New Brushes

House Shapes from my Sketchbook

I took a workshop earlier this week from Sandra Strohschein.  It was great  -  lots of information.  She used these brushes and had them available to purchase, so now I'm obsessed and can't put them down.

This painting is about 7 X 11.  These cottages are from my "collection" of simple house shapes in my sketch books.  I love houses of any shape, size, or style, and often when I go to paint them, they don't always end up in their original settings. In real life, these are surrounded by many other cottages, but as I sketched them, I liked the way "the viewer" could, maybe, just walk over that ridge to the beach instead of more cottages and the highway.

Art is a control thing.  You can make a subject anything you want!

Go out and sketch some cottages or houses in the city, country or by the beach  -  then put them in any setting you want.  It's not about reality, it's about the composition.

Have fun with it!!!

Another Porch

Painting on Another Porch
Painting with the Walloon Lake Group before having lunch on the porch overlooking the lake.

Webster: "Porch -  a covered area adjoining an entrance to a building and usually having a separate roof."

And usually having coffee, tea, or lemonade, comfy chairs, a nice view, a vase of wildflowers,  something good to read, a cat asleep in the sun . . . 

It's getting cooler now, and the walnuts are falling onto the porch roof and rolling down, dropping to the ground. A few leaves have turned.  Mornings and evenings are much cooler.  I'm really not a fan of much cooler.

I want to get in a lot more time of journaling and sketching outside.  Have you taken your sketchbooks out for a stroll lately?

Finding a Breeze

A Great Place to Paint on a Hot Day

It's been pretty warm this summer in northern Michigan, but there is always a shady spot and almost always a breeze coming off the Bay.

We sat on the porch and painted, drank jasmine tea and ate green tea mochi ice cream.  

Today I'm tearing up my garden  -  if you can even call it a garden.  Everything is soooo out of control.  It looks like one of those old gardens that was at one time very pretty, and then because of neglect, it just became overgrown and tangled  -  that's exactly what happened.  So, I'm finding my way down to bare dirt, and we'll just see what happens when spring comes.  If things come up again, I'll have to decide whether to let them grow or pull them out.  If nothing comes up, I'll have to decide whether to replant or plant grass.  

The tiger lilies were devoured by red lily bugs (REPULSIVE), and the day lilies and hostas were eaten by the deer. Maybe next year there won't be anything for the predators -  that'll show 'em.