the neighbor's garden

diamond hour

Summer living lakeside in a Michigan vacation house is so sweet. And this is the hour when the sun is hovering a bit above the horizon, not sunset but moving that way. You pour a drink and sit back to enjoy the glittering sunlight across the lake.
From my sketchbook last week as I was a lucky guest at the lake house.

two Philosophers and best friends

choicest treasures

So extraordinary is Nature with her choicest treasures, spending plant beauty as she spends sunshine, pouring it forth into land and sea, garden and desert. And so the beauty of lilies falls on angels and men, bears and squirrels, wolves and sheep, birds and bees. John Muir

in the studio

Oil painting in the studio, and photographing the finish propped on a bookshelf.
22x28 oil on canvas June 2020

richness of nature

“The richness I achieve comes from nature,
the source of my inspiration.”~ Claude Monet

Pink!

I have been taking a birthday photo of my precious granddaughter Catherine in early June for the past three years. She just turned four. Now it is a Tradition to pose her with her signature birthday flowers, pink peonies that bloom just for her that very week in June.

here she is at age two,
and here she is age four








I gathered a bouquet and took it home to paint. Just finished this oil on canvas, 20x24 soft pink peonies.

single color

In our life there is a single color, as on an artist's palette, which provides the meaning of life and art. It is the color of love. Marc Chagall

sky blue

I have loved irises more than any other flower. I have borrowed, begged, (been accused of theft!) and tried to grow my own irises to draw and paint from life. And they are so temporary! Bloom in May and gone so soon. I finally bought a plant of my own that produces lots of huge sky blue flowers for that brief glorious time. I’ve made a few paintings of these over the past couple of years. 
Here is my recent oil painting just finished from this year’s blooming season. 
They are so tall and majestic, I gave them lots of space in a tall cylindrical vase. The yellow background with a light diagonal pattern came about as I watched the sunlight on the wall bouncing back from the window panes and backlighting the flowers. 22 by 28 oil on canvas.

colors and lines

Colors and lines are forces, and the secret of creation lies in the play and balance of those forces.
-Henri Matisse