Category: Oil Paintings

  • Spring Begins Plein Air Painting

    It’s wonderful when the weather turns and it’s warm enough to enjoy being outside again.  I painted this small painting in a creek near my house early this spring when the redbuds were blooming and the  leaves of the undergrowth were just starting to pop.  There’s an interesting contrast in the woods at that time between…

  • Hay Tor

    England’s Dartmoor National Park has large granite outcroppings called tors.  Hay Tor is one of the most impressive and popular.  There are small footholds and handholds to scramble to the top.  After exploring the rock structure, I sat in the field in front of the tors to make a quick graphite sketch.  Like everywhere we…

  • The Coast

      Last fall we visited some friends on the West Coast and took a day to relax at the beach.  I did a small sketch on location, reveling in the geometric forms of the rocks.  This spring I painted this  little blue painting from photographs I took that day.  I really enjoyed getting to paint…

  • Early Light

      In 2009, I took a family trip with my husband, mom, sister, mother-in-law, father-in-law, and two close family friends, Collin and Kathy Staley to Glacier National Park.  It was a bittersweet trip-the last one we were able to take with Collin, who was undergoing chemo at the time, but the first of many we…

  • Generous Solace

      I created this painting as a gift for my mom in memory of my late father.  Sunflowers and Van Gogh’s sunflower paintings were favorites of his.  Dad, also a landscape artist, put the first paint brush in my hands as a baby, took me to my first museum when I was five, and continues to…

  • The Cedar

    The corn field in front of our house has a lone cedar tree on its edge, and when the winter sun sets in the valley, one strip of sunlight illuminates it and the golden field right before dusk.  I started this painting at a workshop I taught at the French Lick Artisan Gallery this past…

  • Nightfall

    While in Yosemite National Park, we watched the sun set from Glacier Point overlooking Half Dome.  As the light faded and the darkness became absolute, more and more stars appeared.  I had my camera set up and photographed the emerging stars.  To make this painting, I wanted to try the thick layers of  transparent medium again…

  • Meadow Creek

        This is another painting from Yosemite National Park.  I tried a violet underpainting this time.  In an effort to become more efficient at starting paintings, I used a larger brush to block in colors within a couple of hours.  Details and reworking took considerable time after that though.  

  • Snow Creek

     Snow Creek, 2014, oil, 36 x 48 in During an evening walk, my husband and I wandered up this small creek with exposed bedrock.  The setting sun warmed the snow with an orange glow, and the remaining beech leaves shone as if fragments of stained glass hung in the air.

  • Sycamores in Winter

    This winter of polar vortexes, possibly a result of climate change, did lend itself to a couple outdoor snow studies.  I started this particular one while my husband, nieces, and nephews went sled riding down the hill on the right.  I was drawn to the crispness of light and how the reduction of hues in…