I'm so excited to have just opened my online store!  I put this cute little olive painting on it today.

Please check back often! I'll be posting new items very soon!

I'd like to show you some of the magic of painting .... how you can create magical things from just a random bunch of smudges and smears of paint.  That's how I begin a lot of my paintings these days.  I like the randomness of what might show up "underneath" the finished painting.

Here is the Carrot Island Pony I painted recently.

I admit that I have to give most of the credit for this painting to the photographer who took the photograph that I used to paint this painting.  Her name is Miriam Sutton of "Dolphin Moon Kayak" and you can find her amazing nature photography at 
http://www.dolphinmoonkayak.com/Site/DMK_PHOTOS.html

The photograph I used (with her permission) is called "Marsh Mucking" and here it is -

So, first I just painted a canvas with randon colors that would compliment each other and compliment the colors that I envisioned the completed painting would be. Then I painted in a fairly vague outline of the shape of the horse and colored in some shadowing on the horse with some darker and ligher colors, as seen below.

Next, one of my new favorite techniques is to scrape on some metallic paints (because I love them:) with a palette knife.  I think they add an interesting effect when they show up here and there on the completed painting.

Yes; looks like a lovely mess, right?  I use the darker metallics for the darker shadows and areas and the lighter ones for the brighter spots.  So, you can see, there is a method behind the madness:)

Now it's just a matter of working bit by bit to get it looking like I want - adding color and playing with shadows and correcting angles and lines as I go.

It looks like about here when I realized his eyes were too high up on his head, so I just lowered them.  

He's getting really close to being done here. 

Just some brightening up in some spots and a few minor details and - A Carrot Island Pony painting.

I hope you enjoyed seeing just one of the many ways I like to paint!  Thanks for checking in!

Here he is!  Meet Nick's rooster, "Mr. C." I had a fun time painting him.

I've been painting on bigger canvases lately.  Now, the bigger canvases are starting to seem small to me.  I have the feeling my paintings are going to get even bigger!

This is the beginning of a rooster painting on a 24"x30" canvas.  He is inspired by a photograph from local Beaufort potter and photographer, Trista Hudzik Reynolds.  I am very appreciative for Trista's permission to use her photograph of Nick's rooster as inspiration for this painting.  He's so fun to paint!  I can't wait to see how he looks when he's done!  The reveal will be soon!