Hi everyone!
How are you? Hopefully taking care of yourselves. The month of August is always so busy for us! There is a children’s poem that goes ‘Corn and potatoes, beans and tomatoes, our baskets and buckets are filled to the brim.’ And that is what is happening here, loads of food being processed. And the whole family joins in the fun! It is not only fun but the smells are incredible! Right now the basement has the fragrance of peaches. Luckily, the kids love to bake too, so far we have not only had fresh peaches to eat, and jars to fill but one daughter made some peach cobbler and another peach pies. Of course it’s not just one pie, because that wouldn’t go very far!
A basement full of peaches makes it smell wonderful!
Processing tomatoes on possibly the hottest day of the year. We made juice, soup and sauce from these.
So you may be wondering where I get time for painting during the month of August. I keep a ready-to-go bag, filled with supplies. I just take this wherever I go. This month I have just done small paintings, without sketching anything out. Here are a few examples below.
At the Pequea Boat dock. It is great to go down there in the evenings to see all the boats and fisherman.
These are all watercolors, started without sketching or practice sketches, with the models sitting in front of me. For the past twenty years I have sketched children, and children do not always make the best models. Yes, they are cute and humorous but they don’t exactly sit still. They are constantly on the move!
I am also working on a few commissions right now, which reminds me- if you would like a painting done as a Christmas gift for someone, now would be the time to contact me. I can work from photos, but recently I had a commission work that I did for someone where I put together several images, just working from my imagination of what it would be like. They just told me what they wanted done, and I did the footwork of finding images. Here are a few commissions that I have done in the past.
Also wanted to share this with you, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City has their 150th anniversary this year. Several men started out with an idea, they had no artwork, yet they have one of the best art museums in the world! You can visit their sight below. There are old videos on different installations and their history. It is very interesting. I highly recommend that you visit the Met someday. There is nothing like seeing artwork up front, with all the subtle nuances and details. It is truly a wonderful experience!
If you have any comments or questions I would be happy to answer them or hear from you! Please take care and I will see you next month!
Love,
Holly