Looking Back at December

As I did not have this blog at the time, I had no opportunity to share any of my festive Christmas projects from this past December. Actually I gave relatively few paintings as presents last year. Many a Christmas past found me scrambling to finish multiple paintings at once and I inevitably ended up in tears. Last month I wanted to avoid the emotional melt-down and also needed to factor in shipping time so I kept my projects manageable and avoided procrastination on them (mostly). 

I was thrilled to receive a commission from a good college friend for her mother's Christmas present. Rachel's family has a beach house in Georgia with a lovely view of the ocean from a trio of windows. Working from an emailed picture I created a sunset painting to be hung at the site of the real thing. 


I enjoyed the challenge of interpreting a place I had never visited. 

I gave two paintings as presents. One for my great aunt who was my first art teacher and the other for my sister and her husband who live in Maryland.

The lady slipper painting was inspired by a trip to the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens (during a different month obviously) and was my aunt's gift. The portrait of my sister's new puppy Flynn no longer looks a thing like him as their little baby is now a whopping 40 pounds at 4 months old. His aunt Laura will have to do a different painting when he's fully grown and the estimated 80 pounds. But they will always be able to remember that he was once quite a bit smaller. 

Lady's Slippers

The mighty Flynn