Blog

The summer has gone by so quickly it seems, probably because I have been deeply immersed in creating my art and nurturing my garden. Perhaps, in a way, I've been nurturing both. 

After winning the Washington Duck Stamp contest this year I have been incredibly blessed with requests to paint several dog portraits as well as a landscape portrait of a waterfall  at night with the aurora borealis. The portraits have included chocolate and black labs, mixed breed rescue dogs and in the near future a versatile hunting dog breed called a Pudelpointer. Many of these have challenged and stretched me because I've had to paint complicated backgrounds or the subject matter was not some of the usual things I paint, like the northern lights. Each has helped me hone my skills however and has kept me growing and improving.

In between the commissions I managed to complete one new piece to send to the Michigan Ducks Unlimited Sponsor Print contest. It depicted a pair of northern pintails resting in late afternoon light. The painting received a 2nd place at the contest by popular vote of those attending the Ducks Unlimited event. I was very pleased with that result and the piece is currently available for purchase here on my website.

And lastly, I have been nurturing my garden through it all and have been blessed with an abundance of lovely fruits and vegetables. There was so much I had to enlist the help of my husband with the canning. We made 30 pints of jam, 32 pints of applesauce, 10 pints of salsa, 12 pints of tomato soup, quarts of canned tomatoes. We've had numerous BLT sandwiches and lots of fresh veggies to eat and I have given away quite a bit to friends and the local food bank so it has been a productive summer in all ways.

I'd like to say that I'm looking forward to the more restful days of autumn, but I'm getting the feeling that may just be wishful thinking. I just received a request for another commission today and have some local shows that I'd like to create some new paintings for coming up in November and early winter. There's always a duck stamp contest going on somewhere too that I'd like to continue to pursue. In the days ahead it looks like I'm going to continue to be one very busy lady!