Butterfly Bonanza

 

The rudbeckia is putting on a show - and the butterflies have noticed!  Of course, I HAD to paint it!!  These blooms really shine as the garden phlox begins to fade.  Though I bought these at a local nursery, they grow wild in every meadow here and I move some up to the gardens each fall. I think this variety has a slightly different shaped bloom than our locals, the brown center more of a ball with dropping petals.  I think the others are flatter, somehow.  I'll have to check that out tomorrow, because they are also in bloom!  Perhaps I should also paint this in oils to see how different they would look!  Painting number 4978 in 4978 days. 

Black-eyed Susans and Butterflies

The black- eyed Susans are really gorgeous right now, and the butterflies can't seem to resist them!  I have shorter varieties in the meadow, and large ones in my front flower bed!  I love planting all the things I want to paint.  It's very rewarding when my visions come to life in blooming color for me to paint!  Painting number 4622 in 4622 days. 

Bee and Black-eyed Susans

 

What a beautiful day to spend in the garden with my oils!  The cool front has brought delightfully cool weather for the next few days, and I am taking advantage!  Gardening, painting, and all things outdoors are on my schedule as I finish commissions at night.  The heat week build back in, but for now I'm basking in the.bliss! Now, it's time for a little roller skate fun with the family before getting back to work!  Painting number 5125 on 5125 days. 

Bee and Black Eyed Susans

These sunny yellow blooms may just be my favorite to pop up in pasture and prairie!  Their cheerful faces are a welcome sight, and their bloom time is amazing.  These sturdy flowers last forever in a vase, too!  I use both India and Levenger Raven Black ink to sketch the lines.  Laying in the masses with my Watercolor Confections, I return with a little ink where needed.  Sometimes I forget to get that photo in the field, and I'm liable to forget lots of things in the days leading up to Michaela's wedding! Painting number 2426 in 2426 days.

Sculpted Prairie Wildflowers

Sculpted Prairie Wildflowers
Acrylic, molding paste on panel
Konza Prairie Wildflowers

Summer at the Konza Prairie finds so many different flowers in bloom!  There are more than 60 prairie grasses and a whole page list with four columns - full of flowers and plants which grow on this prairie!  With this painting, I first sketch out my composition with pastel sticks.  Next, I capture the petals and foliage with my palette knife and light molding paste.  It is important to first have a sketch here, so I can be sure and put the paste where I want it!  No willy nilly application when it comes to molding paste!  After this dries, which is fairly quickly, I go in with my first layer of paint.  Using Golden Open acrylics, I thin down with water and regular gel medium - building up the color and value.  Stepping back periodically, to make sure I get a good feel for where the painting is headed, I make adjustments to the diffused background flowers.  I have tried a stiff, semi gloss medium between layers, but will top this off with the regular gloss for the top coat.  Applying a clear medium between layers adds another dimension to the paint.  I hope to enter this painting for a fundraising auction to benefit the Flint Hills.  It is important to do all we can to preserve the beauty of this Kansas prairie for generations to come.  This painting makes 586 in 586 days.

Sculpted Hydrangea & Rudbeckia

Sculpted Hydrangea & Rudbeckia
Acrylic over molding paste on wood panel, 11x14
Fish Creek, Wisconsin
Purchase Information

My third painting of the day from the Allen yard in Fish Creek, Wisconsin, is an acrylic over molding paste on panel.  I first sketched the composition out on the panel, while set up at my easel in front of these flowers.  I have a small container of molding paste which I carry on board my french easel, and this I laid down with my palette knife.  It was rather humid right by the harbor, so this took a little longer to dry than normal.  Avoiding the still wet paste, I blocked in the background with my Golden open acrylics, careful to add enough water and regular gel medium so the acrylics would actually dry.  If I add nothing to these open acrylics, they stay tacky almost forever!  Since I need them to dry for easy storage on the trip home - I must add water and gel medium. This one was dry by morning.  Truly, these are the acrylics to use in the field, because I never have to worry about the fast drying time.  After using regular acrylics for years en plein air - these are SO much easier.  When the background was in, the paste was dry enough to start layering in the color.  My final layer is the regular gel gloss, sealing the layers and adding the perfect finish.  Another wonderful painting day - and this one makes number 577 in 577 days.

Meadow Flowers

Meadow Flowers
Watercolor on paper, 7x10.5

This morning was cool and very cloudy - the perfect day to get back to cleaning my flower beds!  Expecting rain, I worked quickly - and didn't get rained out for 5 hours!  Now inside, waiting for the rain to stop so I may return to my work, I am doing a little watercolor painting.  The pastures have not been cut yet, and there is the most wonderful assortment of grasses and lazy susans.  This is my landscape choice of the day, although my first purple garden phlox just started blooming!  After applying the Pebeo drawing gum (which I am quickly going through this first bottle), allowing it to dry, I washed on some background color.  When that was also dry, I rubbed off the gum, revealing the white of the paper beneath it.  I started laying in the colors, flowers first.  I wanted their color to be rather true to life.  The other grasses - I pushed them any way I felt like, dropping in happy colors that simply popped next to the colors already painted in the first layer.  It is so freeing to not be restricted by life, I know.....it sounds crazy.  But as a born perfectionist, it is a very unnatural thing for me to do.  It is almost like I have this other self, one who wants to paint with reckless abandon and wild colors, and who cares not if people think I have lost my mind!  Well, back to the real world of cleaning and gardening and preparing for company, and this is painting number 544 in 544 days.  Maybe I'll go crazy again tomorrow!