Large Clamscape, 18x24 oil

Obsessive? Possibly. Dangerous?  Only if I forget the clams where I'm painting them and they die and start to smell... I didn't, though.  I'm loving the textures and surfaces, wet & dry on these babies.  Maybe I should have submitted clams and only clam paintings to the Art League of Rhode Island, who rejected my application for admission to their club today.   

Clam-o-licious, Oil, 22x28

At this size, maybe I've got clams 'out of my system' - ahem....  Seriously I did have such a blast painting these - I used, rose, sevres blue, indigo, cad yellow medium, cobalt, a hint of orange and alizarin - this is not your mothers' still life!

Everybody Knows Everybody, Oil, 20x24

This is a little beach community with those gorgeous summer homes with porches facing the ocean, and next week they'll all be moving in, cleaning up and 'Opening' the houses for the season.  I love the 'Hopper'-y feeling of this.

Tiverton Quohogger, 14x18 Oil

You know, I'm making up the size here.  I KNOW it's more than 12x16 but it COULD be 20x24 - it's at the studio, I'm home.  I painted this subject before, and think I did a better job this time...

Sun Hanging Low Over Dunes, 9x12 Acrylic

This is the new photo - a bit sharper.

Tools of the Sandcastle Trade 11x14 Oil

This is the painting that I ruined my camera for!  Gale force winds and I needed to get 'lower' to paint and not have my easel fly away - lost my balance getting onto the sand and when I leaned over to right myself my camera dug into the soft beige sand.  Many trips to the wonderful folks at Mid State Camera (how long a drive can it be to get to 'mid state' in Rhode Island?) and I'm now 'sand free'.  I hope.   I liked the looseness and playfulness of this painting, and the Happy colors.  Reminded me of days at the beach with my kids.

Finished (and I mean it this time) Flower Stand

Beach Road Flower Stand, oil, 20x24

On the way to the town beach - on Neck Road - there's this flower stand in the Summer with a blue umbrella.  The person who arranges it really has a good eye for design, as well as a green thumb.  Just wanted to paint the vibrant grass and the shaded flowers with the blue umbrella.  Oh, the stone wall was fun, too, and sorry about the glare there.  This painting is done in Happy Colors, and almost looks like it was done in acrylic.  I believe I suffer from MSD (Multiple Style Disorder), an affliction of emerging ;) artists, when they roam from style to style - sometimes very realistic, sometimes impressionistic, sometimes contemporary...  Whatever the painting calls for, is what I say!

Thunderheads From the South, 20x24

I wanted to keep this loose, but was intrigued by the flat reflection of the curved shape in the water.  This was going to be submitted to the South Shore Art Center's juried show last week, but it's a Windsor Newton canvas, and it wouldn't fit into the standard frame.  This time, I was not AT the framers (where I could pay $25 extra for them to shave some of the inner frame off) so I tried to hammer it in to the frame.  Let me save you the $$ - that does not work.  I completely shattered a nice $60 frame.  Now I have no frame and had to put something else in to the show.  I'm hopeful, but not really - I get into this show about 1 in 4 times.  

Our Scraggly Tulip Garden, 12x12 Acrylic

When I went to Holland to paint, about one year ago, I bought what I thought would be enough bulbs to make a spectacular tulip garden - over 100 bulbs!  The pictures, and live samples were huge, hardy and vibrant.  Easy to grow!  Well, we planted them (and by this I mean Tim planted them where I wanted them) and look at the pathetic examples of tulipkind!  Tim's chalking it up to young bulbs, but I don't know.  We did everything we were supposed to do, and our tulips bought in the US are gorgeous - in other spots.  I didn't want to mix them because I'd forgotten what the Dutch ones were supposed to look like and didn't know if they'd look good together!  Also, they were scheduled to bloom consecutively - but they all bloomed at once.  And they were supposed to be different heights, but they are all pretty much the same!  Oh, well, they're still better than NO tulips! :)

Tug On The Sakonnet, 12x12 Oil

This is a larger piece I did from the little one done last Summer.  I like the looseness of the island in the background, as well and the more defined island in the foreground.  Believe it or not, there was little drawing on the tug, I was channelling Ken Auster in the finishing of this painting, taking his advice to "Reward people for looking at your painting".

Orphan's Day Out, 12x12 Oil

This one is a nostalgic image of my mother and her twin sister (Alternate name: Patsy and Mickey, but I wanted to save that for another painting I'm doing) on an outing.  They got some time away from the orphanage during the summer, and they both treasured that time.  I THINK I'm done with this.  As usual, the hardest part was my mother's face - which I had to make a random face.  I wonder if I'll ever actually be able to paint her.  She's been gone now 12 years.  Does it ever get easy?

Breakfast in Bed, oil 12x12

He's bringing her breakfast (or, since birds get up at the crack of dawn and this was about 10 a.m. it was probably lunch).  I have every hope that it's because she's getting heavy with eggs, not because she's sick.  The foreground is much more purple IRL.

Gild and Lilies, 24x24 acrylic

More flowers.  These gorgeous lilies were from Tim, the vase was a Christmas present from our daughter, Molly.  My favorite color, and glass to boot.  I made the window sash behind them gold, just because I felt it would give the painting a little pizzaz.