14″x11″ pastel on sanded paper
“It’s not only the state flower but also a kind of floral trademark almost as well known to outsiders as cowboy boots and the Stetson hat. The bluebonnet is to Texas what the shamrock is to Ireland, the cherry blossom to Japan, the lily to France, the rose to England and the tulip to Holland.” Wrote historian Jack Maguire
The season is short, I plan to make the most of it.
12″x9″ pastel on sanded paper
When I look up from the sink and reflect this is my pondering place. Abstracted art is like magical realism: this is my view, only dreamier.
The fog in my yard is magical. I love the way it diffuses the light.
12″x18″ pastel on sanded paper
This painting was from a photo, painted in my daughters’ dance studio not my art studio. I grabbed a small palette of colors, taped a paper to a board and headed to their class. I find I have lots of time to paint, if I am creative where I look.
I have loved watching the way the early morning light hits this field of wildflowers. My little flower girl grabbed one today.
Beautiful morning.
Painting the sunset when a beautiful storm rolled in.
These are the hens that live at the farm at Ghost Ranch, but Ranch is full of many more flocks. It fun to see all the ways people create family. Through marriage and birth, or adoption and chosen family. Some flocks are just groups of people who have met at the Ranch for years and years to take a certain class, but the class becomes almost secondary to these reunions that have happened for the last couple of decades.
Aristotle was right when he said “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” The individuals are great, but the flocks amazing.
I spent the afternoon picking cactus spines out of my daughters foot and backside, I was struck how much her foot looked like a porcupine, and how beautiful the cactus spines were. They were long, fading: brown to orange to yellow. She is tough and brave, no complaints on her part, she knows the risk of playing barefoot. I was grateful it was a cactus and not a rattle snake.
Here is a haiku I wrote about the event:
Barefoot game. Hide. Seek.
Prickly Pear under my foot.
Ouch! Sat on one more.
Saguaro haiku
Saguaro cacti
habitat and sustenance
desert’s miracle
by Katryn Dougherty
paintandsimple 