Summer Joy

Here is the piece I finished today. It's an odd little wooden frame with 9 separate wooden squares. It measures 13 3/4 inches square (approx.- all the numbers are worn off my ruler in the craft room, I've used it for so long). This is really not a great photo. I stood on my drafting chair to get a dead-on photo (the wooden squares are not yet affixed to the frame and will fall out if I try hanging it) but it kept spinning and I'm desperately afraid of heights. So it's not quite square. You get the idea. I don't know what it really is except some sort of leaf sampler. When I quilted and did needle arts, samplers were a favorite. I don't see why painting should be any different. Although I have the Sesame Street song "One of these things is not like the others" playing in my head... Still I can cross this office my list and that is a little slice of Summer Joy!

Here are the last two spreads from my Moleskine #2. This book lasted a year, along with a watercolor book that I filled at the same time. Hoping to speed up production and fill a book every few months.

And lastly the first three spreads in the new Moleskine. This one I'm theming Everyday Matters and using numbered prompts from the Everyday Matters group website inspired by Danny Gregory's book Everyday Matters, which focuses on just that, things we see every day.

Hope you are all experiencing your own summer joys. I am extremely grateful for all of my own!!

Longhorn Blues

She looks more like some ole cow than a longhorn, but that was the original idea. I have mixed feelings about this one. There are a couple of parts that I really love but the composition has bugged me from the first. I tried different placements in sketches and determined that in order to get any length in the horns she had to be off-center, but I wish I had painted this horizontally on a rectangular canvas. Too late now.

Here is her original sketch:

And here is a close-up of my favorite part.

I painted this after getting the idea from someone in particular, so Hannah, if you're seeing this, I'm not sure I managed what you had in mind but if you want her she's all yours.