Butterfly on Dogwood

We built our house in 2001 and moved in the week of 9/11/2001... (I know... easy/hard date to remember.) Of course, a few trees had to come down in the building process, but we wanted to save as many as possible.

The builder said, "There's a scraggly tree in the back that got pretty scuffed up.  We can take it down or you can wait and see if it survives. It might it a year or so." We decided to leave it.  What a treat that next spring to discover that it was a dogwood!  Even being scruffy and scuffed up, it did survive!

For two decades our little backyard dogwood blessed us with beautiful white blossoms in early spring, a ground-covering snow shower of white petals in late spring, shade in the summer,  red leaves in the fall, and cardinals at the feeder in winter.

Every winter we wondered if it would make it another year. 

When spring of 2022 came, there was something different... 

No tiny green leaves... no white blossoms...

Our scruffy little dogwood tree had finally given up.

Thank you for 21 years of blooms, Scruffy Little Dogwood Tree!

My weekly-ish challenge this time was "Yellow & White." That was a good opportunity to paint this sweet image of a yellow swallowtail on some white dogwood blossoms.

Original Oil Painting on 6"x 8" Wrapped Canvas

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Swallowtail on Butterfly Weed

In this day and age of constant disagreement, surely one thing we can all agree on is that we're lucky to have butterflies in our world. 

My weekly-ish art challenge was "Flutter & Flit."  This butterfly helped me meet the challenge. 

As soon as this little painting is dry, it will be on its way to The Netherlands for an art exchange that I'm a part of.  I can't wait to see what comes here in return!

Original Oil Painting on 5"x 7" Canvas Board

[ART EXCHANGE]

Thistles & Butterflies

In early September we went for our first day trip since the beginning of COVID-19. 

Staying mostly on rural roads, we left NW Arkansas... drove down Western Oklahoma... crossed into and over the Ouachita Mountains ... circled through my hometown... made our way back up to our home in the Ozark Mountains.

I love the Ouachitas.  I grew up right  in the middle of them.

The Talimena Scenic Highway is the best way to view them from the top.

Beautiful, I know.

But, what does this have to do with the painting?

The Talimena Scenic Highway has many pullouts or overlooks so that cars can stop and people can enjoy the view.  Of course I had my camera so I could take pictures of that view; however, I got distracted every single time.  At every stop, the ground was covered with thistles, and the thistles were covered with butterflies. I think I ended up taking about five photos of the mountaintop views and 50 photos of the thistles and butterflies.

The word for the weekly painting challenge with my art mentor Cheri was "lavender."  I went through several ideas for what I might paint, then I remembered these gorgeous lavender-colored thistles. Since we're making the rules up as we go, I decided that thistles would be the perfect response for "lavender."

Original Oil Painting on 8"x 10" Canvas Board, Framed

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Indian Paintbrush and Butterflies Triptych

I've been wanting to do another triptych for a while, and this seemed to be the perfect opportunity.

The Indian paintbrush is a pretty little flower... although it's not very showy on its own.  Even though it's a little scraggly and spiky so that you're not sure whether it's a pretty weed or a pitiful flower, I wanted it to be the main character, the most beautiful, the focus of the piece.   The butterflies think Indian paintbrush flowers are gorgeous.  They're fluttering around to help us as we celebrate the beauty of the Indian paintbrush.

This is the third of four painting for the bedrooms of Welcome Home Retreat. 
The first was for the Bluebonnet Room.
The second was for the Primrose Room.
Actually there's another.  A while back I did this one for the tiny private room, the Wisteria Room.


Original Oil Painting Triptych on 8"x 10", 10"x 10", 8"x 10"
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Black Swallowtail on Pink Flower

How long did that take?

I get this question a lot, and I've gotten it a lot with this painting especially.  Maybe that's because it's over-sized. (16"x 20")
I don't really count up the hours; it might be depressing to realize how much/little I charge per hour. :)

Let me think through the stages.

• See a friend's photograph on Facebook and get permission to use it.
• Choose a canvas size and draw it up. (I am NOT a draw-er and totally admit to cheating on this step.  I put the canvas on my whiteboard at school and show the image from my computer to draw in the main lines.)
• 1st sitting - Paint in the dark spaces of the background then add the green shapes on top of that. Block in the black and pink areas.  (They basically look like blobs.)
• 2nd sitting - Try to make the greens look like blades of grass and leaves. Add dark greens, light greens.  Make long graceful strokes.  Blend.  Fail miserably... Looks like a mess... Wonder if I've forgotten how to paint... Remind myself that every painting -not unlike every child- goes through an ugly stage. Give up.
• 3rd sitting - Work on the butterfly.  Add buff to the black to create light, blue and orange to create life and reflection.  Layer on the yellows and oranges. It's a good start. Work on individual petals of the flower... without success.
• 4th sitting - Determine to make the grass and leaves pop.  Get brave with more greens, use a bigger brush, blur the hard lines between the background and the main character of the painting. Touch up the butterfly. Give it some legs and antenna. Try again on the flower petals and flower center.  Lay in the yellow (same cad yellow from the butterfly) center.
• 5th sitting - Background... looks good.  Butterfly... looks good. Flower... looks good. Painting... doesn't work... sigh... stand back... sigh... squint... deep breath.. okay... It looks like someone did a great background, cut out a great flower and butterfly then glued them onto the background.  There's no sense of harmony.  Sit down and get brave again.  Add black (which I rarely use straight) from the butterfly into the dark areas of the background.  Add red (alizarin) from the flower liberally into the darker edges of the leaves and grass blades and into the background.  Add green (from the grass) into the flower petals... which by the way was a disaster... Paint over the flower with straight alizarin and white covering the rose color completely... Almost there... but... remember purple! Purple is the most amazing superhero! How did I forget!  Add purple touches to the butterfly wings.  Add purple to the shaded parts of the flower.  Add purple to the shaded parts of the background. Sign my name in the bottom corner.

How long did that take you to paint that painting?  Probably around 10 hours. I'm faster than I used to be. :)

Sunflower Swallowtail

Where do you get your painting inspiration?

I love to paint what I love, and I love what I see around my own home.  I grew a row of sunflowers at the back of my garden last year.  They were gorgeous.  One day this little butterfly danced, flitted, and posed as long as I was willing to take pictures.  So, I had 30 photos... all nearly the same... to choose from.  I loved this one because the little butterfly opened up and showed off his beautiful wings.

So what will be next?

This is what I saw from my porch yesterday...

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Sunflowers & Butterfly

How do you decide which reference photo is just right?


This is a question I asked on the post from August 28th.  I finally chose this one.  I chose it because I thought the sunflower in the background showed that there was more to the scene.  I also loved the angle of the sunflower.  It showed the three-dimensional parts of the sunflower's center.  There was also something graceful about the leaves that I loved.  And finally, not seeing the full face of the sunflower allowed the butterfly to be the star of the show.  


So, I began painting right away.  Then I got distracted... by the beginning of school... by a commissioned piece, I Am the Legacy... by a really good book, The Help... by a challenge painting for RookiePainter...  a Christmas painting of the same little boy from Little Boy in a Big Fedora...  more school work... and all the time this painting sat half finished on my cedar chest showing a lovely background, some stems and leaves and half a butterfly.  It is very hard to go back to finish a painting after a time.  But, I finally did.  And I'm glad I did.\

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Tiger Swallowtail on Violets

How do you know when spring has really arrived?

There are lots of hints that spring is on the way.  The air gets warmer, the rain falls more often, and the wind blows harder.   Birds chirp louder.  The first colors appear - yellow and purple -Daffodils, jonquils, hyacinths, violets, irises.
Then finally, a butterfly appears!  It's spring!


To purchase this little painting, click Tiger Swallowtail on Violets.

Tiger Swallowtail on Echinacea

Where do butterflies go when it rains?

I don't know the answer to that, but I know that this little guy was ready to play only minutes after a huge summer storm ended. He seemed to enjoy being photographed. He posed again and again for me.

I'd just spent two hours in an art museum seeing fine art, but you know what? This butterfly was the most beautiful sight of the day.

This little painting has been honored to have been featured in an a couple of Etsy treasuries (collection of art and vintage items) The most recent one celebrated Oklahoma art in a collection called Homemade Oklahoma..  Click "Flutterby Butterfly" to enjoy another one featuring butterflies.

Click the following link featuring a necklace with a lovely tiger swallowtail photograph glass pendant.

http://www.etsy.com/listing/52323085/glass-tile-butterfly-pendant-necklace

Black Swallowtail on Purple Horsemint

My husband and I went to an art museum yesterday, so I should be writing about the wonderful paintings I stood in front of. We did see art. It was beautiful.

Oh, but then we went for a stroll outside in the gardens! Perfectly manicured lawns, fountains, flowers of all kinds... and this one beautiful,

yellow butterfly! He practically flirted with me - posing from this angle then that one, flitting from one flower top the then next. I believe he knew he was having his picture taken and enjoyed every minute of it! Surely, he deserves to be painted!

The picture used for this painting was a little harder to get. Oh, I think this butterfly also knew that I had a camera; he just didn't want to have his picture made. I chased him all over the top of Mount Magazine. He'd wait until I was ready to snap a picture then flutter off to a further flower leaving me no choice but to follow.

After a little research, I discovered that he's called a Black Swallowtail. The flower he's sitting on is called a Purple Horsemint.

Click below to view a lovely treasury (collection of art pieces from various artists) on Etsy celebrating Original Fine Art.

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