard

ready to frame

I made this up as I went along, which is a little harder than using reference photos. Forces me to follow my instincts.

I have been very interested in the rough, thick paint of palette knife painting lately. I did this one alla prima, all in one session, which has made my shoulder sore! But the way the wet-in-wet paint acts is so different than working over dry. I may have to invest in oils and give it a try! Acrylics dry quickly, so I have to work in high gear. It is fun though.

Thanks for looking!

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