New Oil Painting of Bluebonnets

August 27, 2007

I’m thinking about bluebonnets again.... I was going through my photos this week deciding on my next painting. My spring trip to the Fredericksburg Texas area to see the wildflowers and bluebonnets gave me quite a batch of photos. The Hill Country is so beautiful, and you can never tire of it.

This was painted in June from that trip. I call it Big Oak and Bluebonnets, it is 12 x 9, oil on canvas panel. I like doing a small painting before tackling a large one, and I plan to do a large painting from this same reference photo for my next painting. Big Oak and Bluebonnets is available for sale on my website for $325 at this link: http://data.fineartstudioonline.com/dataviewer.asp?keyvalue=1584&subkeyvalue=127185&page=WorksDetail I painted several bluebonnet paintings in June, and they are now sufficiently dry enough to put on my website and in my Etsy store at http://www.jeanhood.etsy.com/ I sell my small paintings and studies in my Etsy store at a price range of $30 - $100.

Flora and Fauna Report

The Sycamore trees in our area are some of our taller trees. Their white bark is a beautiful distinguishing factor. It peels off in patches, giving a mottled appearance to its trunk and branches. It likes moist soils, so is normally found close to creeks and rivers in the Texas Hill Country area. The Sycamore has a maple like leaf that can be quite large. These leaves are the ones I wait for in August to break the landscape of summer. I watch the Sycamores every year, and at the beginning of August the leaves start their changing process, and the greens give way to golds.
Since Oak trees are also at our rivers and creeks, you often see these two trees together. The blue green of the Oak makes the yellow/gold/ lime greens of the Sycamore all the more obvious. This photo is one of my favorite Sycamores to watch. It is on Pinto Creek on Highway 90. I’ll be doing some paintings of Sycamore trees this fall. I’ve painted them on location on the Pedernales River, and at Rio Frio. The colors and shapes make beautiful fall colors to paint.

The baby chicks are growing! It is hard to get a good photo with the wire, and they refuse to pose for me. I hope you can see the changes in them. The largest chick is the one from our hatch. Remember how tiny it was on July 21?
http://jeanleverthood.blogspot.com/2007/07/july-21-2007.html
Now they are in the chicken yard with The Big Chickens. They are in a segregated area of the enclosure, still too small to be with TBC. I’ll do another update photo soon.
Until next time!

New Oil Painting of the Snake River

August 20, 2007



The past week has flown by. Of course they all do, don't they!


I've had some wonderful opportunities to travel, and I paint many of the beautiful places I visit. This painting is of the Snake River in Wyoming. What a gorgeous river! According to Wikipedia, the Snake River originates in Yellowstone National Park in northwest Wyoming, then flows into Jackson Lake in the Grand Teton National Park, from there it heads south through Jackson Hole and past the town of Jackson. It continues on from Jackson, but this is the area where we drove along side of it. "Snake" is very descriptive of this river, on our ride from the south going up to Yellowstone, we drove along side of it for miles, and it twists and turns constantly.


The water was turquoise, amazing at every view. I took photo after photo. With more beauty at every turn, I was happy to have a digital instead of a film camera. The sky was intense, the water swift, and the surrounding mountains and trees added to the drama of the Snake River. The road "snaked" with the river, and it was wonderful that there were many turn offs provided for sight seeing and photo taking.


This painting is in oil, it is 10 x 8.

Next post I'll tell you about the beautiful Sycamore tree. I love to watch them in August, that is when they first start turning colors from the spring and summer green. Now, I say "summer" loosely, because our summer generally lasts well into October. The turning of the leaves in August reminds me that for all of our summer heat in Texas, winter will come. It is one of my favorite trees in our area. I've painted it on location in the Texas Hill Country areas of the Pedernales River and the Rio Frio. I must stop now, or I'll tell it all to you this week.

Until next time!

Monday, August 13, 2007

Last week was really busy with out of town guest, and a wedding. I didn't have a lot of concentrated studio time, so I did "repairs" to paintings and cleaned. Organized chaos is how artist Linda Blondheim describes it! Very appropriate description for my studio too. I need some level of organization to function, but the act of painting creates a certain amount of chaos for me. In addition to my painting area, I have a place in my studio for framing and making cards, one for displaying paintings, another for perusing photos for ideas. These areas can all get really messy, and at times I simply must stop and straighten up.

Doing repairs to paintings requires a smaller block of time, and it is many times how I use shorter studio hours. Often, when a painting isn't quite right, I set it aside until I know what I want to do with it to make it pleasing to my eye. I will have a "repair" day, and work on a number of paintings. It's often quick gratification - short work time ending up with several pieces that I'm pleased with.

Flora and Fauna Report!

The bougainvillea are starting to bloom in my herb/naturalized/flower garden. They will be really pretty later in the fall. Just one little bloom is making me happy right now!

I love this color of bougainvillea, the deep fuchsia one. This is a painting from last fall, painted in my garden. These beauties grow so well in the Texas Hill Country area, it's able to stand our heat and dry conditions, and the harsh sun just makes it bloom more. This painting is a 12 x 9, oil on canvas board.

The baby chick is growing fast, and towering above the rest of the new family. We purchased a number of baby chicks, and they are getting on just fine with our hatch. (We don't have an incubator, so we rarely have baby chicks of our own, and usually purchase them.) They will soon be with the adults in the chicken yard.

'till next time!

August 4, 2007, Saturday

My Rio Frio Series:

I have continued to paint from my Rio Frio series. I planned to do that for the month of July, but I not ready to put that idea aside yet. I have painted all of these paintings from one photo.

These two paintings were abstracted from the same reference photo.

12 x 16, oil on Gallery wrap canvas

14 x 11, oil on canvas panel

Both of these paintings will be available for sale on my website when they are sufficiently dry.

I am enjoying immensely the creative juices flowing from this series, and will continue to use this photo until I no longer see another painting. Larger paintings are in the plans for this coming week.

Marc McCord calls the Rio Frio "a gem." In his writing about Rio Frio, McCord says "....the Rio Frio is a gem of Texas rivers. Its water flows cool, clean and clear from underground springs that gush forth some of the purest water to be found in a Texas river, the bed of which is limestone and gravel. Rising above Kent in Real County, the Frio flows past Garner State Park and on down to Concan (the end of the section most frequently paddled, and which is covered in this report), then down to the Three Rivers area in Live Oak County where it intersects the Atascosa and Nueces Rivers." Quoted with permission of Marc McCord, http://southwestpaddler.com/ .

Garner State Park is where I have painted the Frio, and taken many photographs. This particular photo reference I'm using was taken under the bridge just before the entrance to the State Park.