This was grading week so my painting had to wait, but I did take the time to look up some of my favorite digital paintings from my trip to Ireland several years ago. I hope you will enjoy Ireland through my paintings and share the joy I felt in the trip and while I painted them. The original photos were shot from a Canon 5D camera.
I also took the time last week to do an interview with Fran McGrogan of Stand Curious. We talked about creativity and my insights into painting. I had a wonderful time and hope you all enjoy it too. Continue Reading…
Birds of Prey
With spring on the way and more birds coming back, I am seeing more red-tailed hawks. According to the Medicine Cards: The Discovery of Power Through the Ways of Animals
d David Carson, Hawks are one of the most intriguing & mystical of the birds of prey. They are the messengers, protectors and visionaries of the air. The red-tailed hawk is the messenger bird & can lead you to your life purpose. Its keynotes are visionary power and guardianship. Hawk medicine teaches you to be observant. The featured image of Ostara the Red Tail Hawk was taken while she was in a cage and you can see the cage reflected in her eyes. She was being rehabilitated after being hurt. This picture, along with others, are on gift products in my cafepress shop. Continue Reading…
Spring is Coming
My daffodils and tulips are peeking through the ground in defiance of the snow that fell last week and the herons are back in Peninsula. The Bath Road Heronry is a local favorite of bird watchers and photographers. From mid-February through June, great blue herons build over 140 nests and raise their young. I have a
dded a Heron Gallery to the portfolio.
I was trying to decide what paintings to bring to my blog this week and it became really clear while I was helping my
daughter move her business into her new offices on Wolf Ledges Parkway in Akron. If anyone knows the background of the name Wolf Ledges Parkway, I would love to know what it is. Loving wolves, it was a perfect name for her new location and it made me think of all the wonderful photo shoots I have had at Wolf Timbers in Bolivar Ohio. I hope you enjoy.
The featured painting is a watercolor and ink painting of Nira, Keeley, and Ingo. Every line was inked in first and then it was painted using a watercolor medium. This painting took me 6 months to paint and I loved every minute of it. The 5-6 photos that I used to paint this from were from the first photo shoot that I had at Wolf Timbers. On my About Me page, you will see a picture of me being face kissed by Nira as I am holding my breath and being very still. Being face kissed is actually a great honor but the first time is especially awesome. Continue Reading…
This week we have gone from temperatures in the 30s to the 60s and my poor little crocuses are blooming with snow coming in the next few days. But it made me think of spring and I remembered my photos of monarch butterflies in Maine. The shots were actually in the Fall, but the daisies were still blooming in the warm sunshine.
Last week I visited a friend in Naples Florida and had a wonderful time visiting the Everglades and walking on Barefoot Beach looking for shells. I took my little camera and was able to use it for the first time since my accident, September 23, 2014. It was so much fun and I got some great photos which I played with all weekend. The featured image is an untouched photograph, but the others I played with in Photoshop and Painter. I usually go for more realistic art but really liked my abstract stork this week.
No visit to the Everglades would be complete without an alligator picture and this one was sitting right on the edge of the road just asking for us to take pictures. And there were birds of every kind.
My small camera is an Olympus OM-D. I took two lenses, a 45-200mm and a 12-50mm.
I think this photo of the Great White Heron is my favorite although Barefoot Beach is a close second.
A walk on a beach wouldn’t be complete without a conch
shell. I didn’t realize there were so many different varieties.
The day was perfect and you could see forever. I hope you enjoy. Safe journeys until we meet next week.
This week I am going to change things up a bit and look at a little history. I have mentioned that I am a third generation artist, so I thought I would show a few of my great aunt, Annie Puckett’s watercolors. It is interesting that the watercolors are actually sketches for later oils. She was in Paris in the late 1800’s to early 1900’s and these paintings are of Versailles, Madame du Berry’s bedroom and other locations in the area that are not identified. I have not been able to find the locations, even after a trip to France with my granddaughter several years ago. The featured image above is an over the door drawing in Madame de Sevigne’s home in Paris. Continue Reading…
This week we missed the big snow in my area of Ohio and really haven’t had much snow yet this winter. My granddaughters are disappointed as they ski and the weather has not been good for their fun in the snow time. So I decided it was time to share my winter ice painting and then because winter will probably bring plenty of snow in February I added my summer paintings of the Cleveland Sunset and the marshlands of Peninsula in Cuyahoga Valley National Park.
Winter Ice is a digital painting of my front yard when I lived in the country. I loved watching the deer and birds play in the snow during the very snowy winters. Continue Reading…
I have several styles depending on the media and mood. I can be extremely realistic when painting my houses and other architecture, less realistic when painting pet portraits, but when I do my watercolor flowers, my painting tends to be very loose and flowing. I painted the hydrangeas on a beautiful summer day and the hydrangea bushes were in full bloom. It was the first summer they had bloomed and they were several different colors depending on what part of the yard they were in. I picked a huge bunch and put them loosely on the table and brought my watercolors out on the patio, wet down my paper and just started to put colors down. I think this is one of my favorite paintings as the colors always bring back the memories of that summer and all the flowers blooming.
I took my watercolor image, photographed it and played with the colors and shadows for several months during that winter, bringing back those warm summer days and the painting is a 30 x 40 canvas painting that came out even more beautiful than the original watercolor.
In the next few blogs I will be following the progress of some of my present projects.
One will not only be a change for me, but a new direction. I have a request for a painting of a favorite wine painting from a friend. And the second painting is a portrait collage of friends and their new grandbabies. I am really excited in my new direction and to be painting a portrait of a family. I have always enjoyed doing portraits and my favorite is my granddaughter when she was younger. Safe journeys, I’ll see you next week.
I went to a watercolor workshop in the summer of 2006 and met Wallace while painting in Camden Harbor. I was there to paint but had my camera with me too. Camden Harbor has to be the dog walking capital of the world. I had never seen so many different breeds of dogs in one place and then Wallace walked by. He was the first golden doodle I had seen and I fell in love with him instantly. Wallace had a personality to go with his name. He was full of curiosity and play and loved posing. Having had both goldens and a poodle, he was intriguing. Continue Reading…
Susie "Sami" Myers
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