Cool Story #1: A Gardener's Dream
Plein Air Painting
In 2017 I participated as a plein air artist in one of the featured gardens of the annual Troy, MI, garden walk. I fell in love with this scene: the lines on this little birdbath, and the way it was nestled in among such lush, diverse foliage, and knew I could create a great painting with a lot of depth.
Garden Bath
I began painting this scene in the gardens and finished it in my studio along with its companion Garden Cafe. The homeowners loved the paintings and insisted on purchasing them and displaying them in their foyer. As an avid gardener myself, why not have a painting of your "baby" where all can see it?
Garden Cafe and More
As it turns out, one of the homeowners is a budding painter himself, and I tutored him through a beautiful rendering of his own from their wonderful garden.
Cool Story #2: Renaissance Birds
An Enchanting Day
While showing off Detroit to my sister and her son in early January, we ended up at GM's world headquarters at the Renaissance Center. As we left on the skywalk, my daughter noticed a flock of pigeons huddled on the ledge above the entrance. I couldn't resist the challenge of depicting the ruffled buddies, and the texture of the concrete. They truly were chillin' in the D!!
Working Some Magic
As is often the case in designing paintings, I needed to bring birds in from other photos, turn some around, adjust colors, etc. I also textured the canvas to depict the concrete, pulling a comb and other things through it to form the ridges. It was SO fun to do!
Chillin' in the D
This is the result. Sometimes a scene in nature just calls out to me to be painted and I tell myself "someday I'll paint this." This was one of them.