8″x10″ oil on panel

There is a contemporary Dutch painter I really like named Roos Schuring.  She paints en Plein Air in all kinds of weather, including horrendous rain storms.  Unintentionally, I got my own taste of painting from life in a downpour today.  I took my chances on a 40% chance of rain after 2pm.  It was pouring at noon, I knew it was a gamble.  It was cold for August, but not scary cold.  So I painted and got wet.   I think I will look into getting one of Roos’s wedding umbrellas, they are clear and domed – perfect for painting out a storm.

A photo of my ducklings hiking out in the rain.

10″ x 8″ oil in panel

My family spent most of the day hiking up to 11,500 ft. to the gondola at Ski Apache.  It was a hard and beautiful hike.  “Hike up and you ride down for free.”  It was beautiful, high alpine meadows are one of my favorite places on earth.  After the hike my kids started asking if we could stop by the market and pick up baking apples to make a pie.  We did, indeed, make a pie.  My husband, however, asked if he could “run” home.  When I said “yes”, he got out his topo maps and showed me his route back to the cabin.  It involved crossing several canyons.  He made it back, we all had delicious pie:). It was a perfect day.

36"x18"

My faith, and my family, and my art has deep roots in Northern New Mexico. All three are a journey.

18″x24″ pastel in sanded board

Another great field trip with my class: Gregorian chanting, prayer, art tour, picnic, and painting.  It was a good day.

24″x18″ pastel on sanded paper

Fun to paint this skull in full color.

8″x10″ oil on panel

Christ in the Desert Abbey is one of my favorite places to be in this world.  I love to chant to Psalms with the monks, I love the gift of silence, and I love to paint the Canyon walls.

One the best field trips I take my workshops on is to the sacred place.  The guest master has been so kind to give my students a behind the scenes tour of the beautiful art and murals.  This trip we had the chance to share our day making art with one of the brothers who is also a painter.  The day was a gift, and I am grateful for it.

7″ x5″ oil on panel

In addition to a rich history including Georgia O’Keefe and the Archelto brothers, Ghost House courtyard has been a special place of gathering and building community.  I love to paint in the shade of those cottonwood trees.

24″x18″ and 12″x 18″ 

I sketched out this large diptych, started painting it, and realized it would a stronger composition if I had flipped the 1/3 and 2/3 panels.  I could have avoided having to redraw this with a simple thumbnail sketch.

Very simply, a diptych is a drawing or painting in two parts. The format of the pictures may be landscape or portrat, but they will usually be the same size. It is sometimes a continuous but divided image, or may be composed of separate, closely related images.  When I paint them I try to make each panel stand on its own, but create a better image together.

8″x10″ oil on panel

Quick study of one of my favorite rock formations. 

8″x 10″ oil on panel