Golden Boy

This 5.75 by 5.75 painting is actually a little darker than the photo looks. I didn't get the painting finished till 11:00 pm. I had to take the photo under warm lights. Its a bit washed out.

"Monet" in Green

This is part of my tribute to Monet  as a pond series.  I did a lavender pond and then a blue and now a green. Their all unique and interesting.  If you've seen the Monet pond paintings you know that he used multiple colors one on top of another and some of the paintings were about 1/2 inch thick. Others weren't thick with paint but they had so many colors, it was head spinning at times. 

My actual favorite painting of his is a snow scene of Giverney, it looked so peaceful. 

  It was a beautiful day here in South Carolina, the lake was full of boaters.  I would venture to guess not nearly as many as in previous years, perhaps the high cost of gas is hurting some folks and they decided to just  have a cook out and bar be que some dogs or burgers out in the back yard.   I was invited to canoe down the Catawba River but decided to work in my yard. Usually I just have to put in a few days and its good all year.  So far Its coming along.   I’ll take some more photos of it so you can see how things are growing.   I fell asleep for a few minutes out on the back deck this afternoon.  The sound of water bubbling and the birds, it was really calm.  I repotted the plants I bought yesterday and fed all my plants.   My dogs thought it was too hot so I sent them in the house.  They love the good ole AC.  Who doesn’t!  I’m going to work on my larger project tonight its coming along too.  I’ll post it’s progress in about an hour.  I worked on it till 11 pm last night and would have worked on it longer but everyone wanted to go to bed.  

Flowing Waters

This is a small Koi Painting that I did today and I tried to make it look like the water was flowing all around and over the fish.  At first I detailed the koi and water a bit to much so I pulled back the color and softened the lines and now I like it much better.

$40.0 5.9 by 5.9 inches

My condo back yard water feature

This is a photo of my back yard, its a bit small so I put in a little water feature I made out of a metal tub.  I may bury it, but it looks pretty good next to my deck.  You can see by the pots along the fence... Its still early spring here, most of my flowers haven't grown large enough.By the end of summer they are tall and growing up the fence.

  The water is blue because I put in a  special non toxic coloring.  Its so the algae won't grow.  There's a small bubbler which keeps the water moving.  I bought another water plant it looks like a caterpillar.

Blue Waters ACEO

This ACEO is for sale for $15.00 plus 1.00 S & H Mixed media on paper 2.5 by 3.5

blue on blue

7.5 by 7.25  45.00 Acrylic on gessoed masonite.

I need to cut up some more painting panels. I run out of them pretty fast. Usually I buy the masonite myself and have someone cut the wood into different sizes.  Being thrifty I have had them cut by folks who have trouble figuring out how to cut a straight line.   This is why the odd sizes.  For instance this piece was to be 8 by 8 but he, (I’ll keep his name anonymous) kept having to cut another bit off here and there.  I guess I’m lucky I didn’t end up with a 3 by 3. 

This painting is part of my “Monet” series.  I like these blues, and greens with the brown and white.

Its very soothing.

Of course…

I think I’ll paint another with the colors using ( yesterday’s painting) the palette of ancient ritual 126.   

 

I’ve been thinking about buying an Internet card for my laptop, u know so you can go anywhere not just where they have wifi.   Are they worth the money?  my cell phone is with A T&T so should I buy theirs so I can get a  possible discount for bundling my service plans or should I get a different brand because they work better.  Any ideas on this folks? 

Perserverance 08

11 by 14 Acrylic impasto on Canvas panel 150.00

This painting is done impasto which refers to the thickness of the paint. Its very thick and can give the look of oil without using oil paints. I combined a golden gel medium with the acrylic paint to increase the body of the paint. It tends to paint like whip creme, which is a little hard to control but is very smooth. Also, it gives the paint a slight gloss which is similar to oil paint.
Artist Tip:
When using these gels its best to use a pallet knife and mix the paint into the gel uniformly because if not mixed well the gel will look translucent white. Sort of like dried glue, not a look you really want.

A crazy weekend, hope yours is going well. Its windy here in SC and cool, unusual it seems for May.

Koi, or Follow the leader

I painted this little guy and some folks might wonder why his head is off the picture plane. Well... so many people wrote me to say I often paint the heads and not the tail which is to them the most beautiful part of a Koi. So here is one beautiful tail.

Water plants

This is my little water feature, I have a few plants, The water lily shown was one I purchased from ebay for $7.00 it has three baby lily pads. I was so excited because when I received the plant it was just a cutting from the mother plant. To see the little pads growing under the water and sprouted within a few days, was fun. The plant seems to be getting healthier each day. You can see my reflection in the water, also you might be able to see my red gazing ball which is also reflecting back a little.

Raccoon Rascals

11 by 15 $300.0Raccoons are cute little guys and very frisky. I’ve raise a few and have found them to be a handful and don’t encourage you to try to keep one as a pet. I just raised them till I could turn them over to a rehabilitator who taught them to get their own food in the wild and set them free.

Sunshine and peace

16 by 20 Acrylic on canvas 300.00

Watching Koi you find yourself calming down your heart rate slows and you become mezmerized by their movement,& the reflections of the water.

Some of the Koi seem to have personalities which I wouldn't have believe till I saw this for myself. They are very eagar to come when called in hopes of getting dinner. They also have a pack type metality with some fish being bossy and others being shy or frightened.

In the weeds

Impasto acrylic 11 by 14 on canvas

Koi impasto

close up of impasto...

Pink Koi

I decided to create a painting of a Pink Koi, I've never a seen a pink Koi but you never know there could be one out there. Especially since there are red Koi & white Koi and perhaps mother nature has mixed up those two colors and turned out a Pink Koi.

Little Pink

Here is a big pink waterlily… you know the flower doesn’t actually grow on top of the leaf and when you see them like this they are just coming up separately thru the split in the leaf. Often they will be floating near the actual lily pad or standing up on their tall stems above the water.

They do come in millions of colors. blue, lavender, white, pink, & even green just to name a few. I bought a book about these flowers and even bought one small hardy plant. I take this research thing a bit far at times. I’m going to make a small water feature on my back deck and see if I can get it to grow. Two tiny round leaves have already sprouted.



This plant is also the symbol for perseverance very much like the koi or the Phoenix something that comes from the muddy depths and seeks the beauty of the light. Always emerging and surviving. Not only beautiful but strong what a combination.

white on white

7 inches by 7 inches
Sorry for the odd size but these are the last of my odd size panels.

Watercolor on gessoed panel. No need to frame under glass. These watercolors are protected with a UV fixative (or varnish if you prefer). I have painted a companion piece for this white flower, also a Pink Lillie which came out rather nice and one big red flower. I painted one last night real late and three this morning because I got up at the crack of dawn before anyone arrived.
There’s a big storm coming in so I wanted to get my porch and deck cleaned up and my flower-beds ready for my annual flower planting.

Usually in the spring I get out in the yard and plant flowers and pull weeds from around the condo and the garden. Today I hired a helper and when we were getting everything cleaned up, two baby opossums popped out from under our deck. They were very cute. They looked like they couldn't’t see very well in the bright sunlight. Sort of like me when I first wake up. They were a bit confused because they got sprayed with a pressure washer, ( we didn’t know they were under there). When they came out they were all wet and looking pretty goofy. I know, I know, everyone thinks their ugly, but baby anything is pretty cute. One had black spots on his head. I didn’t know some had spots I thought they were pretty much all the same, grey and white.

Anyway If I see them again I’ll take a photo of them for you.

Flower power, a painting a day

8 by 8 Watercolor on Gessoed maonite shantmarie@aol.com if interested in purchase.

Ancient Ritual ACEO

This little ACEO is part of my Ancient Ritual series.

Bad hair day

This is a bit out of focus, I'll try to upload a better photo tomorrow. 3 by 5 watercolor on paper


Doesn't this flower look like its saying hey have you seen my brush?

Palm Reader by Amy Kelm

I have posted here today another of Amy's paintings. This was part of her thesis and is watercolor on paper. It about 1/2 sheet of watercolor paper. I don't have the size actually but it is a larger piece.