Winter Thawing

Winter is thawing, I promise. The temperature was 33 degrees when I went out to do this drawing of "Dogwood Creek Winter Thaw." See the little turfs of green sticking through the snow! 

As I set up to work the sky was still overcast and the scene was flat but I've drawn this spot before and knew it would have good color if the sun would shine for just a short time. So I worked in the initial drawing with my purple conte pastel pencil and also started adding the shapes and basic colors.

Then the sun shone for just the right amount of time to help me determine the blues, purples and cream colors as the late afternoon sun illuminated the scene.

I'll have this piece framed as a 16" x 20" at Kentucky Crafted the Market at the Louisville Fair and Expo Center March 6 & 7. Come see me in booth #310.

Redbud Festival Spring Art Fair

Winter is a good time to work in the studio while keeping an eye on the falling snow flakes. If the sun comes out this afternoon I'll be headed outside for some plein air pastelling, but in the mean time I work in my studio.

"Rocker and Quilt" was created for the Redbud Festival at Union College in Barboursville, KY April 9 & 10 which I'll be the "Feature Artist."

In anticipation of all the beautiful quilts that will be exhibited at the show I added a design from one of the quilt artist to my grandmother's quilt pattern and draped it over a handmade rocker that I bought at Cincinnati's Summerfair.

I'm also trying a new blog design in an effort to keep the copy coordinated with the images. Technology is not my thing anymore. I left my middle management position in the promotion department at the herald-leader in 2001 and I still miss the day to day contact with the really good graphic designers in our department.

Bundled up

I'm bundled up for an afternoon of drawing outdoors. Cold is cold and even though this day was warmer than last week, my toes were aching from the cold after only 45 minutes. I think it's because I sit so quietly with only my right hand moving.

But working outdoors especially in the wintertime is invigorating. I am tired of being indoors and I've always loved snow. Plus the camera does a lousy job of capturing the nuances of color that you find in the winter landscape which makes working only from reference photos disappointing. That's why I'm looking forward to a sunny but cold day tomorrow for one more day of plein air pastelling before the snow melts away.

Look for my newest pieces at Kentucky Crafted the Market in Louisville, KY at the Kentucky State Fair and Expo center March 6 & 7.

Winter Challenges

Wintertime use to mean lots of quiet work time in my studio without the distraction of the lure of the outdoors, but now that I'm crazy over plein air pastelling the winter has presented a new challenge. 


We've had a nice amount of snow in Kentucky, 4-5 inches and new snow every few days to refresh the landscapes, but it's been cold! I consider daytime temperature of 20 degrees to be pretty cold especially to drag all my drawing equipment outdoors to work on new pieces.


But with the help of my husbands toe and hand warmers and lots of layers of clothing off I went to the park close to my house. I used my biking glove on my drawing hand because the fingers are cutout of the glove and I put a nice warm winter glove on the other hand but oddly the drawing hand remained warmer because I was moving it and the other hand was not so lucky since it was holding my drawing board still.
The top image is "Dogwood Creek Morning Light" and the bottom image is "Creek in Afternoon Light." Each sketch took about 30 minutes and I took reference photos to help me complete the pieces indoors.