Ms. Knothead

     I bought Ms. Knothead at a flea market. I started to decorate her with flowers and jewelry. Suddenly I realized she was now a muse and I began a series. 

Roses and Angel

I love to see the winter trees  against a dark cloudy sky. It sets the mood for me to go to a park and fill my sketch book with the many beautiful trees. The Fall weather has stripped them of their leaves and you can see the beauty of their branches reaching to the sky as though praising their Creator.. In this sketch I found a tree that I call the Ancient One as it seemed very old and had lived many years while children played  in the park On the second canvas I planned the subject to turn into something more abstract but as you can see it didn't turn out that way. I changed color and shapes until I finally concluded this was the finish. It is not quite clear here but the tree seems to glow with the giant orange circle behind it. It was not intended to be the sun but as the shapes changed I was left with this circle that one could imagine is the sun.

 

Happy New Year from Rusty!!!!!

Mother and Child

Mother and Child 

oil on canvas

20 in. x 16 in.

St. Michael's tree

This is a tree I see every  year  in a church yard  near our neighborhood. I painted it in oil on a size 12" X 12" canvas.

magnolias

This is the canvas I have been working on during the month of June. I have a magnolia tree in my back yard and it is one of my favorite flowers. I do not plan my paintings in advance or sketch them in with pencil. I begin with a brush and move the paint around until I find a sketch that I like. I paint intuitively adding and subtracting as I move along on the canvas. This piece was produced in oil, size 24" X 28:. It would look lovely in a gold frame and hung in a dining room over a buffet or side table.

Update

I have been painting with oils on canvas  so I have not posted since the drawing a day every day in May. In fact I have 2 paintings I am working on at this time. The challenge of drawing in May has given me the motivation  to start once again producing the art I love to do. For a while I could not focus on art as my mind was on problems and difficult situations in my life and those I loved. So things have settled down and I am back on track. It will take a while for me to finish and post what I am working on.

teapot and zinnias

This was a fun painting for me. This was a still  life set up of zinnias  from my garden and a very old teapot placed on a tablecloth. It was done in oil on masonite. Hope you like it as much as I do.

pansies

Getting ready for winter and cold temperatures by planting pansies. I will be painting more pansies this winter. I love these little flowers as they remind me of my 7th grade teacher. When my mother and I would walk by her home she usually was outside tending to her pansies. She told me that the pansies were like "little faces." She was a wonderful teacher and encouraged me in my art work.One day in class she  discovered I liked to draw  On this day she was reading a story to us. During this time I would usually  doodle with my pencil. As she walked by my desk she caught me drawing. She apparently never noticed me doing this before. She said to me, " Are you paying attention?" "Yes Mam", I replied. She looked at the paper closely and then said ?Okay." Never again did she question what I was doing but from then on she would ask me to draw certain things for projects she was working on.

Update

It hs been well over a month since I posted on my blog. I have had a lot of distractions with family illness and life has been stressful.Everyone seems to be doing much better and maybe I can get back to focusing on my art. Hopefully this will be a new beginning with lots of art work to show.

At this time I am preparing for Christmas Fest  an art sale at the Bedford Library this Saturday, November 8. I will have  small paintings from the 30 day challenge,note cards of my work, and the children's books I illustrated, and other original paintings. If you are in he area on Saturday, hope to see you there..

Ginger beer bottle

Day 30 I am about 4 and 1/2 hours away rom the 30th day of this challenge. Today I painted 2 paintings so I thought I would post the last day. I am early but that is okay. This is a ginger beer bottle made of stoneware. I like stoneware and pottery of all kinds. I have several of these bottles that were dug up in New Orleans. My cousin was a bottle collector and he gave them to me. Now that I have completed the 30 day painting challenge I feel successful. It was quite a discipline. I do believe I have learned a lot pushing myself to hurry along to get paintings complete. Beside completing 30 paintings in 30 days I had fun! Now I think I am going to rest and think about a painting I can work on that may take me a week or so. So you may not see me tomorrow on this blog. But do keep looking.

telephone

Day 22  -  Although I finished the painting yesterday I didn"t get to post last night. I found this telephone in our garage. I find a lot of interesting things in the garage.
when did we start collecting phones?  I remember this type of  telephone in our home. It had a dial and remember one that didn't have a dial. When  you picked up the phone to make a call the operator would say "number please." I remember this because I had an Aunt who was a telephone operator and sometime she would be the operator working.when I wanted to call someone and I recognized her voice. This painting is acrylic on canvas and is size 10" X 8".
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Cleo and Stain glass Window

Day 21   Cleo the cat was my daughter Cheryl's cat. She was beautiful  and graceful. The stain glass window I bought at an antique store, The Attic near the bayou in Houma, Louisiana. The day I purchased the window I sold a painting and I hurried over to the Attic. It was getting close to their closing time and I was anxious to see if the window was still there as it was in a one day sale. That was probably 40 years ago and I have always loved the window and enjoy it every day. The canvas is 10" X 8" and painted  in acrylic on canvas.

pansies

Day 18    Time to buy and plant pansies. These were very  easy to paint and it is a small canvas. 5" X 7"I got a late start last night and when I finished too tired to post. So I decided to post tonight when I will be posting Day 19.

Roberta

Day 17    This is a pencil sketch of my childhood rocker and doll. When she arrived under the Christmas tree she had a little tag hanging from her hand reading "Roberta."So I always referred to her as my Roberta doll. The chair is painted white and is wicker. When I was given the rocker I do not remember. I must have been really young at the time I received it but it was always a favorite of mine..I cherish them as pleasant memories of my childhood. Pencil on paper

Pitcher and Rose

Day 16     So I am over half way to the finish of the 30 day challenge. It is a little difficult finding time to paint due to illness in the family which slowly getting better. I paint mostly  in the evening when I can relax and think of other other things rather than those complicating our lives.This painting is size 10" X 8" and is painted with acrylics.  

garden flowers

Day 15   Again I smeared various colors of paints on the canvas to see what I could find. You may not have found what I found but I saw a garden of flowers. I chose not to emphasize them and instead left some to the imagination. There is another thing in the painting  that I will not reveal, although I think it is obvious.The painting is in acrylic size 8" X 8"

Bells, Bells

Day 14  I have a lot of bells. I do not collect bells but they seem to collect me. I do like bells. I love the sound of bells. If I were a bell I'd go ding dong ding dong ding. Is that a familiar song? So tomorrow will be day 15. That will be half of the 30 days challenge. I am a bit surprised that so far I am meeting this challenge. I am not happy with some of my work but I am learning a lot through this discipline. This painting is acrylic on canvas size 10" X 8".

birds of a feather

Day 13 of the 30/30 day challenge So I was looking around for a subject to paint for this 30 day painting challenge. Coming up with an idea to do a new painting each day gets a little beyond me. Well I decided to smear different colors of paint on the canvas and see what I can find. Lo and behold there were 2 birds in the paint. So I pulled them out of the paint and placed them on a tree limb. Then I decided I need another bird and sure enough thete is another. This was so much fun. This painting  is in acrylic size 8" X 8 ".