Orchid Blossom ACEO (sold) - From Beach to Blizzard

 

3.5"x2.5" oil on fine canvas board

Bidding starts at just $1

I've had the good fortune of getting this orchid I bought a few winters ago to bloom 3 times! This is it's third year, and of course I'm thrilled - not only because I've figured out how to get it to bloom, but I've also painted it each time it has bloomed! This year, I thought I'd also offer an ACEO version of this graceful flower! Have fun bidding!

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! 

Well, yesterday I promised to tell you the beach to blizzard saga. I got to visit my mom (she's 80 now!) who wanted to take a trip to the beach. Although she lives in central Florida, she doesn't drive that far any more. We both wanted to go visit Clearwater Beach over on the Gulf of Mexico where we had spent many summer vacations when I was a child. 

Of all the places I've ever lived or visited, it's my favorite beach in the world! The sand is so soft, and the water is so warm...and yes- I would live there if I could! During our stay at the beach, we drove over to St. Petersburg to visit the Sunken Gardens, and the Museum of Fine Art there as well.  After a few days of fun, we took mom back home to central Florida.  I got to visit my favorite museum, The Morse Museum, in Winter Park, FL which has a magnificent collection of Louis Comfort Tiffany works. They had added a new wing since my last visit - this place is a MUST SEE if you are an art lover visiting central Florida.  Well, somewhere in all this fun, I got a text message from Southwest Air letting my know that my Friday flight was likely to be cancelled due to the expected blizzard. So...I ended up changing my flight home to Thursday, and luckily got a spot on the last flight out the day before everything went haywire! I did get back home in time to get groceries, along with every other person in town! It looked like the day before Thanksgiving at the store- shopped clean! The place was packed. Luckily the shelves weren't totally empty!

The rest was a matter of waiting for the mess to begin, and wonder how long it would take to dig our way out of it. It started as icy rain in our area, and blowing sideways, so that a layer of ice coated several sides of the house.  And by the time all was said and done, it was over 2 feet of snow (some drifts a good deal deeper, and some spots a little less).  The plows hadn't made it through the neighborhood for most of the night, so the road was still covered when the snow finally stopped coming down on Saturday.  Luckily our power stayed on (that's not the usual case in most storms).

And I do mean lucky...notice the power cord to the snow blower? It's electric. We'd still be digging out if we had lost power. Also notice the mail box. There is no longer a street visible down there. Things have come about slowly and and surely after the storm. That's a lot of mess to move. It's melted back a tiny bit at this point, but it will be a good while until it is totally gone. Powerful stuff, and I don't know that this Floridian will ever get quite used to it!  It's too cold for plein air (for me anyway) but the studio is nice and inviting! 

You'd think that all that ice-busting, snow-throwing work would be enough out-door fun (?), but I did manage to get out late Sunday afternoon for some cross-country skiing with a neighbor at a woodsy park nearby. The sun was out and all the snow was rather spectacular!

 

  

Orchid Blooms and a Blizzard!

8"x6" oil on linen mounted on archival panel

Click here for more information, or to purchase.

This is the third year in a row that I've been able to get this little orchid to bloom! I've found just the right window for it, and have figured out how to feed it to keep it happy! The rest is up to nature.  I originally bought it to paint, and each year it blooms I paint it again! Each time I try to give a different 'twist' to my efforts, even though it is the same plant and not a whole lot biger than when I bought it. This year is used both brushes and palette knives in my painting technique. Even when I've become very comfortable with a particular technique, as I have with using just palette knives, I always enjoy the challenge of trying something just a bit different now and then-to manipulate the edges as well as the surface texture of the paint.

What a crazy few weeks it has been - since I've last posted.  I've survived a tornado in Atlanta with my mother-in-law. (Seriously - we were ready to hunker down in the basement of her southwest Atlanta home, just as a tornado was touching down in the northwest Atlanta area- VERY frightening!).  Just the day before this tornado, we had a lovely stroll through the  Atlanta Botanical Gardens.  Filling our senses with the visual color and textural beauty of camelias, the fragrance of paper bush blossoms, the quiet zen of a Japanese garden. All the while I'm dreaming of summer, filling my creative well with  ideas I can hardly wait to work into my own garden.  Don't you just LOVE this gecko-gate??!!

Then I left Atlanta to go visit my mom in Winter Park, FL. We took her down to Clearwater Beach for a nice little vacation.  I got a text message from Southwest Airlines that my flight home on Friday would likely be canceled due to the incoming BLIZZARD. Oh my, so I switched my flight to last Thursday so I could get home, buy groceries (since I had already been so long) and help my husband dig our way out of this expected mess!

How DEEP did it get at our house?? Stayed tuned for tomorrow's blog post and I'll take you from 'Beach to Blizzard' in no time flat! We have finally dug ourselves out - just in time for the next snow-fall!

Orchid Romance

8"x10"x.75" oil on gallery-wrapped stretched canvas

For more information about this painting, click here or contact me here.

I can hardly believe it- after 18 months I was able to get this little 'orchid from the grocery store' to bloom again. I just wasn't sure it was going to happen. I painted it in January of 2011 when I first got it:

8"x6" oil on Belgian linen mounted on panel
For more information about this painting, click here.

So now of course, I'm hooked on orchids since I got this one to re-bloom! 

A Budding Romance

"Romance is the glamour which turns the dust of everyday life into a golden haze."
- Amanda Cross

8"x6" oil on Belgian linen mounted on archival board

The grocery store had these wonderful small phalaenopsis orchids this past weekend. They're also known as moth orchids, they do look a bit like little butterflies have alighted on the stem. I was looking specifically to paint something with green/& red or pink color complements, as I continue this exploration of color.

Buy this painting on PayPal
Price: $150 USD plus $10 USD s/h
Or, send me an email

Aside from buying flowers, I did take a walk on the beach on Saturday, while it was still a 'relatively' warm 22 degrees. Found some pretty beach glass and enjoyed the soft squishiness of the sand, as the earth is frozen solid hard everywhere else past the water line. The last two days have been ridiculously cold 0-12 degree days! I've got to soak up any sunshine I possibly can, it does a world of good when the days are still so very short.

*****Current shows - Here in CT: I'll be taking part in the Mystic Art Center's Members Exhibition which runs through the 26th of February. Hope you get a chance to see this show right here on the banks of the Mystic River.

Also- I've juried in to the 19th Annual Associate Artist Exhibition at Lyme Art Association!! The show runs from January 14th - February 26th. I am truly honored to be hanging in this historic venue with many of New England's finest artists!