Historic Homes in St. Francisville, LA

This is a painting I completed today.  The image was taken from my car window while driving through the historic areas in St. Francisville.  I thought it a quaint little house with a very overgrown garden, but quite lovely all the same.  The steps followed were those from the Chitty workshop.  I'll be continuing to work with Darrell's techniques, but will eventually combine his with others' I've learned over the past few months.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy and would love any comments you may have.

Have a lovely evening!

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggity, Jig

Well, I've just returned from a workshop in St. Francisville, Louisiana, held at the Butler-Greenwood Plantation, by Darrell Chitty.  For those of you interested in Darrell's work, be sure to google him, and take a look at his extraordinary work.

Our workshop covered how to paint like the Master's, specifically looking at Sargent and a newer artist, Pino.  We spent several hours taking photos of the grounds at Butler-Greenwood, Afton Villa Gardens, and several other plantations.  Darrell took us through adapting our images into paintings, using his special skills, techniques and brushes.  I felt a bit at a disadvantage as I am not a photographer, but was still able to learn a great deal.  This is a painting we developed from start to finish using his techniques.  Be sure to click on it large to get the full value.

I  hope to be posting several other paintings throughout the next weeks.

I hope everyone is having a glorious day!

Another Mother and Daughter

This is another painting of another mother and daughter.  The image was taken at my Grandson's birthday party and painted today.  This will be my last painting for awhile.  I'll be traveling to Louisiana for a digital painting workshop with Darrell Chitty, which is to be held on one of the old plantations that also serves as a bed and breakfast--of sorts.  Word has it that they aren't affected by the flooding going on, although they are situated near Baton Rouge.  Anyway, I hope to take lots of pictures on the way down--I'm driving, and might post some of those as I go along.

I hope everyone is having a wonderful afternoon.

Mother and daughters

As promised, I was able to take lot's of images at my Grandson's birthday party.  So I spent today picking out the one I wanted to paint for today.  This is my stepdaughter and her two daughters, my granddaughters.  Myah, the one on the left, spent more time making faces, so it wasn't easy to get a capture with both her sister and her mom.  Mari, the baby is always photogenic as is Dena.  Actually, the entire family is so beautiful, it's a pleasure to paint them.

The birthday party was wonderful, however, we all had to stay inside because of the cold and rain.  Today, however, was b-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l!  We Minnesotans really know how to appreciate the beautiful day.  They are super special.

I'm hoping everyone has a lovely evening!

Mother's Day Tulips

This isn't technically a painting, but I've not posted anything in awhile, and I don't want to be one of those people who leave their blogs unattended.  I did do quite a lot of image processing on these using Photoshop CS5 and found and used some textures on a new site that I recently found...The Coffee Shop Blog. 

I will probably have some new images to paint in the next few days, as my Grandson's birthday party is this afternoon and I hope to take lots of pics.  Unfortunately, it's been cold and rainy the last few days, so we will be indoors for the festivities. 

Enjoy, and I hope everyone is having a wonderful Saturday!

Mari and Her Ball

It's time again to start painting the little ones again.  The munchkins came over for a while yesterday to bring gifts for mother's day, and so out comes the camera.  I'll be posting some of those paintings over the next few days.  This image was taken a few weeks ago and I'm just now getting around to painting it.  This little one is a studier.  She likes to watch how things are done, and then she tries them...usually able to master something after just a few attempts.  She has such an easy going personality, especially compared to her sister.  Anyway, since it's rainy outside, I should be able to get some painting done.

I hope everyone is having a wonderful day.

The Pink House

This is yet another home I photographed when we were on vacation.  This was done with several treatments and filters available with Adobe Photoshop CS5 and a plug in filter called Topaz Simplify.  I was going to take this into Corel Painter and start brush strokes, but after looking at it for a while, I felt it needed no further work.  What do you think?

The sun is out here in Minnesota.  Mother's day should also be nice.  Tomorrow the Hubs and I will take our grandson to the Mall of America to see the new Sea Life exhibit for his second birthday.  Should be great fun!

I truly hope everyone is having an awesome day!

Practice Makes Perfect

This is a sweet painting of my Granddaughter from an image I took one day when I was babysitting.  She can't walk yet on her own yet, but she can hold on to things and walk around them.  I really thought the lighting worked well in the way it lit up the back of her cute little head.  I took artistic license and made this work very painterly and have posted it on the ImageKind Web site in the hopes that it might sell.  What do you think.

We are still having winter here--there were snow flurry's this morning while out taking Callie for a walk.  Still no leaves on the trees, however, I did spot some tulips coming up in the neighbor's yard.

I'm hoping everyone is having a joyous day.