Yellow Bucket of Flowers (sold) & Don't Worry, Be Happy Flops

6"x6" oil on gessoed masonite panel

For more information  click here. 

Yay, it feels great to be back in the studio PAINTING! It's been a busy winter, who woulda thunk it?

I recently got back from a short trip to Hawaii! Now, before you get all excited, it....was...very....short! In fact, I spent as much time in airplanes and airports as I did on the ground there. But it was productive three days, none-the-less.  I took a sketchbook....and a swim-suit....and that's about it! Oh yeah, some flip-flops (umm, they are called 'rubber sandals' over there in Oahu) don't make the mistake to call them the wrong thing! 

You definitely need a pair like this! Yes, even in a freezing winter (like I'm having here in CT). I can just slip these babies on and feel like summer is really going to get here! (hey, it worked for Dorothy, even if those were ruby slippers, not rubber slippers). 

and yes, those things really do make GREAT prints in the sand! (or wet tracks on sidewalks!) Woohoo!  Where did I get those? Subscribe to my Cheer Factor newsletter, and I'll tell you all in the next issue!

ALSO***** "a save the date notice" for Saturday, June 8th- this summer. I'll be releasing some very exciting news....think gardens, blooms, summer fragrances...sigh! More about that in my upcoming news- letter, too!

Peegee Hydrangeas ACEO Floral Original Oil Painting

3.5"x2.5" oil on fine canvas board

Bidding starts at just $1

Yesterday, I had the wonderful opportunity to complete a commission for a "few more of these hydrangeas". I tickled pink- because I just LOVE these flowers! Can you tell I'm missing summer and having all these blossoms in my yard? Well, "Yes Virginia, there IS a Santa Claus....AND you can have flowers all winter long!"  That's the joy of having art- that wonderful reminder that winter won't last forever, and that wonderful sense of the joy of flowers is hard to resist! 

The other pieces that I completed for the commission were these 2 below, both hydrangeas, some of the blue variety in our yard, as well as Limelight hydrangeas (cuttings from my neighbor)

 

Which brings to mind another thought - if you have a particular flower you enjoy- I'm currently taking commissions for ACEOs - starting at $20. Here's the link to sign up!
 
It has been several years since I have used eBay as a place to sell, but I did enjoy it back in its 'heyday'.  I've begun a new series of ACEOs,  so far all florals - and I knew eBay would be the perfect place to highlight these! These little gems make a perfect gift idea! 

For those of you not familiar with the acronym ACEO, it stands for Art Cards Editions and Originals.  The miniature paintings are the size of a baseball trading card, 2 1/2 inches by 3 1/2 inches.  This category of art has become increasingly popular on eBay the last couple of years.  These can be displayed on their own, or with a tiny little easel (like the kind you can find in Michaels Arts & Crafts type stores) on a display shelf, or these beautiful gems can be elegantly matted and framed with perhaps a mat of 4 inches wide.  ACEOs also make wonderful gifts!

Buddha Garden By The Sea, Plein air Harkness Park

12"x12" oil on archival panel

For more information or to purchase this painting, click here.

Today I joined several other members of the CT Plein Air Painters Society for our annual summer paint-out and picnic at Harkness Park, here in the southeastern corner of our state. And what a perfect day it was! It's always such a treat to paint there.

Many different walled gardens surrounding an old Victorian era mansion by the sea,

Sunshine and ocean

Flowers and fragrance

Breeze and beauty.

Geraniums and Lavender

5"x7" oil on gessoed masonite archival panel

For more information about this painting, or to purchase, click here.

Summer flowers are such a delight...fragrance, color, and the sounds of bees humming happily. 

So serene.

The lavender is ready for me to harvest.

Bringing in big bundles, the fragrance is wonderful inside the home home as well as out. 

Yes, this is what I crave all winter long. 

I am enjoying this moment of bliss in my garden, 

a little haven - heaven - here on earth.

I'm returning from almost two weeks of travels with family and am so glad to be back home. I was actually worried that I'd miss so much in the growing season, by being gone for that long.  One lucky thing, the very day I returned, my little orchid in my kitchen window has re-bloomed for me! 

Lavender Valley

5"x7" oil on gessoed masonite archival panel

"Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience." ~Ralph Waldo Emerson


Emerson really knows what I need to hear all winter....patience, summer warmth will come back again. Slow, steady....live in the moment....and day-dreaming is optional!

Lavender thoughts are sustaining me lately - not that this winter has been as harsh as last year. But I do crave those long days of sunshine with flowers tossing their blossoms to and fro. Wafting fragrance and the hum of flower-drunken honey bees.

Keys Creek Lavender Farm (Valley Center, CA) is one of those magical places that will forever have an effect on my painterly life. Being able to spend a few days painting on location locks these wonderful sensory elements into my brain. mmmm, can you feel the sunshine and smell that lofty fragrance???

For more information regarding this painting, please contact me here.

Luscious Lavender Rows

5"x7" oil on gessoed archival panel

"With immediacy and intensity, smell activates the memory, allowing our minds to travel freely in time." -Tom Robbins

Along with plein air works, I had brought home some 'souvenirs' of my visit to Keys Creek Lavender Farm (in Valley Center, CA). It's true, the fragrance will bring back such wonderful memories. Rows of lavender, sweeping and waving in the soft breeze bring such delight. I was so attracted to the 'abstractness' of this view, I now have a larger painting in the works with this view!

For more information regarding this painting, contact me here.

My website: www.roxannesteed.com

Front Garden, Daylilies and Coneflowers

9"x12" oil on Belgian linen mounted on archival panel

"Belief consists in accepting the affirmations of the soul; unbelief, in denying them." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Deep into mid-summer and so many things are still blooming their hearts out! The view of this front garden is interesting from so many angles! Here, I'm looking out from my garage, this time, instead of avoiding the rain, I was seeking a bit of shade. But how wonderful to see things from different view points. Which is helpful in more things than we care to admit!

This painting (unframed) can be purchased directly from my DailyPainters.com gallery store.

Lavender and Coneflowers by the Fence

6"x8" oil on linen mounted on archival panel

"A multitude of small delights constitute happiness." - Charles Baudelaire


At any given moment, this fence-line is full of small delights. And it surround my front porch, so that I can sit right there in a bit of shade and just look....and paint. I LOVE it when the lavender is in full bloom, the row of it in this flower bed just smells so wonderful. The arch of roses on the fence had finished its first round of blooms a few weeks ago, but a second round is on its way. Even the New Guinea impatiens in the huge blue pot were filling in their big dash of color. Later afternoon the sun comes from the west (or from the left side of this painting) and hits the tops of the fence, warming those rails before it finally sets in the evening.

Don't we all need a spot like this in our gardens?....that multitude of small delights?

This painting is available directly from me and can be purchased unframed from my DailyPainters.com gallery store.

Morning Sun, Lavender Rows

6"x8" oil on Belgian linen mounted on archival board

"Instead of looking at the subject and bringing it into ourselves (as beginning artists often do), we should learn to ask, What things within me can I bring out in this subject?"
- Dan McCaw


I'm finally back home after some extended travel, and it is so good to get back into my normal routine again! So my dilemma has been either no internet connection, or no time to share what's been going on! So- back to where I left off, almost three weeks ago now, during my trip to San Diego - I enjoyed a couple days of painting over at Keys Creek Lavender Farm - what a wonderful place- even in the off season. During my second day of painting there, I wanted to arrive early enough to paint the rows you see when you initially drive up. Even though they've been harvested, the rows themselves and the shadows they cast around the curve of the dirt road are really wonderful in the early morning sun!

I have one more painting from Keys Creek Lavender Farm that I'll post tomorrow...and in the coming blog-posts, news about a recent commission, my trip to Norfolk, VA for the big art event (my newest collector is Bank Of Hampton Roads!) as well as an award for another painting...finally ended by spending this past week helping my daughters in northern Virginia move from 2 apartments into one (that part of my travels felt like boot-camp). It's good to be back home.

Lavender Labyrinth

6"x8" oil on Belgian linen mounted on archival board

"Creating expressive art demands more than just rendering. It requires you to develop and give voice to your point of view."
- Dan McCaw


Gosh, I would hate for you to think I've been sitting around doing nothing- because it's been anything but that! I just got back from a week in San Diego, (hubby had work/meetings out there, so of course I went along to paint). I returned to Keys Creek Lavender Farm for part of my three days there- what a wonderful place- even in the off season. I really fell in love with the place back in June during my first visit (during peak bloom time). I found a new appreciation for the lavender I was growing back here at home and have since nurtured it to get a second bloom this summer.

I really wanted to be there and paint from life- as that is what truly enables one to paint 'with conviction' in the studio. I can look at these paintings done outdoors and feel the sun warming me, hear the birds, and the breeze, it just brings back the whole sensory experience.

So, some thoughts on this painting- "Lavender Labyrinth", a 6x8" oil on Belgian linen mounted on archival board. I feel especially fortunate that 'life's journey' has taken me to live in (and make return visits to) my favorite regions of American impressionism- that of the northeast, as well as the southwest. My husband didn't have to ask twice if I'd like to go along with him to San Diego. So I packed up the painting gear & made it 'flight ready' for three days of painting. Even in the off-season, the farm is beautiful. As a painter (and gardener) it's still fascinating to me to see this place in all seasons. And as luck would have it, I found the lavender labyrinth still in bloom, not yet harvested! There is a big bouganvillea arch with fuchsia & gold & coral colored blossoms. On Tuesday morning there was still a distant fog out towards the coastline.

It really is a blissful place for me that truly connects to all the senses - not only color and fragrance, but texture, and sound as well (of bees humming over the lavender, humming birds zipping by to check out who is standing in their midst, songbirds in the nearby tree, a hawk screeching across the distant hillside, and the rustle of the breeze across the hills). If you've used lavender in cooking, you'll understand what a total sensory experience this flower is.

***As luck would have it, the farm will be open for visitors again on weekends in December for the Christmas holidays and they will be carrying some of my small unframed paintings of the farm! I'm also working on a few other surprises yet to be revealed!

They are already booking weddings and events for next year's bloom season (May & June). Small paintings make such a lovely, memorable wedding or anniversary gift - as I've learned from many commissions this summer and fall. It's a unique & wonderful way to commemorate your special event!

Now, I don't know if you remember me mentioning that I juried into two art events in Norfolk, VA - Well I'm headed down there today! Out and About Norfolk is a juried paint-out event and Saturday night is the big event! It is also combined with a juried show which is a fundraiser for the Ballet Virginia International. Four of my paintings were selected for this show by Jeff Harrison, Chief Curator, The Chrysler Museum, Norfolk, Virginia. The big event will take place:

Saturday October 23rd 6-9pm
Ballet Virginia International (BVI)
700 West 21st Street, in Norfolk

If you are in the area - I'd love to see you there!

Contact me for more information on this painting: roxannesteed@gmail.com

Lavender Rows

6"x6" oil on gessoed masonite archival artboard

"What sunshine is to flowers, smiles are to humanity. These are but trifles, to be sure; but, scattered along life's pathway, the good they do is inconceivable."
- Joseph Addison


I can't imagine life without either of these....flowers or smiles...and I hardly think they are trifles! Necessities- absolutely!

Rows of luscious lavender, bees humming in the rows, soft breezes, gently winding way along an easy hill...and surrounded by warm air releasing a delightful fragrance. Can it get any better than this?

This is another small view from the lavender farm (Keys Creek Lavender Farm) that I visited during my recent trip to San Diego. I really hope to make it back there next year while the place is in bloom (and bring the paints with me next time!).

Contact me to purchase this painting: roxannesteed@gmail.com

Inland Valley, California Lavender Farm

5"x7" oil on gessoed masonite archival artboard

"If you pass by the color purple in a field and don't notice it, God gets real pissed off."
- Alice Walker, "The Color Purple"



Well, the quote did give me pause for thought....and a chuckle! Yes, how could you not fall in love with rows of lavender. I have been obsessed with the stuff ever since my visit back to San Diego last week. I had lived there for three years, and it's been almost 9 years since I had been back. When I drove into this inland valley to find the farm, it was like driving into an early CA impressionist painting.....took my breath away. Even when you think you 'remember' how beautiful things were, and how much you love a place, it really knocks you out, to go back there. The way the light changes over the course of a morning, the wonderful aromas of warm earth, sage, rose-geraniums, and....of course - the lavender; combine that with the breeze in the trees, the humming of the bees in & out of the mounds of flowers....it is a wonderful multi-sensory experience. And I can't wait to go back next year for next season's blooms!

Finished up a commission this week, hence the lack of posting; shh, it's a surprise!
(I love weddings!) I have been looking through Amazon.com for every book on lavender, trying to find some beautiful, helpful, books to enjoy on my current passion! I harvested my first crop of lavender this week, here at my own house. I put them in bundles tied off with a ribbon, and placed the bundles in a large shallow pottery bowl by my front door. Oh, it's so nice to be greeted by this fragrance every time I pass by. The memory of my trip is renewed each time I venture across the thresh-hold.

Contact me to purchase: roxannesteed@gmail.com