Elk Neck, Maryland

“Painting is just another way of keeping a diary.”

— Pablo Picasso

Good Monday morning friends,

Right now I am here on the Chesapeake in Elk Neck, Maryland. The sun is coming up and the sky through the trees is a beautiful blend of pinks and purples and blues. Did you know that the sun is made up of many different colors? It is not just white or orange. The cameras we have are not able to pick up the subtle nuances and we would go blind if we actually looked at it.

Anyway, it’s really beautiful here and quiet except for some owls I can hear. I have been working on a rather large painting. It’s a commission piece and hopefully I will be able to share that in a few weeks. The size is  about 4‘ x 3‘-it’s so fun to work on so grand a scale. But in the meantime I would like to share with you some of the sketches I have for a new painting, which would also be large. We, as a family, come down to Elk Neck quite a bit and so I have this idea for a large painting that I’ve been bouncing around in my head of the kids playing along the shoreline. There’s a little cliff here by the bay that I love so much where you can see the white, red and yellow clay deposits along the water. When you climb up into the hillside you can see the bay and the shore. It is a hidden nook surrounded by trees. The kids always bring home little treasures from this area. Stones and bones and little shells. One of them is a little fossil of a bone. Very cool!

If you do get down to Elk Neck, Woody’s Crab shack is our favorite place to eat. If you have a place you like to eat down in Elk Neck or the surrounding area please let me know in the comments below! I hope you enjoy these little updates of what I’m doing and I hope you have a very great and blessed week ahead of you.

Take care,

Holly

Character study sketches for the larger painting.

Snapshots from my journal

“Writing a journal is satisfying in that I can type my thoughts without losing the flow of understanding.” ~Dorothy Dupont

Over the years I have filled many journals with sketches of just everyday things. I love to see the extraordinary in the simple things in life. When the children were younger sometimes we would go on outdoor excursions to study nature. Off we would go into the woods and fields with paints and watercolor paper and paint what was before us. Together we learned about flowers, mushrooms and toadstools, different types of feathers, the difference between dog and cat paws, etc. Somethings I had to go out on my own, without children and distractions so that I could study certain things like butterflies.

Most of the sketches, though, in these books are of the children as they were playing or sleeping or of the family pets and farm animals. Some of them that were really good drawings became gifts to people. These sketches would take anywhere from a few minutes to half hour, tops. Good for learning to do things quickly and flowingly. Winslow Homer, when he started out his career, was an artist for the newspaper during the Civil War. He would go out on location and draw the battles. In this way, he became good at illustrating things that moved and it strengthened his skills as an artist, making quicker decisions and better judgment regarding composition of the page and choosing materials and all the other things that go into making excellent artwork.

Sketch of children playing video games.

A pond with Jacob sheep.

Son sleeping. Studies of facial features.

Buckles inspecting a baby chick.

Leah.

Children on couch in burnt sienna.

Hope you enjoy these little glimpses into my journals. I know one of my favorite things to do is to look at the drawing studies of famous artists. Leonardo Da Vinci is well known for his sketches of everything from people to inventions. Hope you have good week!

Love,

Holly

P.S. For those of you who are waiting for the cards, they are done at the printers. Today I will be picking them up and will upload them onto the website. Thank you for your patience!

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