PAINTINGS

I have finished several paintings lately and finally got some great pictures of them. I have a new camera and it takes wonderful pictures of my paintings. I will share a few with you. Most are from my "flower period." I saw some oil paintings of single flowers on a black background in Santa Fe last summer and decided to do my own set. I have completed four. I did the rosebud back in the summer and took that picture with my old camera. The others are more recent. The last one I did was the iris and it is my very favorite.

I also did one of a red hibiscus with a green background. It had fun with it!

In the fall I painted a landscape of Fajada Butte in Chaco Canyon, NM. I took the picture when we were there last June. Bet it does not look that warm there today!

More recently I discovered water colors and am having a grand time exploring the possibilities with that medium. I have not figured out how to achieve the detail with water color that I like, but I am looking forward to seeing what I can learn once the holidays are over. Right now I am up to my ears in creating Christmas gifts, baking, wrapping, decorating.

Spring??

It felt like spring today. In fact, it really felt like summer all of a sudden! They said we set a new record high for this date with 92 about the middle of the afternoon. I did some yard work, cleaned leaves out of my pond, and trimmed up our banana trees that had not frozen back all the way this past winter. The fronds from last summer were nipped by the few freezes that we had. However, big, new green fronds are poking up out of the tops of the banana trees already. And I took a couple of pictures of the potato vines that bloom all winter. I really enjoy looking out on a cold day and seeing the brave little flowers blooming their heads off.

Tomorrow is supposed to be about 30 degrees cooler than today. Our touch of summer was short-lived. However, it really put me in the mood to do some digging in the yard. I am thinking about doing an herb garden in big pots around my pond this year. We have so many trees in our yard that sunlight is a problem for growing many plants. Maybe the container herb garden will work this summer. After reading Kara's description of the fragrance of basil, I can hardly wait to plant some for us! I am thinking about planting basil, thyme, lavender, and I already have some rosemary started to add to the pots. Umm! Fragrance!