CHILDHOOD MEMORIES

WHITE PINE MEMORIES, STUDY

This painting brought many memories flooding back.  As I have said before, I love trees, especially white pines.  They have the softest, longest needles of all the pines, and I love the smell of them.  I also love hearing the wind blow through them.

As a little girl, I recall playing in the stand of white pines that my father planted on a hillside to help with erosion control. It felt like my special place and I wonder after all these years if they are still standing. The inspiration for this painting is from a photo I took while hiking at High Banks metro park.  I had to kind of bushwhack to get close to these trees, but it was worth it.   I got this photo in the late afternoon while the sun was low and the highlights on the trees were so interesting I had to do this study.  I think it will be the start of a larger work.

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FOR THE LOVE OF TREES

SUNNY SYCAMORE #1

I love everything about trees.  They are my favorite landscape feature, and I love painting them.  The Sycamore tree says "mid-west" to me, even though I have seen them in Paris lining the Seine.  I love the lovely bark that sheds itself in the fall and the leaves as large as dinner plates that turn a lovely golden brown in the autumn. This particular Sycamore is along a bike path that I frequently use. On this day, the sun was glinting off the bark and lighting up the tree in a spectacular way. Because it is still spring, the leaves have not reached their full size and many of the branches are still visible.

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UNEXPECTED BEAUTY

SPRING STREAM

I walk my dog Logan everyday, rain or shine.  He has come to expect it and after 13 years, I am not about to change his routine.  We both need it and it tends to clear my head and get me much needed fresh air and exercise.   One of our favorite parks has a stream that meanders through it and much of the summer it is so overgrown that you would barely know it is there.  But on this particular spring day,  it was beautiful and I snapped a photo of it thinking it might become a painting.

This painting was done on Arches oil paper and I must say that i am beginning to like it after much experimentation.  The first layer of paint literally soaks into the paper, so adding another layer on top can be done without too much waiting time.  I like the softness achieved by the paper and think that I will be doing more paintings on this surface.

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PAINTING MEMORIES

Village in Provence

Last October, my husband and I were lucky enough to enjoy a much needed vacation and chose to go on a bike tour to France.  We bicycled in Provence and our travels took us through numerous small villages.  The painting above is one of those villages. I was charmed by the beautiful colors of the buildings and the blooming plants in the doorways and hanging from the windows.

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