Well I've been a busy camper this summer. Hope all is going well for you.

I was accepted into the juried fine art show, Great Lakes Art Fair for this fall in Novi.

And I've been busy painting. As I sit here typing this entry I'm enjoying the faint smell of oil paints drying. Ahhh....okay so they're probably bad for you, but I suppose we all have our vices.

Here is the red amaryllis that I've been working on. It's finished now. The last of the details were to paint the stamens and add some shadow detail. This really made it pop. I think this would look gorgeous on a white, blue, green or grey wall. It's very stunning and definitely an attention getter!

The next painting is one I did yesterday as a watercolor demonstration for my young student. I ended up having so much fun with it that I finished it up right after she left. It's mixed media - watercolor with pen and ink. Love it when things just come together!

And speaking of watercolors. I just had to do the next ones. They are of my daughters playing in Lake Michigan. It was a hazy cloudy sunset but that didn't keep them from having fun throwing and collecting beautiful stones by the lake shore. I credit my mom with taking the photos. This is not from one photo but several as I picked specific poses from different pictures to compose just the right image. Did I mention my mom too is an artist? She sculpts and throws pottery on a wheel. I grew up in mud :).

My most current work in progress is of a blue iris. This one has been a transformation. I'm usually one to do more realistic works, but needed to step out of that box. Here's the work in progress. I started with the plain soft blues of this iris. It's an oil painting on 30x40 inch wrapped canvas.

And now the transformation:

It's still a work in progress. I have much more to do with the red. So stay tuned!