En plein air, finally!

I've been wanting to find another artist to go painting outside with me, and last week I discovered that a friend of mine had recently started painting again, and wanted to go paint en plein air. So, last Wednesday three of us went downtown and painted a local landmark, the oak trees at Toomer's Corner. If any of you are aware of the Auburn/Alabama rivalry you probably read about the nut who poisoned the Toomer's Oaks after we beat Alabama last year. He most definitely does not represent Alabama fans, but he claimed to have done it because he loved Alabama and hated Auburn. Crazy!!

Anyway, the poor trees are definitely dying. After having done the painting last week and sold a bunch of prints and notes this past weekend, I read that the university is saying if you want to see the trees while they are still green, you need to come in the next few weeks.

Here is my painting:

I hope to go painting with Jill and Kim again in a couple of weeks! It was great fun.

Fun new sunflower painting!

Last weekend we visited my parents and sister in Huntsville to celebrate my parents' 50th wedding anniversary. On Saturday we went to a really interesting hydroponics farm, and got some sunflowers along with all the terrific vegetables. That evening several of us sat around the kitchen table and drew or painted the sunflowers.

Mom gave me some Aquaboard panels, and I opened a pack of the 5"x5" ones to give it a try! Tomorrow I will spray the painting with a fixative but I wanted to go ahead and put up the image now. If it's much different after spraying it I will post again.

Art Shows

Wow, it's been far too long since I updated my blog! I'm just popping in now to give a quick update. This past year has been really busy but good. Most recently, David finished his last season with Upward Basketball last week. My folks came to visit for the weekend and were able to go to his basketball game, then go to the opening of an art show some of my work is hanging in for a few weeks, and they got to see David get baptised on Sunday.  Altogether it was a wonderful weekend!

These are the four paintings that I've got hanging in the new Catawampus Gallery in Opelika. They will be hanging for a month.

This is a close up of my favorite one. I love to paint irises!

And this is the best thing that happened last weekend. David was baptised by our youth minister, Greg. It was a terrific weekend!

Busy December

As the title says, it has been a busy December. I was blessed to be in 3 art shows/sales within 5 weeks, and really enjoyed doing that. They kept me hopping to get ready for each! Now I'm looking forward to participating in the Auburn CityFest in April.

Here's a picture of my display at the last show of this year, a couple of weeks ago. I know Jon cut off my head, but what I wanted him to get was the table, anyway. I really like how it looked. :)



Now, I want to close with this picture of the fantastic sunset visible from our back porch 2 nights ago. Wow... this photo doesn't come near to doing it justice! This month, our family celebrates the day the God of this fantastic creation was born a Child in Bethlehem. He came to sacrifice Himself so that we might know Him forever. May you have joy this season, and know the One Who loves you so much.



With love from our family to yours!
Leslie

Eggs!!! Camping and Art

Out of the 11 small Barred Rock chickens we got for David's birthday, all but 3 were killed by a pack of dogs two weeks after we got them. Sigh. So, the following week Jon's boss gave us an adult rooster, and sent 2 older hens along with him. They were no longer laying eggs, he said.

This Saturday, the small brown hen laid an egg!!! Then another on Monday, another on Tuesday, and a 4th today! We are surprised and thrilled. So was the former owner, who was really shocked. :)




The last weekend in October we went camping with a group of friends we've known for years, most of them, anyway. New ones, too! The campground was Roosevelt State Park in Georgia, next to Callaway Gardens. So, we spent Sunday afternoon at Callaway. We enjoyed the whole weekend! It was beautiful weather- beautiful!!





Our tent and campsite:


After leaving the butterfly house we saw a Great Grey Heron as we were driving over the bridge, heading to the Raptor Show.



At the Raptor Show they were demonstrating the owls! They were so cool. After the show the handler stayed up front with this adorable Screech Owl!



While we were at the campground relaxing, I began a set of small paintings that I ended up really liking as a single unit!



I'd like to invite any of you who live in the area to come do a little early Christmas shopping on Saturday. I'm participating in Shop It!, a fundraiser for Youth For Christ's teen moms program. A portion of all sales will go to them, and there will be a lot of vendors there, like Mary Kay, Tupperware, and Southern Home. It is from 9 to 2 at the Auburn Chamber of Commerce building, which is at Glendean shopping center in front of Hastings. Please come out! I'll be there, and painting to draw a crowd. :) We'll have to see what kind of crowd I'll draw- maybe I should try juggling or something! Anyway, it should be fun and for a good cause. I hope to see you there!

New Artwork and New Chickens

Well, I have let several months go by without posting! It's been pretty busy, but I have managed to get a few small paintings finished that I'm pretty happy with.

First, here's a picture of our sweet, silly chickens chillin' on the swing about a month ago:



About a week after I took that picture something got into their pen and killed every single one of those chickens. They were due to start laying eggs sometime this month and were most certainly pets for us. We were really crushed to find them all dead that Sunday morning! Gosh, it was sad.

A few days later, our neighbor gave us some new chickens for David's birthday! They are now about six weeks old. They are Barred Rock chickens, which are one of the few varieties of chickens that you can tell what gender they are by their color when they are tiny. We have ten hens (pullets) and one rooster (cockerel).



A couple of months ago, the friend who gave us our first chickens gave me a photo of one of their roosters- the father of several of ours. I really enjoyed doing this little painting from that photo- what a beautiful rooster!



Several weeks ago, David and I went to the northern part of the state and spent some time there with my parents. Jon was sick and had to stay here! One day while we were there, we went down to the river and let David swim. The rest of us sat in chairs by the water and chatted, and I painted this little painting of a boathouse across the river. I loved doing this painting and am really happy with it!



A couple of weeks ago, I did this little painting based on a photo I took several months ago of some flowers in a flower show. I can't remember what they were, and I've changed them quite a bit. I love the colors in this!



I hope the next few weeks will be a bit more relaxed; I hope to do some more painting. I have to say, though, that I have painted quite a bit more this year than I realized! It has been a blessing.

Have a wonderful October!

Recent Artwork

I haven't posted much artwork lately, but I have been painting. Two of the most recent ones are gifts to the two people who responded to my "Pay it Forward" post, and I wanted to finish them both before I posted them. I intend to put them in the mail this week. :)



The dogwood painting is for my high school friend Mona Helen in California. She said she misses the dogwoods the most, so I'm sending her some of her own!



The pansies are for a fellow artist, Deborah, in Michigan. I have to apologize to each of these ladies for taking such a long time to get these to them. I haven't forgotten but life has gotten in the way!

I've done a couple of fun sketches completely different from my usual style, and they were fun. :)





A couple of months ago I picked the white iris and just had the urge to do something different! A few weeks later a friend and her kids came over, and we walked across the street to the lake. The children fished and Marie and I visited while I did this rough sketch of the lake. I didn't have the courage to put the children in it. Maybe next time!



I did this one last week after finishing the pansies, and I love it! It's different, too, but it was a lot of fun.

Last Friday I participated in Summer Night, an outdoor art evening in our local downtown area. Quite a few artists had their artwork on display and for sale, and many stores remained open extra hours. I saw lots of folks I haven't seen in a while, and enjoyed myself very much!

Baby chickens

Well, we've taken the next step in living in the country, and added ten baby chickens to the mix! What will happen next?? :) David and I sat outside today, did school and ate lunch while watching the chickens. Jon and David are building a chicken tractor tomorrow so they'll have a bigger place to play than the pen they are in now. I did some quick sketches, but they really don't stand still long enough to do much. They are pretty, though!



As I pulled out a sketchbook I haven't used in a few weeks I discovered this small painting of a pepper I did over Christmas while we family members all sat around the kitchen table and sketched or painted. Fun! I'd forgotten about this.

Snow!

Well, today in central Alabama we had snow! They predicted anywhere from 1 to 6 inches, but we ended up with about 1/2 inch here. However, it was a lot of fun watching David and all the neighborhood kids play. They had snowball fights and built snowmen (small ones) and got really cold. A really fun day!



One night this week I did a quick sketch from a photo in the files of Watercolorworkshop to try to keep my goal of sketching every day this year. The blue in the sky completely dropped out of this scan, but the rest is pretty close. It was fun.



I also did a sketch of some cactus flowers, using a reference photo I took in the Botanical Gardens in Birmingham last year. I'm finding I like my sketches better when drawn from life.



Have a wonderful holiday!

Christmas Fun

Well, after most of the gifts were exchanged and the wonderful meals cooked and eaten, my dad, sister and I decided to sit at the table and do some sketching! Mom and Dad gave me a new sketch pen and sketch book, so I used the pen. The sketch book is the perfect size for my purse! I used larger ones for these sketches, however.

I had the newest scavenger hunt list from Wetcanvas, and we drew some items from the list. My favorite things were the tools that my dad brought out for us to draw. They were his father's clamps and a London Screwdriver, and they are over 100 years old. You can click on the pictures to see larger versions with more detail.

The larger clamp is about 24 inches on the longest side, and the screwdriver is maybe 14 inches long- very hefty. I've never seen another screwdriver like it.




I don't have scans of anyone's drawings but mine, but my dad and sister did a great job on theirs! My new pen contained non-permanent ink, so I used a waterbrush to blend the lines and add shading, and added a touch of watercolor as well. I had so much fun!

One more item from the list is below- a sweet potato. There are several more, but I hate to bore you with posting them all! It's the most I've been able to participate in one of the scavenger hunts in ages, and I really enjoyed it.



I hope you all had a very pleasant Christmas, and are looking forward to a blessed new year!