This week I had an opportunity to do something I love but don’t get to do very often. I spent an entire day visiting the beautiful garden of one of my clients to paint a plein airpastel.
Claire’s remarkable garden is an exceptional, very personal expression of her love for landscape design and the beauty of nature. There is a unique gate and a wooden fence, both handmade by Claire herself, and they’re quite striking. They became the essential elements of the painting, but I also made sure to include the bird feeder, which is one of my favorite features.
I first went to Claire’s garden a week ago for a photo shoot with sketching time. I took over two hours, from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m., just observing how the morning light entered the garden. While I was taking it all in, a cheerful cardinal landed on the wooden fence and cocked its head at me, almost as if to say “Hello! Can I be in the painting, too?”
We had fabulous weather and of course, I ended up staying the whole day! Plein airpainting is something that feeds my artist’s soul, and I hope you can sense that feeling of joy when you see “Claire’s Garden.” (I’m thinking of creating a print from it.)
So have you entered my contest yet?
In my last email, I asked you to guess “What’s in Santa’s snow globe?”
I’ve been having a lot of fun reading over all the interesting responses I’ve received so far. There have been so many great answers… I must say, I never realized how creative you all are! As a matter of fact, maybe next time I should ask for your input FIRST – because you gave me so many cool ideas that I almost had second thoughts about my original choice!
(Don’t worry – I’m already committed to my plan, and I’m going to stick with it!)
One lucky winner with the correct answer will receive a free print of the painting of Santa and the snow globe. If more than one person guesses the right answer, I will put the names of all correct guessers into a hat and draw a winner.
The contest closes at 11:59 pm on Thursday, June 14th, and the winner will be announced on June 21st.
You have one more week to submit your best guess of what’s in the snow globe… So far only one of you has guessed the correct answer!
As you can see, I’ve finished the sketching part of the process, and I got my feet wet today by starting the first layer of the painting. I still have a lot to paint, but here’s a first look.
I can’t wait to hear your ideas about what’s in the snow globe! Is it a toy train?…Santa’s Harley?… or maybe a Super Bowl trophy? All will be revealed in two weeks!