Plein Airing with the DLP's at the Ole Huffman Farm

Hey Friends,  Today was a GOOD day, out painting Nature's beauty with my friends, the DLP's.

The statue above is a Mr. Jones, evidently a soldier worth remembering from the civil war.

This tiny trickle of water I'm painting here feeds into Mason Creek.  Every little trickle helps!

This is the final version. (for this day)

Thought you might want to see the one big change for the final version.  There is a sunlight streak on the left side of that tree.  I thought it was confusing, so deleted it.

Don't you think it looks better??

This is a small road (I think maybe it's a fire road) and all I did was turn around after finishing the first one, above.  I walked up that road for about a block.  It was beautiful.  Reminded me so much of the views at Peaks of Otter on the Blue Ridge Parkway.  Big boulders, stone cliffs, big trees and Mountain Laurel.  Can't wait for the laurel to bloom next spring.

And you know how much I love dogs, so wanted you to see this man watering his lab.  He was throwing stones!

CLICK HERE to read about our workshop this Saturday, the 24th, at the gorgeous Evergreen Lavender Farm in Appomattox.

There may still be a seat left.

Happy Trails

TAKING THE WEEKENDS OFF FOR THE 30 DAY CHALLENGE

Hey Friends,  I decided to take the weekends off since there are NO RULES.  I bet if you had this job you would take the weekends off too.  Making art and marketing and photographing and editing and updating websites and displaying and shipping and blogging and trying to keep up with social media is really a full time job IF you want to buy more supplies and keep the electricity on so you can see to paint.

Anyhoo, I made myself some alcohol inks today.  and yes, you might say I did not take a break today but this was Play and it was fun.  All you need are Permanent Markers, like Sharpies, and 91% alcohol and spray bottles, 4 0z. are best size and a pair of pliers.  And nail polish remover seems to clean up the mess better than alcohol. (top photo)

The photo above, I decided to put silver and gold paint on deli paper to see if it would act as good as goldleaf in collages.  Gold & silver leaf are really frustrating, like trying to glue down spider webs.  And finally tried the beautiful turquoise paint Mary Anne gave me for Christmas.  My favorite color, Thanks Mary Anne.

Over on the right are some papers with the alcohol inks sprayed on them.  But I thought this little heater was funny enough to show you.  Last year I bought this heater hoping it would heat my studio.  What a Joke.  This year I bought a jet engine that runs on propane!  And it works great! 

Until today I could run the new heater for 15 minutes and the studio was HOT.  Then I could turn on the electric joke and it maintained it for hours.  But last night, today and for the next 2 nights, it will be single digits, like 9 tonight and 7 tomorrow night.  So the jet propane heater had to run longer.  But I'm thrilled with how warm it makes the studio.  Maybe I'll give a review on my weekend days  Snow is beautiful for about 2-3 hours then I want summer back.

Don't you feel sorry for me NaNaCat?

And since I took the weekend off I didn't even bother to look for my hiking boots to sweep the snow.  I just tied on some Kroger bags and they kept me dry.

I hope you have a wonderful little brother that will keep your driveway cleared just like mine.  I tell him over & over, I don't want to get out anymore.  One perk of being retired is you don't have to go out there at 7am and clean the car and shovel the driveway to go to WORK.  

Happy Trails

Shovel Wisely