Bermuda Palm

Sometimes I can't improve on, expand upon, or springboard off a photo. Here's a photo of a kind of palm I photographed last week in Bermuda.

I love the dead bits of the trunk intersecting with the new palm branch shoots! Drawn to those contrasts!

Painting at Warwick Long Bay, Bermuda

On the morning after I arrived in Bermuda, I went early to Warwick Long Bay to paint.  I had scouted the location the evening before, but planned to paint facing the other direction toward the cove which is behind me in this picture.  

But in the early morning light, facing east, the contrast between the light on the waves as they met the beach was just more appealing.

Here's the finished painting!

Windy Warwick Long bay, 2012, oil, 20X16

After the fires in Colorado Springs

My husband and I almost didn't go to Colorado Springs last week because of the devastating forest fires that had burned several hundred homes.  When we arrived in Denver there was a haze of smoke and ash but apparently that was blowing south from Wyoming!

Two mornings later, I was sketching at dawn in our son's backyard at Colorado Springs when the moon rose into this perfect spot--cool and white against a pale sky.  The next morning I got up early to paint it.

The peace of those hours was so refreshing after the threat of fire.  It brought me back into the present moment.

Yvète Morales visual artist

Do you ever see someone playing around with art materials and just know that they are great at what they do?  Yvète was at a three-year-old's family birthday party this weekend (as was I) and fooled around with materials available - to entertain the kids and the kid in her!

I loved this dino which she named "Couchasaurus," for his walking on the couch.
It started with the tripod feet and just became this creature.  Love the head and mouth!

Aside from her mastery of pipe cleaner sculpture, Yvète is better known as a film maker and supervising producer. Her own film, Found Art, co-written with Lee Gillespie, is 16 minutes long. Check it out!

I loved being around her creative energy.